It may now seem surprising to many United Methodists, and even more Baptists, that for most of our histories in the United States, all Methodists and Baptists were regularly designated as evangelical denominations. The most important reason is that both...
It is an old joke, one that is still told too often. You go up to your pastor and say, “I wish I had your job; you only have to work one hour each week.” It is likely your pastor…
By Derek Penwell My dad was six-foot-one-a fair sized man. As a child I thought he was pretty much what God intended when creating men. Big. Strong. Smart. Obviously, my dad was a lot of things I wanted to be….
By Brett Younger Twenty-eight Christmases ago I was the new pastor of Central Baptist Church in Paoli, Ind. I decided to have the church’s first ever Christmas Eve candlelight communion service. I wanted everything to be perfect. Snow fell that…
By Bob Allen Following is a summary of some of the year’s major headlines. Baptists and race. Will Baptists remember 2014 as a sea change in race relations? Fifty years after the civil rights movement and nearly 20 years after…
By BNG staff 1. Probation terms altered to permit sex offender pastor to minister to childrenA Florida judge changed terms of probation for Darrell Gilyard, a pastor who returned to the pulpit after serving a prison term child sex abuse,…
By Bob Allen Malcolm Tolbert, a former missionary to Brazil who taught at two Southern Baptist Convention seminaries, died Thanksgiving Day at age 90. James “Tripp” Battle III, lead pastor of Bayshore Baptist Church in Bradenton, Fla., died Dec. 4…
As has been noted from time to time this year, the Great War, later to be called World War I, began one hundred years ago this past summer. By August 1914, Britain and France were fully engaged in war against…
Important Origins (Part 2 in the series, How God changes our neighborhood) In the first part of this series I set up this idea that the key theological concept of Christmas, the Incarnation, can be boiled down into a simple…
Father James Martin is the editor-at-large for the Jesuit magazine America and author of several books, including Jesus: A Pilgrimage, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, and Between Heaven and Mirth. He is also, in the words of Stephen Colbert,…
