While serving as a Baptist pastor in Kentucky, Erica Whitaker is working toward a Ph.D. at a prestigious European university. Her academic pursuit, however, is more than a distance learning endeavor with a public research university in the Netherlands. Her…
Caldwell succeeds Anderson as chair of BNG board
Chris Caldwell of Louisville, Ky., is the new chairman of the Baptist News Global board of directors, succeeding Janice Anderson of Houston, who remains on the board but concluded a three-year term at the helm. Caldwell serves as a professor…
No ifs, ands or butts: Binary thinking makes the Christian life hard to wear
Binary thinking is the butt crack of the body of Christ. Yes, I’m being cheeky, but the reality is that our Christian faith gets sucked into the bottom half of a sagging belief system sort of like when a person…
A lesson from Sister Meg on celibacy helped me understand white supremacy
No one, not even church folk, like talking about celibacy let alone white supremacy. Celibacy and white supremacy — like sexuality and skin color — are two preferably avoidable conversations. Perhaps these conversations are sidestepped because they invoke images that…
The utopian states of myopia and the curse of obliviousness
Yes, I know the heavy-hitting headline above is a gulp of gargantuan words you might not ever string together. “Myopia” is a vision condition known as being shortsighted or nearsighted. “Utopian” worlds are fictional places or fantastical illusions of preferred…
Is the pandemic-era church a church without baptisms, funerals and other major rituals?
“I have to ask myself: am I doing anything I was called to do when I became a pastor?”
More BFFs are officiating weddings, but look for ministers to make a comeback
Millennials and other religiously unaffiliated Americans are more and more eschewing clergy involvement in their weddings, but some ministers say that may not be a bad thing.