This is the ninth in a BNG series of articles on Christianity and democracy that will lead toward the July 4 celebration of America’s 250th birthday. The series has been curated by Carol McEntyre, senior minister at First Baptist Church of...
Churches must be courageous and open to change. But sometimes, amid all the pulse-taking, evaluations, strategy planning and critiquing, we forget to love the church we have.
A former prosecutor and grandson of Billy Graham focused for the last 16 years on investigating allegations of clergy sexual abuse in evangelical churches shamed the Southern Baptist Convention for failing to act on abuse in its own ranks until prodded by the secular press.
“Can’t be baptized in the Jordan river and make the same old music.”
Bible teacher Beth Moore said having too few women in power contributes to sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention in a Thursday night keynote address at a national conference on caring well for victims.
What does it really mean when we call something “Christian?”
Frank Tupper’s view of providence is unflinchingly honest. We survive our personal Gethsemanes, not because we experience miraculous rescue, but because we are not alone: “Jesus has already gone through Gethsemane, a Gethsemane that we will never comprehend, and he stands with us in ours.”
She “was able to build a large and diverse network of support to reopen the seminary, rebuild the school and create new projects.”
If words really do “mean something,” as Robert Jeffress asserted, correctly, then the rhetoric of “civil war,” “treason” or “coup” used by president, pastor or any of us is not only divisive but dangerous.
Perhaps the idea of a universal basic income is not as farfetched as it may seem. Whether from voices from the past, our congregational polity or the biblical text, the Baptist tradition offers resources for thinking deeply about such a proposal.
Recent church staff changes, anniversaries, ordinations and deaths within the moderate and progressive Baptist network.
A former religion professor fired by a Baptist university after questioning the orthodoxy of some of his colleagues is in the Army now.
“They want increased odds of finding friends and a romantic partner and that’s going to happen typically at urban congregations that are larger in size.”
