“Deconstruction” is a buzzword today for people who seek to unravel the constrictive faith of their childhoods. But the same word might be used to describe the educational process that often happens when students like me go off to college….
Nature is queer
How often do we hear from the pulpit and from lawmakers that diverse sexualities and genders are unnatural? This year, the United States already has set records for anti-LGBTQ legislative bills, and violence against queer people, especially trans and nonbinary…
Ken and Angela Paxton do a little sidestep — while quoting Bible verses
The Texas Senate voted Sept. 16 to acquit Attorney General Ken Paxton of all charges in his impeachment trial. Thus, the most controversial of all Texas politicians has returned to his position in state government with barely a slap on…
The logic of love or the logic of perfection? It can’t be both
In 2018, Kaitlin Flanagan wrote an article for The Atlantic that referred to Donald Trump as “the porn president.” Flanagan featured Anderson Cooper’s interview with former Playboy model Karen McDougal. Cooper asked his guest about the time back in 2006…
Flynn tells preachers, ‘Put the Bible aside and read the Constitution’
Gen. Michael Flynn received a preaching lesson from me last year in a Baptist News Global article, “Don’t Take Preaching Lessons from General Flynn.” I quoted Flynn’s suggestion: ““What (preachers) need to be doing is they need to be talking…
What explains the abiding appeal of biblical inerrancy?
It was the fall of 1975, in my class in Old Testament at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. Gentle and soft-spoken, Page Kelley was explaining the plight of the biblical translator. We have the Septuagint, a Greek translation…
The Bible says nothing about queer people
For far too long the LGBTQ community has conceded Christianity to traditionalists and conservatives, allowing them to perpetuate the narrative that the Bible is clearly anti-LGBTQ and that being queer is a sin. But the truth is that most of…
There is no way to be against racism and ethnic discrimination but remain in support of sexism and gender discrimination
Christine A. Smith calls sexism in the church’s ongoing life “the stained-glass ceiling” — the invisible but often impenetrable limits imposed upon female clergy. The stained-glass ceiling takes many forms. Among the most common are differences in salary between men…
Brogdon urges forthright approach to ‘problematic’ biblical texts
While Lewis Brogdon doesn’t describe the Bible as fragile, he wants to help people interpret its content with care. That is one of the reasons Brogdon, associate professor preaching and Black church studies at Baptist Seminary of Kentucky, wrote a…