Americans value freedom but there are differences on what it means

America’s 250th birthday prompted researchers at Navigator to ask Americans how they define America, patriotism and what our country should aspire to. The result was 82% of Americans across all generations saying they believe freedom is an extremely important value,...

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Transitions for the week of 1-3-20

Please submit transitions — including staff changes, ordinations, anniversaries or deaths — to Barbara Francis. This page will be updated weekly. STAFF CHANGES Matt Boschen, to Mount Vernon Baptist Church, Glen Allen, Va., as associate pastor for students. He comes…

BNG’s Top 25 of the decade

Presented here are BNG’s top 25 news and opinion articles during the past decade.

Naked and ashamed: American Christianity’s purity culture and embodiment in the Church

Purity culture, alive and thriving in church youth groups, argues that Christians should shut down their sex drives and minimize the relationships to their bodies. Research shows the damage being done.

Last call for aging white evangelicals: The political marriage to Trump will collapse. What then?

Some species of evangelical religion will ultimately rise from the rubble of American conservatism, but it will be greatly curtailed, politically irrelevant and, I pray, more recognizably Christian.

2019 was not a good year for the church: 10 resolutions for doing better in 2020

It’s high time for the church to drop all its stones and stop acting like its role is to be judge, jury, and executioner for those who believe and live in different ways.

Year in Review for thoughtful Christians: Part 2 (July – December)

If you consider yourself a thoughtful Christian, then this is the Year in Review for you.

In Memoriam: 12 newsmakers lost in 2019

These are a few of the prominent Baptists who died in 2019.

Year in Review for thoughtful Christians: Part 1 (January – June)

If you consider yourself a thoughtful Christian, then this is the Year in Review for you.

The Christianity Today editorial: exposing the American evangelical dilemma

Like it or not, the evangelical dilemma has implications for the way much of Christianity is viewed throughout American culture. The magazine’s now infamous editorial simply punctuated that reality.

Pastors as entrepreneurial business leaders: Time to put the brakes on this trending expectation?

We need more conversation about how to cull the role of the pastor from all that we layer on it. But the particular work of the pastor today includes the integral tasks of connecting, cohering and completing.

‘What shall I give him?’ Robert Dilday gave a humble heart invested in the right things

Giving our heart to Jesus is not only a private soteriological exchange; it has to do with a reoriented life that puts the well-being of others ahead of selfish interests. It is a persistent attempt to live as Jesus did, in the power of the Spirit.

Robert Dilday, Episcopal priest and former editor of BNG and the Religious Herald, dead at 64

Nancy Dilday Duck said her brother had been in good spirits and was energetic and highly engaged in church planning meetings earlier Saturday evening.