“They stole $77,000. And that was all of my savings.” Her voice was so soft I (Doug) had to lean in to hear her. “I’ve talked with the local police, the FBI and the Federal Trade Commission. The money is...
When a young Southern Baptist pastor named Alan Cross arrived in Montgomery, Ala., in January 2000, he knew it was where the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. had his first church and where Rosa Parks helped launched the famous bus…
Hardy Clemons, one of the most influential and beloved figures in progressive Baptist life, died July 1 in San Antonio, Texas, from COVID-19. Clemons, 87, pastor of three churches in Texas and one in South Carolina, was a denominational leader…
Recently I posted about re-encountering my white privilege on Facebook. I told a story about a meeting with a fellow dad from my daughter’s school and about my recognition that our lives were similar yet markedly different because of the…
Three years ago, I wrestled with the news that my great-grandmother’s statue memorializing “Uncle Jeff” had been removed by the City of New Orleans from the site where it had stood on Canal Street since 1911. I know it really…
Please submit transitions — including staff changes, ordinations, anniversaries or deaths — to Barbara Francis. This page will be updated bi-weekly. STAFF CHANGES Wade Arnold, to First Baptist Church, Clemmons, N.C., as pastor. He comes from First Church, Oviedo, Fla., where…
It was the word I heard him say more than any other single word in over four decades of deep friendship. He said it the same way every time, but, inexplicably, it fit every possible situation. I told him a…
A Dallas evangelical church is standing by its decision to have an over 100-person choir sing without masks during a Sunday service attended by Vice President Mike Pence.
Helen Jerman is a professional writer and editor in Dallas, who is paralyzed from the knee down due to spina bifida and is a wheelchair user as a result. She earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism and now works in…
This week I took the unusual step of posting a direct appeal to Facebook. This message has been welling up inside of me for several weeks, and as a preacher, I was compelled to tell it. I asked my congregation…
Doris García Rivera saw just about everything during 23 years as an American Baptist missionary serving in Latin America. And it’s a good thing, because she arrived at the helm of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America just in time to guide it through the COVID-19 pandemic and the massive social unrest sparked by the death of George Floyd.
Charles L. Burton Jr. doesn’t want to be alone when he dies. The death row inmate hopes a federal court will make sure that does not happen.
To understand suffering, we need to understand something more of the Creator. Through dogma and doctrine, we have developed a definition of a sovereign ruler of the universe that is not big enough to be its creator. Far too often,…
