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...
When someone who is a registered sex offender shows up at church and wants to participate — even in such a simple way as attending worship — what should church leaders do? There is a five-step process pastors and lay…
Your Friendly Neighbor Epidemiologist has come to the masking debate armed with new data, and she’s ready to help health-conscious parents advocate at their schools, school boards and churches. Emily Smith, assistant professor of epidemiology at Baylor University and a…
The COVID-19 pandemic posed challenges to churches, but it also helped them sift through outdated programming and policies to reinvent ministry going forward, according to panelists of “Expanding Engagement in the Local Church,” an Aug. 25 workshop of the Cooperative…
The Spirit of God is blowing, and Christians can either follow that wind or be left in the past, a team of preachers said in a fast-paced dual-language sermon that opened the 2021 virtual General Assembly of the Cooperative Baptist…
Where I come from, we had colorful descriptions of people who are argumentative, or with whom it’s hard to differ. I’m sure you did, too. Here are some I remember: Why, he’s as stubborn as a mule. She’d argue with…
Preaching has been radically different and difficult for Pastor Cheryl Adamson since March 2020, and not only because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The parallel scourges of police brutality, political subjugation and racial oppression faced by African Americans, and exacerbated by…
I’m not exactly sure when or how it happened, but calling someone a sheep is now meant to be an insult. In this new vernacular, being called a “sheep” or “sheeple” means you’re foolish and easily led astray. It means…
While the nation’s agencies serving refugees and immigrants are scrambling to welcome thousands of Afghan refugees, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow to their advocacy on another front Aug. 24 by telling the Biden administration it must reinstate the…
Three months after Russell Moore left the helm of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission under pressure, his interim successor has announced his impending departure. In a news brief, Baptist Press reported Aug. 24 that Daniel Patterson,…
On a continent long reeling from the effects of climate change, the 2021 World Humanitarian Day focused on the human cost of the climate crisis and the need for world leaders to take meaningful action for the world’s most vulnerable…
Three weeks before their scheduled wedding date of April 4, 2020, Sam Lebow and Meghan Dworschak wrote a final check to the caterer for their reception. “Two days later,” Sam said, “we had to postpone the wedding.” The reason? COVID-19….
Our family got our first television set when I was 6 or 7 years old. I clearly remember the first afternoon coming home from school; we watched cartoons. Childhood memories stick with us because they touched something unique or special…
