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...
Jeff Henderson wants to be known by what he’s for rather than what he’s against. That’s why his 2019 book was titled Know What You’re For: A Growth Strategy for Work, an Even Better Strategy for Life. It’s also why…
Sometimes art tells a heartwrenching story better than words. Perhaps the greatest example of this is found in the three broad categories of Christian art depicting the sorrows of Mary after the death of Jesus: Pietá (pity; Italian), Mater Dolorosa…
Movements for racial and social equity cannot succeed as long as their members and supporters use stigmatizing language about the challenges they face, social entrepreneur Trabian Shorters said recently on the “Interfaith America with Eboo Patel” podcast. Even when the…
Just as my eyes fluttered open, Joanna looked over the side of my gurney and said words on which my life pivoted: “Dr. Steckler said you won’t die from this.” Even through the fog of anesthesia, I realized that brief…
In a rare example of bipartisan cooperation, the U.S. Senate advanced the Respect for Marriage Act Nov. 16, clearing the way for likely passage of a bill that would protect same-sex marriage beyond future court challenges. By a 62-to-37 vote,…
Last year my wife and I, on a trip to Maine, included our annual detour to Salem, Mass. It’s a fascinating city just outside Boston, filled with literary and pre-Colonial history. Quite an industry has grown up around the historic…
Please submit transitions — including staff changes, ordinations, anniversaries or deaths — to Barbara Francis. This page will be updated bi-weekly. STAFF CHANGES Alyssa Aldape, to Commonwealth Baptist Church, Alexandria, Va., as minister of faith formation. Laura Ayala, to Cooperative Baptist…
Dear Baylor administration: What could possibly be so difficult about acknowledging one of your alumnae who brought great fame to your school through a national basketball championship now languishing in a Russian penal colony and who needs to be brought…
Churches cannot remain places solely dedicated to worship and congregational fellowship if they are to answer the calling to serve their neighbors, United Church of Christ minister and activist Jamesetta Ferguson said during the 2022 Coldwell Lectures at Louisville Presbyterian…
Mercer University’s board of trustees elected 10 new trustees and a new board chair during its November meeting and authorized increasing the Aspire capital campaign goal from $400 million to $500 million. Launched in 2014, Aspire, The Campaign for Mercer University already…
“We’re thankful God protected us.” When I was in seminary in the early 1990s, Mount Pinatubo erupted, devastating Luzon, the largest and most populated island in the Philippines. In the 1980s, I twice had served as a summer missionary on…
The American Civil War was “a war with a musical soundtrack,” according to Christian McWhirter. And that soundtrack continues to echo through the American church today, illustrating the different life experiences of Black and white Christians in particular, once again…
