We typically think of proverbs as sources of guidance about how to live. However, the kind of guidance you can get from a proverb is tricky, since different proverbs appear to give conflicting advice. There’s the admonition to “Look before…
I’m aiming for a kind of fresh resolve to no longer continue producing solutions for the future based on problems from the past
It isn’t at all novel to admit this to you, dear reader, but New Year’s resolutions are gratingly unbearable; even under the best conditions. But I must say that this year, there is a uniquely hollow and darkly comedic quality…
Dis-membered denominations: Forgetting who we are
In 1990, in God’s Last and Only Hope: The Fragmentation of the Southern Baptist Convention, I wrote: Growing up Southern Baptist once seemed relatively easy. Elaborate denominational programs created a surprising uniformity among an otherwise diverse and highly individualistic constituency….
The Beatles: Get Back — Returning to the root of something can be a productive, if elusive, exercise
I remember Dec. 9, 1980, like it was yesterday. I woke to the news that John Lennon had been murdered the night before as he returned home to the Dakota Apartments in New York. I was a 13-year-old Beatles fan…
‘A Change Is Gonna Come’: Ahmaud Arbery and the call to transform injustice
Sam Cooke said it best in soulful, somber song: “A Change Is Gonna Come.” Cooke wrote this song in the early 1960s as a protest to support the Civil Rights Movement. It was a volatile season for this country, as…
An ode to the exile generation
A few weeks ago, I had an epiphany. It sprang from an odd source: Episode 178 of a podcast called The Bible for Normal People, “Pete Ruins Isaiah.” Pete Enns is an Old Testament scholar determined to bridge the great…
Three words of hope for the church in transition
The words came out of my mouth before I realized what I was saying: “This is the only conversation that matters right now in the church.” I was teaching my adult Bible class Sunday morning, continuing a slow verse-by-verse exposition…
Music and change, blowin’ in the wind
Although travel is still restricted and we look at the outside world from our windows, my husband and I recently ventured out to the Northern California coast. Settling into our quiet upstairs room, with a balcony overlooking the magnificent Pacific…
Row with the dual oars of God’s word and the wind of the Spirit, pastors proclaim as CBF assembly opens
The Spirit of God is blowing, and Christians can either follow that wind or be left in the past, a team of preachers said in a fast-paced dual-language sermon that opened the 2021 virtual General Assembly of the Cooperative Baptist…