It is midnight. Not the kind of midnight measured by clocks. The kind that settles into your bones. The kind that lingers long after the sun has risen. We all know this midnight. It is the midnight of the marriage…
In conversation with Art Wright
Drive into Williamsburg, Va., from the west and you will see it before you see the church. A rainbow-striped banner. Designed by a pastor who cannot fully explain why he made it, only that it needed to say something true…
This Fourth of July, will you get your hands in the dirt?
This Fourth of July, somewhere in America, a church will drag the American flag over to the altar and call it worship. A preacher will stand in a pulpit built for the gospel and preach nationalism instead, and no one…
Purple churches and ‘moderate’ Baptists: A theological response
In recent weeks, BNG published two pieces that emerge from a similar progressive theological position. The first is Mark Wingfield’s “Here’s What I Hear When You Say You’re A ‘Purple’ Church.” The second is Braxton Wade’s “Why Are We Still…
Why are we still calling ourselves ‘moderate’ Baptists?
A few weeks ago, I sat with a Baptist leader who described himself as a “moderate Baptist.” He meant it as a compliment, and most people in our circles would receive it that way. After all, “moderate” is one of…
To understand today’s SBC, listen to history
Across America this week, Baptist women are carrying a familiar weight. Some are pastors who have faithfully answered the call of God, only to watch the Southern Baptist Convention debate whether God possibly could have called them. Some are seminary…
We are manna
I’ve been tired, and I know I’m not alone in that. People are tired. Not inconvenienced. Not stressed but tired, bone tired as the seasoned saints used to say. Wars are waging in the Congo, Iran and Palestine while cable…
The moral side of redistricting
Virginia voters said yes. That is what makes this moment so revealing. In April, Virginians narrowly voted on and approved a constitutional amendment that would have allowed lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections….
Church gives away $1 million to stop evictions
Not every headline out of Washington, D.C., or Northern Virginia is about division, Donald Trump or American dysfunction. Every now and then, the light breaks through the legislation and press conferences. Just miles from the corridors of power, in Alexandria,…
In conversation with my grandmother
This wasn’t the In Conversation I thought I would sit down and write this week. I did not plan to interview my grandmother from a hospital chair. The room was quiet in the way hospital rooms often are — machines…
In conversation with Benjamin Boswell
Sixteen months ago, Benjamin Boswell was forced to leave Myers Park Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C. “Being called to Myers Park Baptist Church was a dream,” Boswell told me in a recent conversation. “This was the church I always said,…
When pastors mistake theological maturity for spiritual maturity
A pastor colleague recently told me something I can’t seem to shake: “If I’m not on staff, pastoring or preaching, I don’t go to church on Sundays. I’m just not a pew person.” At first, it sounded like honesty. The…