By Bill Leonard It happened again. Barely a year after six people were killed and a U.S. congresswoman and 13 others wounded in Tucson, Ariz., yet another deeply troubled shooter brought death to 12 individuals, wounding 58 others at a…
‘Different than other cultures’
By Bill Leonard It happened again. Barely a year after six people were killed and a U.S. congresswoman and 13 others wounded in Tucson, Ariz., yet another deeply troubled shooter brought death to 12 individuals, wounding 58 others at a…
Race and intentionality, then and now
By Bill Leonard In his recent book Moses, Jesus and the Trickster in the Evangelical South, University of Colorado history professor Paul Harvey describes the South “as a land of paradox and contradiction.” “How else, for example, can one grasp…
Out on a limb
By Bill Leonard On June 30, Daniel Vestal retired as coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, an organization established in 1991 from divisions in the Southern Baptist Convention. In many ways his ecclesiastical journey reflects transitions in multiple religious communions,…
Old/new churches, old/new realities
By Bill Leonard Southern Baptists have just elected their first African-American denominational president, Fred Luter, pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans. Roman Catholic bishops in the U.S. are promoting a “religious liberty drive against a government and…
Spirituality on the margins
By Bill Leonard Around 2 p.m. on May 26, West Virginia serpent handler/preacher Mark Randall “Mack” Wolford was bitten by a rattler at a service in the Panther State Forest. Resisting medical treatment, he returned home, surrounded with prayer. As…
Spirituality on the margins
A Baptist shame
By Bill Leonard Tonight I am ashamed to be a Baptist. Born into Baptist “cradle role” in the First Baptist Church of Decatur, Texas, and baptized on profession of faith in that congregation when I was 8 years old, I’ve…
For cause of conscience
By Bill Leonard In 1611, as they prepared to leave Amsterdam and return to England, members of the earliest Baptist congregation wrote a confession of faith, asserting that when members of the Body of Christ “come together” they “may and…