Unless you’re a member of a Dutch Reformed church or a Christian Science church, making a claim for a religious exemption to the COVID-19 vaccine as a Christian is going to be hard to prove. According to research by Vanderbilt…
Carey Nieuwhof: Reflections on the wilderness, COVID, burnout and how to move forward
As American churches wander in “the wilderness,” pastor and thought leader Carey Nieuwhof is reckoning with his own burnout. He processes these challenges out loud in his new book, At Your Best. Nieuwhof is founding pastor of Connexus Church in…
COVID wars: Lament over a broken, divided nation
I was talking with a senior Mercer University colleague yesterday about the divisions engulfing our nation over COVID vaccines and masks. Carl has served as a pastor, professor and politician. He’s a very wise man. I said: “Carl, two years…
COVID-19 and moral incompetence
In 1979, the E.F. Hutton investment firm marketed itself on television with a commercial in which someone would mention that E.F. Hutton was managing their investments. Immediately, people near that speaker stopped what they were doing to overhear the conversation,…
They’re not coming back
Years ago, we used to tell ourselves that young adults who had strayed from the church would come back after they got married. When that didn’t happen, we shifted our hopes and proclaimed that they would return when they had…
Putting Jesus and Paul ahead of personal freedom
Yesterday on my way home, I went to the supermarket to pick up a few things. Arriving at the door at the same time as a young mother and child coming from a different part of the parking lot, I…
Gallup documents a 34-point gap between Republicans and Democrats on trusting science
A new Gallup survey documents a significant decline in the trust of science among Republicans over the past four decades, a downward trend matched by religious conservatives’ embrace of creationism and rejection of climate change. And all this has been…
Conversation growing about COVID vaccine ‘religious exemptions’
The most-read article on Baptist News Global’s website for the month of August was about religious exemptions to employer and school mandates on COVID-19 vaccines. That article was accessed nearly 50,000 times in two weeks and continues to be read…
Raising kids at the end of the world
Recently, in the parking lot outside my office, I cried in my car for 10 minutes before work. This was after listening to my local NPR affiliate interview a parent from my son’s school. In her remarks, this parent calmly…