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...
Recently, watching an old movie about a trial in a small American town, I noted the wooden panel displaying the Ten Commandments placed on the back wall of the courtroom. Visible, just for the moment when the protagonist walked across…
For the first time during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has issued a call for volunteers to assist with disaster recovery efforts. The Sept. 16 invitation asks for teams to help Lake Charles, La. recover from damage caused…
Fall is a traditional season for budget planning in many churches and denominations, with stewardship drives often following into the holidays, but COVID-19 has flattened expectations and heightened uncertainty, according to a new survey conducted by the Lake Institute on…
Slumping church attendance is not a new trend for a majority of North American churches. The conventional wisdom may be to blame the previous decade’s slips on the younger generations, but in reality, the North American exodus from church is…
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, associate justice of the United States Supreme Court and tireless advocate for gender and racial equality, died on Friday, Sept.18. One of eight Jewish justices to sit on the Supreme Court, Justice Ginsburg’s death came just as…
Kathy Manis Findley made a career pursuing justice as a Baptist minister, and she is up to it again with a virtual watercolor exhibit offered as both a clarion call and lament for racial inequity in a time of pestilence….
Earlier this summer, June Joplin made international headlines when she used a Sunday morning sermon at her Baptist church to come out as transgender. Nearly three months later, more has changed than her gender. The Canadian Baptist church she had…
In mid-September, U.S. Customs and Border Protection revealed it has expelled 8,800 unaccompanied immigrant children along the U.S.-Mexico border, based on COVID-19 emergency orders. The children did not receive basic protections. They didn’t have access to legal counsel. They didn’t…
One of the nice things we say about friends to others to indicate the level of trust we have in them is, “I would trust him with my life.” By this we usually mean we have so much confidence in…
Andrew Smith, associate professor of religion at Carson-Newman University, writes in response to a recent opinion piece by Isaac Sharp. Read all Letters to the Editor and find guidelines for how to submit your comments.
In the midst of a turbulent summer of police violence against Black Americans, the pressure for institutional fixtures of American society to examine the legacies of their names never has been greater. Now the Southern Baptist Convention, according to the…
Months of America’s so-called “racial reckoning” appear to have changed little in the perceptions of a majority of Christian worshipers, according to new data from Barna Research. Comparing attitudes from July 2019 to July 2020, Barna found that “practicing Christians”…
