Note: This article discusses suicide, child sexual abuse and domestic violence. It may be distressing for some readers. On June 30, child liberation theologian and abuse survivor advocate Ryan Stollar died by suicide, following a lengthy struggle with his...
In her book Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, Anne Lamott suggests, “A good marriage is where both people feel like they’re getting the better end of the deal.” However, I can readily identify with Winston Churchill’s assessment: “My most…
In the first chapter of The Glad River, author Will Campbell introduces two main characters, Claudy “Doops” Momber and Kingston Smylie. Flung into the cold military-industrial machine, the men first cross paths during basic training. Be it the impending war,…
A church consultant and former president of the CBF Foundation who left that role in 2010 to manage a farm in rural North Carolina that grew food to give away to community feeding ministries has died of natural causes at…
A Samford University administrator’s claim that nothing has changed in the university’s approach to excluding churches and ministries that affirm same-sex marriage is infuriating to an alumnus and former staff member who spent a year working on plans for greater…
Please submit transitions — including staff changes, ordinations, anniversaries or deaths — to Barbara Francis. This page will be updated bi-weekly. STAFF CHANGES Faria Armstrong, to First Baptist Church, Burlington, N.C., as associate pastor to youth and families. Paul Bass, to…
For the last 76 years, evangelicals have been using the Bible as a sacred weapon to oppress LGBTQ people. While many people are under the impression that the word “homosexuality” has “always been in the Bible,” the reality is that…
I grew up in a family that worshipped the trinity: God, the Southern Baptist Convention and the Dallas Cowboys. I was born in Fort Worth, Texas, while my father was a student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. By the time…
When I took my first Bible class in college, I was required to memorize the books of the Bible. A lot of people in my class found that exercise of writing out the books of the Bible from memory in…
Americans cannot simply continue to enjoy the Civil Rights achievements of the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Fannie Lou Hamer and John Lewis without taking up the cause of racial justice themselves, Simmons College of…
This past weekend, Crescent Hill Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., hosted “Glad Reunion: Celebrating the Ministry and Legacy of John R. Claypool.” Claypool had famously served the church as pastor throughout the turbulent 1960s and became a renowned pulpiteer in…
A pastor watering his neighbor’s flowers wouldn’t normally make national news, but in Childersburg, Ala., such an act of generosity resulted in an arrest and a story on National Public Radio. The story later made The New York Times. Michael…
They’re called “abortion abolitionists,” and their movement is so extreme that it has been rejected by mainstream pro-life groups and the ethics agency of the Southern Baptist Convention. But some pastors at the most far-right edge of the SBC are…
