By Jeff Brumley Nowadays, Baptists and Methodists seem the least likely to become entangled in theological disputes or battles over turf and members. Pulpit swaps and shared downtown ministries are increasingly common between them. But that was not always the…
Studies, experts suggest why some Christians like church shopping
By Vicki Brown You’ve been a member of the same church for a few years. While you may not know everyone in the congregation well, you are acquainted with most folks in your Sunday school class. One Sunday morning you…
Uncoerced faith remains a burning question
By Bill Leonard On Sunday, Feb. 15, 2015, the terrorists who call themselves an Islamic State released a lurid video showing the decapitation of 21 Egyptian laborers working in Libya. Taken hostage in January, largely because they were Coptic Christians,…
Tasting the Kingdom
By Bill Leonard Each January for the last three years I’ve joined a group of students in visiting the Haywood Street Congregation in Asheville, N.C., and each time we’ve gotten a taste of God’s New Community (aka the Kingdom of…
Baptist leaders eye hopes, fears for church in 2015
By Jeff Brumley Some congregational coaches hope to see a return to Christ-centered values in the American church, while some Baptist scholars are eager for Christians in the United States to hear and feel the pain suffered by persecuted counterparts…
Epiphanic moments
By Bill Leonard “When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were 2 years old and under, according to the…
A nation confronted by conscience
By Bill Leonard “Our enemies act without conscience. We must not. This executive summary of the [Senate Intelligence] Committee’s report makes clear that acting without conscience isn’t necessary, it isn’t even helpful, in winning this strange and long war we’re…
Advent: Jesus’ DNA?
By Bill Leonard “What was Jesus’ DNA?” That’s a question my Wake Forest University colleague, physics professor Jed Macosko, says someone once asked him. Macosko mentioned it while concluding a superb lecture on DNA, Darwinism and evolution offered in the…
Weekly communion heals, unites N.C. church and community
By Jeff Brumley It was back around 2008, during a monthly Friday Lenten service at First Baptist Church on Highland Avenue in Winston-Salem, N.C., that Pastor Darryl Aaron made an unsettling observation. “The economy was real bad, tilting into the…