By Terry Maples I grew up in a conservative Southern Baptist home in rural Alabama. At church I was emphatically taught God cannot and would not call a woman to vocational ministry. The reason offered for this belief was “It’s…
Remembering Stan the Man
By John M. Wilkes My wife and I sneaked away, along with another couple, from the Thursday evening program of the Southern Baptist Convention’s 1961 meeting in St. Louis to watch a baseball game at the old Busch stadium. The…
Baptists should heed mother’s plea
By Christa Brown A mother, who says her son was repeatedly molested by a minister at one of the Southern Baptist Convention’s largest churches, claims the church needs to come clean about a cover-up of child sexual abuse. “I want…
Aliens knocking at the church’s door
By Miguel De La Torre The beloved apostle John, while exiled on the island of Patmos, wrote a letter to the Christian church of Laodicea. He accused the church of being neither cold nor hot. Because they were lukewarm, God…
Aliens knocking at the church’s door
By Miguel De La Torre The beloved apostle John, while exiled on the island of Patmos, writes a letter to the Christian church of Laodicea. He accuses the church of being neither cold nor hot. Because they are lukewarm, God…
The religious war on freedom
By Bruce Gourley What is the enemy of religion? While evil is often the answer, a poll focused on religious liberty in America and released this month by the Barna Group points in a much different direction. When asked if…
‘Zero Dark Thirty’ as lament
By Darrell Gwaltney When my now adult daughter was in middle school, we would listen to NPR together on the way to school. We heard the first confusing reports on the radio together. I dropped her off at school and…
Clergy sex abuse and ‘the silence of the many’
By Christa Brown “True evil lies not in the depraved act of the one, but in the silence of the many.” On this day, I am contemplating these words, attributed to a black Baptist preacher, Martin Luther King Jr. In…
A CBF leader for the future
By Ircel Harrison The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has a nominee as third executive coordinator of the organization. Once again, the nominee is from Texas, but this nominee is female and a layperson — Suzii Paynter. Prior coordinators Cecil Sherman and…