As America prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, our latest report, “Competing Visions of America at 250: Politics, Religion, and Identity,” surfaces a troubling signal for the future of our democracy — and it centers on the nation’s youngest citizens. Generation...
On Jan. 6, 2021, I was in quarantine, recovering from COVID-19. As I read and watched TV to pass the time, I began to see early reports of the attack on the U.S. Capitol. I saw the events of that…
The gloomy sky and biting wind only deepened the sense of foreboding in the air on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021. Apprehension had been growing in Washington for weeks as news continued to spread that supporters of Donald Trump,…
Editor’s note: This story has been updated at the end with additional comments from Beth Allison Barr and Anthony Bradley. Maybe 2021 was the year of feeling threatened by smart women. That is, if you’re a white male conservative evangelical…
The “America first” brand of nationalism that has flourished during the Donald Trump era is a near-idolatrous exaltation of country that has usurped biblical notions of patriotism for many evangelicals and other Americans, Southern Baptist preacher and author Adam Wyatt…
Seeking out the truth has seldom been more urgent for Americans than it is now. We possess more factual information than any generation in human history yet differ over the most basic propositions. The dichotomy threatens our future. Truth makes…
Otis Moss III has been appointed professor of homiletics at Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology, where he has been a visiting professor. Moss also serves as senior pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago and recently was…
Please submit transitions — including staff changes, ordinations, anniversaries or deaths — to Barbara Francis. This page will be updated bi-weekly. STAFF CHANGES David Berg, concluding his tenure as minister to preschool and children at First Baptist Church, Murfreesboro, Tenn. Nathan…
In his classic work Why I Am a Christian, the late Anglican theologian John Stott prophetically penned gloomy words that, at the time, mostly fell on deaf ears. “The technocratic society, which diminishes and even destroys transcendence and significance,” Stott…
BNG columnist David Gushee will join BNG Executive Director Mark Wingfield for a Jan. 14 webinar discussing Gushee’s new book, Introducing Christian Ethics. The webinar — beginning at 9 a.m. Central/10 a.m. Eastern — is free but advance registration is…
When thinking about the importance of motherhood in the Bible, many readers can name a few women who mothered prominent sons throughout Israelite and Jewish history. Women like Mary or Sarah, whose stories are well-known in Sunday school classes and…
In 1990, in God’s Last and Only Hope: The Fragmentation of the Southern Baptist Convention, I wrote: Growing up Southern Baptist once seemed relatively easy. Elaborate denominational programs created a surprising uniformity among an otherwise diverse and highly individualistic constituency….
Some time ago a number of people — I among them — were troubled by a cell phone TV ad that projected the idea that, “I need, no, I have the right to be unlimited.” The disturbing aspect for me…
