By Jeff Brumley As high-profile, science-versus-faith debates rage across the nation, a handful of American seminaries, including two with Baptist ties, are pursuing the notion that reason and religion are compatible and even complementary. Andover Newton Theological School and Wake…
‘He Tells Me I Am His Own?’ Maybe …
By Bill Leonard In his 1736 treatise, A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God, Jonathan Edwards described conversion as “a great and glorious work of God’s power, at once changing the heart of infusing life into the dead…
White evangelicals feel heat of religious decline, surveys show
By Jeff Brumley Two new polls show that religious conservatives — mainly white evangelicals — are complaining louder as they lose ground in the so-called culture wars. They also describe a widening gap between the faithful and religiously unaffiliated Americans. What’s it…
Debtors!
By Bill Leonard We recently purchased a new car, the first we’ve bought since 2005. “Sticker shock” is an understatement in 2014. That’s why St. Paul caught my attention with his advice to the Roman Christians: “Leave no debt outstanding,…
If they are black
By Bill Leonard Our pastor, the Reverend Dr. Darryl Aaron, is black. He and his family live about two blocks from our family, in a neighborhood that is predominately white. When an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown was shot…
Protecting Christians and Yazidis: Elusive religious freedom
By Bill Leonard When the storm troopers of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) took Mosul, they marked the homes of Christians with a red Arabic “N” for “Nazarene,” targeting those families for “extermination or expropriation.” That’s what…
Wars and rumors of … religion
By Bill Leonard “On July 28, 1914, World War I began when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia.” That’s how the “Today in History” column in the Winston-Salem Journal referenced the centennial of World War I. The “Great War” lasted from…
Apocalyptic sex: Lest we forget
By Bill Leonard “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; so they stitched fig-leaves together and made themselves loincloths” (Gen. 3:7). In the beginning: sex. These days we might remember that when so…
Our Silence is driving millennials out of the church
David Gushee, a theologian and ethicist who teaches at the McAfee School of Theology, struck a nerve when he suggested that moderate Baptists with roots in the Southern Baptist Convention could benefit from a statement of faith. Bill Leonard, my…
The ‘ex-SBC’ trilogy: A response to my respondents
David Gushee Follow David on twitter: @dpgushee We have a beloved expression in our family: “stirrin’ up the pot.” This phrase emerged from the mouth of our mischievous son when he was about 11. It referred to his occasional forays…
Osteen illustrates nondenominationalizing of U.S. religion, says church historian
By Ken Camp Megachurch Pastor Joel Osteen and Lakewood Church in Houston offer a high-profile case study in the “nondenominationalizing” of 21st century evangelical American religion, says church historian Bill Leonard. Osteen manages to be “modern and postmodern, traditional and…
Millennials at hand
By Bill Leonard The Millennials are at hand! Millennials — that’s what sociologists call the generation of 18- to 33-year-olds now coming of age in America. A new study from the Pew Research Center details the nature of their unique…