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...
This morning, as I was drinking my second cup of hot, caffeine-flavored water on the back porch, Juan Pablo rounded the corner of my house, coming from the front yard with a large, black garden trash-bag. I was not surprised…
I read the letter Pastor Mike Law wrote and it was a waste of my time. I knew it would be, but I just wanted to feel angry all over again because it feels good until it doesn’t. Same stuff,…
This is the week upon which the entire Christian religion hinges: the death and resurrection of Jesus, the two observances that most fully embody the hope of God’s saving grace to humanity. In the celebration of Easter, the Christian story…
Christians who insist God cannot call women to pastoral ministry are “wrong,” according to an open letter drafted by Baptist Women in Ministry and so far signed by 540 women who are pastors and almost 2,000 others. Unlike a letter…
Capital punishment in the United States continues a system of lynchings used to terrorize and subjugate Black people in the 19th and early 20th centuries, a panel of death penalty abolitionists said during a recent webinar. “The mistake people sometimes…
You may have heard someone, maybe a preacher, ask on Palm Sunday, “What did the crowds waving palm branches and laying coats on the ground expect?” And you may have heard a dozen different answers. What, in fact, did the…
Not to name names, but someone with my same initials who lives at my house decided having three yards of compost delivered yesterday was a good idea. Undoubtedly, my veggies, herbs and flowers will appreciate this black gold. Unfortunately, it…
This is the week when church members eagerly invite family, friends and neighbors who rarely, if ever, attend church to attend Easter services. What may seem like an invitation to hope could be perceived as something else, though. Many non-churchgoers…
Our Lenten journey begins with ashes, followed by 40 disciplined days of charitable giving, fasting and prayer, trekking through an interior wilderness, waiting on grace, hoping it leads us back to God. On the evening of Ash Wednesday, though, I…
Students at Northern Seminary have begun a letter-writing campaign to communicate with trustees about their displeasure with how the board has handled recent events, including an investigation of former President Bill Shiell. “As a doctoral student at Northern Seminary, I…
Anti-gay critics of a single tweet published last summer by Guidepost Solutions appear to have won their campaign with the Southern Baptist Convention’s Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force. The task force assigned with enacting a series of reforms approved by…
A former student’s defamation case against Paige Patterson and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary was dismissed on summary judgment April 4. U.S. District Judge Sean Jordan granted a petition to dismiss the final charges remaining against the seminary and its former…
