“Your children will ask you what side you were on.” That’s what Jacob Frey, mayor of Minneapolis, said at a news conference Jan. 24 after the shooting death of 37-year-old Alex Pretti at the hands of ICE “officers.” Pretti, a…
When injustice rolls down like waters
Events transpiring in Minneapolis last week sent me back to the book of Amos 5:24: “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream,” words worth staking one’s life on. But what happens when history takes…
Let’s jettison the term ‘Christian nation’
On Dec. 21, 2025, Vice President JD Vance, speaking at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, declared: “More than any time I can recount, people are talking about American identity and figuring out what it is that unites us. But I want…
Remembering Stephanie
On the third Sunday in Advent in 1991, as we returned home from Crescent Hill Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., 16-year-old Stephanie Erin Leonard announced to us: “I think it’s time for me to be baptized.” It was the first…
Stephanie Erin Leonard: April 22, 1975 – November 26, 2025
After a critical decline in health, Stephanie Erin Leonard passed away peacefully at the Kate B. Reynolds Hospice Home in the early hours of Nov. 26. Her parents, Candyce and Bill Leonard, were at her bedside. Stephanie was born in…
Let justice roll down like sandwiches
“Jurors Say Baloney to Claim that Sandwich Hurler Tried to Harm Federal Agent” That’s how The New York Times introduced a report detailing the government case against Sean C. Dunn, age 37, a former paralegal in the Department of Justice…
Concerning heretics and those who burn them
Today marks the 508th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, marking the day in 1517 when Catholic priest and professor Martin Luther’s 95 Theses appeared on the Medieval scene in Wittenburg, Germany. The theses called the Roman Church to account for…
What about anti-gospel bias?
“But when you give a party, ask the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. That is the way to find happiness, because they have no means of repaying you.” — Luke 14:14 In February 2025, President Donald…
Then they came for the comedians
These days, you’ve got to stand in line to quote the late German pastor Martin Niemöller, referencing (and repenting for) his early support for Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. Remember how it ends? Then they came for me — and there…
Chattel slavery: Bad news then and now
I am pleading for my people, A poor, downtrodden race, Who dwell in freedom’s boasted land, With no abiding place. While I bear upon my body The scars of many a gash, I am pleading for my people, Who groan…
Interpreting the present time
Note: This sermon was preached Aug. 16 at the “From Seminary to Society: Journeys of Legacy, Loss and Hope” reunion of graduates and former faculty members of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, hosted by Wake Forest University School of Divinity. The sermon…
The rights of the born: An American dilemma
Great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the maimed, the blind, the mute and many others. They put them at his feet, and he cured them. (Matthew 15:30) As a parent of a person with special…