It is hard to sleep. Tonight, I struggle to reach the land of the sandman because I kept wondering if another scenario like the one at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina was taking place elsewhere in…
OPINION: Reflections from New York: History as song
As the old hymn Blessed Assurance goes, “This is my story. This is my song.” How beautiful a metaphor to understand our faith journey as a song. Throughout this summer at Metro Baptist Church, groups have come to New York…
REFLECTIONS FROM NEW YORK: Realizing the Kingdom
Talking about the “Social Gospel” within a congregational setting can often be difficult. The phrase has come to mean many different things to different people. In recent years public figures like Glenn Beck have spoken negatively of the Social Gospel,…
REFLECTIONS FROM NEW YORK: Prayers for all peoples
Imagine you’ve invited your Jewish neighbors over to your house for dinner. Immediately after serving your guests, you question whether or not you should offer a prayer. You think to yourself that both Christians and Jews believe in God, so…
REFLECTIONS FROM NEW YORK: Christian partnership
Understanding the nature of relationships between Christian organizations and one another as well as with non-Christian organizations can often be a difficult task. This is particularly true within the Baptist context, in which each church can function independently from the…
REFLECTIONS FROM NEW YORK: Imagining new places
Moving into new places presents a unique challenge to imagine and re-imagine our past lives in relation to the present locations in which we find ourselves. Walter Rauschenbusch, the late 19th-century and early 20th-century pastor, church historian and social gospel…
OPINION: Returning to Schleitheim
In February 1527, an Anabaptist group known as the Swiss Brethren gathered together at Schleitheim, Switzerland, to help solidify and establish this small movement on the brink of disintegration. The movement had begun less than two years earlier one night…
OPINION: Finding victory in a response, not a vote
Under the leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from December 1955 to December 1956, black residents of Montgomery, Ala., staged a modern marvel. Creating an intricate system of pick-up points and drop-off points, the African Americans of Montgomery staged…
OPINION: A place for Panamanian pandemonium
This winter break I found myself in Panama with a group of seven individuals from Rock 17, the young adult group from Virginia’s Peninsula Baptist Association. Our travels were spurred by the partnership between Virginia Baptists and the Panamanian Baptist…