Our motto here at BNG is to inspire you, dear readers, with change-making conversations. We’ve hit a nerve with one of those conversations this week, which tells me it is extremely important that we talk about this. The “this” is…
What a Baptist learned from the Methodists at Duke Divinity School and why I left both denominations behind
I was one of a handful of Baptist students at Duke Divinity School in the mid to late 1980s. Rocked in a Baptist cradle, baptized in a Baptist church and educated at a Baptist university (Wake Forest), I wanted to…
In Ukraine, Baptists speak most often of ‘prayers’ and ‘gratitude’ amid the horrors of war
Reading through Facebook posts and updates from the Ukrainian Baptists, the two words most commonly used are “prayers” and “gratitude.” There are abundant reasons for our brothers and sisters to cry out in need to God and to give thanks….
The Methodist and Baptist battles over LGBTQ inclusion this week trace a common road back to … Samford
In any other year, the following fact would have been a minor footnote in a story about United Methodists electing a gay male pastor as bishop in defiance of the denomination’s official ban on gay ministers: Cedrick Bridgeforth is a…
Defender of the Faith or Defender of Faith — a distinction informed by Baptist history
With the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Sept. 8, her heir, Charles, became King Charles III. Accompanied by grief and grateful tributes from around the world, Elizabeth II’s death marks the end of a lengthy era of British history…
News flash: Not all Baptists are Southern
Southern Baptists make up less than half of all Baptists in the United States. But you’d never guess that from media coverage. Last month, Baptist leaders from dozens of nations gathered in Birmingham, Ala., for the first in-person meeting of…
War in Ukraine transforms churches into centers of care
More than 150 days of war in Ukraine have transformed Baptist congregations into much more than houses of worship. “Baptists have become centers for food, shelter, electricity and water. Equally importantly, Baptist churches are centers of respite and psycho-social care,…
Moldova, one of the poorest countries in Europe, opens its doors and hearts to Ukrainians
The fact that Moldova is one of the poorest nations in Europe has not kept it from being one of the most welcoming and generous to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees fleeing the Russian invaders. And Baptists have been…
Connect the dots from Methodists to Baptists to Episcopalians to Presbyterians and national politics
Maybe this is simply stating the obvious, but here goes: There is a pattern to what is happening in the United Methodist Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church and other American churches. And that pattern…