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...
The historic fusing of Christianity and white supremacy is a moral and spiritual cancer eating at the body and soul of the American church, Robert P. Jones says in his latest book, The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the…
Thomas Henry Graves, founding president of Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, died Aug. 17 at age 75. Trained as a Southern Baptist pastor, he became a leader in the so-called “moderate” movement that broke away to create the Alliance of…
Tom Graves will be remembered as a devoted husband, father, grandfather, mischievous brother and faithful son — as a thoughtful professor, a powerful orator, a good pastor and a strong leader. I personally remember him as the founding president of Baptist…
As the Hawaii Conference of the United Church of Christ gathered for worship via Zoom Aug. 20, worshipers heard a bell toll 114 times. That was one bell for every confirmed life lost in the wildfires that have ravaged parts…
There are questions I’m not always in a hurry to answer because of what I do. When you’ve been asked to remain as politically neutral as humanly possible so you can minister to a wide variety of people, the littlest…
We already tried that, and it didn’t work out so well. For some people. The small town was Money, Miss., population less than a hundred. Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was accused of whistling at a white woman. They took care of…
Delving into the nitty gritty of faith-based community development and restorative justice work is neither a political expression nor a ministry distraction for the church, author and activist Michelle Ferrigno Warren said. They are instead forms of biblically informed Christian…
Granting clemency to Death Row inmates would show the nation Louisiana is the staunchly pro-life state many claim it to be, death penalty abolitionists said during an Aug. 15 news conference. The group of faith leaders, activists and relatives of…
The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee now has its third leader in 18 months. Jonathan Howe, vice president for communications, has been named interim president following the sudden resignation of Willie McLaurin last Friday. McLaurin was named interim president in…
Yemi Mobolade, a Nigerian immigrant, entrepreneur and Christian community leader, made history in May, becoming the first Black man and first non-Republican to be elected mayor of Colorado Springs, Colorado’s second largest city, in more than four decades. A political…
The story of Joseph in the book of Genesis is a common one many of us learned in church or through the popular musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. While it may be an ancient story, it bears relevance…
Willie McLaurin is my friend. However, he doesn’t get a pass from me for lying on his resume. I believe he set the influence of Black Southern Baptists back by two decades or more. If you would have asked me…
