As the Southern Baptist Convention in its recent annual meeting has proved itself unreliably Baptist, it gives me pause to think about how quickly the transmogrification of this Baptist denomination into its ecclesiastical opposite has happened. Baptist folk often have...
In liquid modern life there are no permanent bonds and any that we take up for a time must be tied loosely so that they can be untied again as quickly, and as effortlessly as possible, when circumstances change. Those…
Is it just me, or does it increasingly seem many people are living in an alternate reality? People of all political stripes seemingly ignore irrefutable facts, and make up their own truths. This new cultural habit of ignoring facts en…
For some Christians, going vegan may be a sudden thing after attending a church talk about factory farming and animal cruelty. Like Paul on the road to Damascus, they are struck with a life-changing conviction — this one to give up…
A Cooperative Baptist Fellowship task force developing guidelines for responding to a wide range of sexual misconduct by clergy is in place and compiling best practices to be shared with churches and partner ministries, according to an update Jan. 11. Pam…
Fifty Christian leaders from across the nation called on congregations to stick up for the rights of all people in light of “threatening, authoritarian messages” accompanying the recent election of Donald Trump. “If such talk is not opposed, we open…
While leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention and Republicans in Congress called for defunding Planned Parenthood, more than 20 local faith leaders came together Jan. 10 to pronounce blessings on the organization’s newest health clinic in Washington, D.C. Planned Parenthood…
On the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech.
Just a few hours after he told a crowded courtroom, “I still feel like I had to do it,” Dylann Roof was sentenced to death by a federal jury for carrying out the mass shooting inside Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church.
Tony disappears behind the abandoned house at the curve, and he doesn’t reappear for a while. Another fellow follows him a couple minutes later, and also stays gone. In fact, he never reappears. Must be trouble, one assumes, given all…
Church consultants and researchers for years have warned churches that they need to reflect the communities around them. Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources, said he discovered that while conducting research for his book Autopsy of a Deceased Church….
A Baptist senator introduced legislation Jan. 5 to prevent President-elect Donald Trump from creating a federal registry for Muslims entering the United States. U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and eight fellow Democrats introduced the Protect American Families Act to “prohibit…
A Cooperative Baptist Fellowship minister said Jan. 9 that Sen. Jeff Sessions’ anti-immigration record makes him unfit to serve as U.S. attorney general. Alyssa Aldape, associate pastor at First Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., joined nationally known clergy including Moral…
