In Dissent in American Religion, the great historian Edwin Scott Gaustad wrote, “Should a society actually succeed … in suffocating all contrary opinion, then its own vital juices no longer flow and the shadow of death begins to fall across…
Speaking from the edge of inside: Where is evangelism in CBF life?
A question I have been asking myself lately is, “Does evangelism have a place in Cooperative Baptist Fellowship life?” I couldn’t help but feel the passion around so many issues at this year’s CBF General Assembly. LGBTQ, women in ministry,…
The importance of being carnal
The gospels are full of stories in which the “incarnate Christ” opens the interior life of human beings by giving attention to their carnal presence, their broken, hungry, naked, hurting bodies.
Looking for the origin of decline in the U.S. church? Baptist historian thinks he may know the answer
Bill Leonard became fascinated with the topic of conversion early in his career, often teaching and preaching about the dramatic, and not-so-dramatic, ways Americans have become Christians throughout U.S. history. And by the early 1980s, Leonard said, the number of conversions,…
Pursuing reverence in a society that doesn’t recognize it
In a recent New York Times column, David Brooks offered an assessment of one of the presidential candidates, noting, “He appears to have no ability to experience reverence which is the foundation of any capacity to admire or serve anything…
Christian, Baptist, Evangelical? Just call me a Jesus follower (then again, maybe not)
These three words — Christian, Baptist and evangelical — have such diverse meanings in contemporary society they hardly mean anything at all. So I would just rather be known as a would-be Jesus follower.
Christian, Baptist, Evangelical — two out of three ain’t bad
Recently, someone who presents himself as “religiously unaffiliated” asked: “Aren’t you evangelicals really just the Republican Party at prayer?” We are good friends, so I responded: “Who’s ‘you evangelicals,’ you none?” For those readers who don’t have cable TV or…
No more Samaritanizing
When we Samaritanize others we imply that they are fatally flawed by identities like their race or religion, their ethnicity or their uniforms, and thus are unworthy of care, understanding or perhaps even life itself.
Being lost, being found
We were out visiting for the church, Brother Tommy and I, two Baptists prepared to “win the lost for Christ,” on a steamy summer Sunday afternoon in Fort Worth. Brother Tommy was church deacon and I was a high school…