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 case you’ve missed it, we’re in the midst of March Madness. For only the second year, the women’s NCAA basketball tournament can use that moniker too. It had been the exclusive property of the men’s tournament for all the…
I am an unabashed 1980s baby. My childhood was blessed with He-Man, Transformers, G.I. Joe, and the then-wrestlers from the National Wrestling Alliance, American Wrestling Alliance and the World Wrestling Federation. I grew up memorizing movie lines and moves by…
The relationship between Americans and worship attendance since the COVID-19 pandemic is complicated, Pew Research Center found in a new study. The project compiled statistics from five surveys conducted from 2020 to 2022 and found a steady share of U.S….
If I’m being honest, I was a little indignant when I first scrolled down to the “Ds” and realized the church where I serve as associate pastor hadn’t made “the list.” But then I kept scrolling. And scrolling. For more…
The talk of the Baptist world for the past week has been the list of female pastors serving at churches purportedly affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. Pastor Mike Law of Arlington Baptist Church in Arlington, Va., created this partial…
There should be zero tolerance when it comes to clergy abuse of congregants. However, we learned years ago of how child sexual abuse by priests has been tolerated within the Roman Catholic Church. Since then, it has become unequivocally clear…
Please submit transitions — including staff changes, ordinations, anniversaries or deaths — to Barbara Francis. This page will be updated bi-weekly. STAFF CHANGES Samuel Acevedo, to Lion of Judah, Boston, Mass., as associate pastor. Jeff Allen, to First Baptist Church, Mount…
For years, Jennifer Rubin, conservative columnist for the Washington Post, and I didn’t see eye to eye on many issues. An ardent champion of the traditional Republican Party, she advocated for candidate Lindsey Graham in 2015 (“If being right is…
Trustees of Northern Seminary issued their first official correspondence with students since one-third of the student body signed a letter of no confidence in the board and called for the resignation of any trustees who could not sign a public…
I haven’t found the right adjective to describe how it feels to find my church and my picture on the list of Baptist churches circulating as evidence that the Southern Baptist Convention should change its constitution to disfellowship churches with…
Nashville is a city infused by religion, music and history, so when a tragedy like the school shooting at The Covenant School March 25 happens there, connections ripple across well-known names and places. And in this case, also across some…
Senior Pastor Nathan Parker said he immediately recommended the sanctuary when police requested space at Woodmont Baptist Church for reunions between parents and survivors of the mass shooting at nearby Covenant School in Nashville. “A sanctuary is a holy place,…
