It may now seem surprising to many United Methodists, and even more Baptists, that for most of our histories in the United States, all Methodists and Baptists were regularly designated as evangelical denominations. The most important reason is that both...
Read our latest Letter to the Editor here. And if you have a public comment to make as a Letter to the Editor, see our guidelines here. What would the Apostle Paul say about Donald Trump? Earl B. Chappell III,…
Does hope mean anything anymore? What is the point of hope in this season? I’ve asked myself those questions, along with many, many others in the preceding months and today. I look at the mess we’ve made of the United…
Mental health professionals and ministers working together can help change the social narratives that justify racism and oppression in the United States, an online panel of therapists and clergy said Aug. 28. But they also must possess that awareness and…
Sometimes an obscure social science dissertation about historical events tells you exactly what you need to know about what is going on right now. I have just read a little-noticed 2019 book called Protectors of Pluralism: Religious Minorities and the…
The internet age has rapidly intensified the ability for conspiracy theories to spread across large populations of people, but why are Christians so susceptible to conspiratorial thought? Increasingly these grand narratives regarding the alleged machinations of nefarious figures are making…
“Let’s fix our eyes on Old Glory and all she represents …, let’s fix our eyes on the author and perfecter of our faith and freedom, and never forget that, ‘where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom,’…
It was two separate conversations with two thirty-somethings from two different states within two days: “My parents have become radicalized during COVID,” they lamented. The common theme in both discussions was that their senior adult parents had spent months in…
2020 is not going so well. There’s a devastating novel coronavirus. Millions of people are unemployed. Hurricane season has started. There are murder hornets and locusts and bubonic plague. And then the Feds came uninvited to Portland. Some folks are…
Editor’s note: On Aug. 25, Baptist pastor Bob Browning testified before a joint committee hearing of the Kentucky Legislature, speaking in favor of a bipartisan bill in both chambers that would ban state-approved, licensed counselors from using so-called “conversion therapy”…
The journey to recovery after a devastating 2016 flood showed Louisiana pastor S.C. Dixon the promise of interracial bridgebuilding and opened doors to new relationships in ministry and education. During relief efforts, he saw Baptists work together across racial lines,…
Hurricane Laura’s damaging foray through Louisiana and parts of Texas is inspiring faith-based collaboration in disaster response efforts that are complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Representatives of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and National Baptist Convention of America International plan to…
In a post-pandemic world, the church, in the words of Mark Twain, may need to declare, “The rumors of my death are grossly exaggerated.” While it is true that many struggling churches may close, merge or re-purpose in the near…
