Social media was abuzz this week with reaction to Southern Baptist Convention leader Al Mohler appearing on a podcast with Christian nationalist Doug Wilson. The mere fact of them being in conversation is the most notable thing, because what they...
Is lying wrong? The question would have seemed impossible even 50 years ago. Now, the ninth commandment becomes expendable: “You shall not bear false witness.” If, as philosophers insist, we live in a post-truth age, we also live in the…
A team of Baylor University researchers has landed a $2.5 million grant to train theologians how to use insights gleaned from the psychological sciences to study how human beings can live their most fulfilling lives. But the scholars involved also…
Numerous conservative pastors and commentators have declared to their flocks that true Christians must vote Republican if they are faithful. Chief among those is Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who told a conservative political action group this…
Please submit transitions — including staff changes, ordinations, anniversaries or deaths — to Barbara Francis. This page will be updated bi-weekly. STAFF CHANGES Jose Aguilera, to Grace Baptist Church, Woodbridge, Va., as Hispanic pastor. Brian Ball, to First Baptist Church, Summitville,…
This is the second in a November series produced by BNG on what it means to be “blessed,” a word so flippantly used that it often loses meaning. #Blessed. It’s as common these days as saying the perfunctory “God bless…
Listening to clergy, church staff, lay leaders, they describe being caught in the classic double bind. On the one hand, they want their churches to flourish in this emerging new environment. The pandemic is largely over, presenting wonderful opportunities for…
When one of your favorite hangouts is an old country store, you come to understand that you are at a small crossroads of the world. People stop in who are local. They live in the neighborhood, so to speak. Then…
When it comes to college, “getting in is only half the battle,” according to Anthony Abraham Jack, professor at the Harvard School of Education. Elsewhere he has said: “Before all else, colleges must meet students’ basic needs.” Unfortunately, the nation’s…
Don’t be fooled by the “Christian” in Christian nationalism, warns Michael Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. “What we’re actually describing is an ideology that’s not really a religion, but it looks like a religion and uses and invokes…
Mumia Abu-Jamal, a Black American political activist and journalist, has been incarcerated since he was convicted in 1982 and sentenced to death for the 1981 murder of Daniel Faulkner, a Philadelphia police officer. When a federal judge overturned the 1982…
A former officer of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee who was among the most outspoken critics of the investigation into sexual abuse in SBC churches has used Twitter to mock the hammer attack on Paul Pelosi. Pelosi, husband of…
In case you missed it, the Washington Post recently published an article stating that a $100 million marketing campaign has been launched in an attempt to “redeem Jesus’ brand from the damage done by some of his followers.” The marketing…
