It is midnight. Not the kind of midnight measured by clocks. The kind that settles into your bones. The kind that lingers long after the sun has risen. We all know this midnight. It is the midnight of the marriage...
Roy Moore was not on the official agenda as 800 Southern Baptists met for the annual Alabama Baptist Convention. But many people were talking about Moore, a Southern Baptist and U.S. Senate candidate.
Baptist leaders must use their voices, their platforms and their pulpits to call for an end of harassment and abuse. We must clearly and specifically identify the abuses we have seen and heard about and name those abuses as sin.
More than 850 Baptists from 390 churches in Tennessee debated 15 minutes before voting overwhelmingly Nov. 14 to shun a historic east Tennessee congregation for calling a woman as senior pastor.
“Religion” derives from the same word as “ligament.” It is ultimately a connecting force and, with no divine object or mysterium tremendum, our experiences of awe are ultimately self-referential and delusional.
I am convinced that “evangelical” no longer means what it once did. And for the Jesus-following religious people it’s supposed to describe, it’s doing more harm than good.
Pastor Ernie Richards has avoided the anti-gay rhetoric of some other religious leaders. Pastor Charles Worley, well … hasn’t. Richards preaches at Providence Baptist Church in Vale, N.C. Worley preaches at Providence Road Baptist Church, in nearby Maiden, N.C.
The Baptist State Convention of North Carolina denounced racism in a resolution adopted at its annual meeting, but stopped short of endorsing the Southern Baptist Convention’s call to refrain from public displays of the Confederate flag or statements by SBC leaders supporting the removal of Civil War monuments.
For many Americans, the flag stirs emotions far deeper than anything God inspires. Have we created a national religion in which the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, the sacrifice of soldiers on the field of battle, and the invincibility of American firepower are practically indistinguishable?
You might wonder if my condemnation is too harsh. It is not, for the Spirit of the Lord has convicted me to shout from the mountaintop how God’s precious children are being devoured by the hatred and bigotry of those who have positioned themselves as the voice of God in America.
Its pastor, Frank Pomeroy, fought back tears as he delivered his sermon, which emphasized the power of light to triumph over darkness. One of the victims, Annabelle R. Pomeroy, 14, was his daughter.
Pews were replaced with 26 handcrafted chairs that marked where worshippers were slain.
There may be some sparsely populated pews in American churches this weekend following last Sunday’s church massacre in Texas. Pastors in different parts of the country are hearing from church members worried that the fate of First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs — where a gunman murdered 26 and injured 20 — may befall their own congregations.
