Justice is a tool for working out God’s care and showing that God is “with us” as a way of entering into the real, physical circumstances of those who hurt, not just a concept abused by the culture wars.
Making God smile through music
During the recent Advent season, I challenged my congregation to savor the music of the holidays, and to listen with fresh ears to both the lyrics and melodies which carry our deepest longings and joys. As usual, in attempting to…
Church celebrates 25 years welcoming Hooter’s, schizophrenics and Pharisees
Worshiping with drug addicts and sometimes-disruptive schizophrenics wasn’t the way Jimmy Dorrell envisioned his calling while growing up in Conroe, Texas, in the 1960s.
Protesting injustice is the modern Baptist’s evangelism, activists say
Like many who grew up Southern Baptist, Betsy Sowers fervently believes evangelism is the answer to the most pressing issues of the day. “I am very Baptist about that,” the Massachusetts resident said. But Sowers doesn’t define evangelism only as talking to…
Dear non-racist white people: stop saying we’re not racist
In so many ways, we are still experiencing the beginning birth pains of an integrated America. In some ways, we’ve made significant and hopefully irreversible progress. In other ways, it might as well be the first day of integration or the mad years of Jim Crow.
Baptist churches should emulate Black Lives Matter movement, says advocate
A Black Lives Matter advocate fired a shot across the bow of Baptist churches, challenging them and other Christians to embrace Christ’s calling to care for society’s most oppressed. “The story of the church in recent years is that that…
Ole Miss honors Will Campbell
By Bob Allen Sixty years after he was forced out of a job for challenging racial segregation on campus, the University of Mississippi is naming a plaza for the late Will Campbell, a renegade Baptist minister and author active in…
Letter from a Birmingham intersection
**The author has been participating with QC Family Tree in tracing the steps of the Freedom Riders of the Civil Rights Movement. Learn more about the trip here and here. Remembering that it happened once, We cannot turn away the thought,…
‘Selma’ reveals a Martin Luther King who struggled with both the system and himself
There are few movies that should be required viewing. Most movies are merely candy we consume quickly and forget. But there comes a time when a movie rises above those confectionary tomes and becomes something much more. Selma is such…