A Call for American Evangelical Leaders to Confront Evangelicalism’s Lunatic Fringe Every religious movement that grows sufficiently large has a lunatic fringe; extremists attach themselves to religious (and other) movements to gain respectability and a “voice”-to influence the movement and…
Defining evangelicals with a mirror: A response to Russell Moore
“We demand the freedom of all religious confessions in the state, insofar as they do not jeopardize the state’s existence or conflict with the manners and moral sentiments of the Germanic race. The Party as such upholds the point of…
What I said to my conservative church about same-sex marriage
Preacher, if you are at all like me, as you were preparing to write your sermon this past Sunday, your mind kept going back to the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage. Last Sunday it was still so fresh that…
I beg to differ
My colleague in the Baptist ministry, Greg Faulls, has written an article about Christian life in the aftermath of the ruling on same-sex marriage.It mirrors so many others from the evangelical camp, articulating disappointment, angst, awareness of new cultural realities,…
Is It Too Late for Evangelical Christians to Honestly Discuss Same-Sex Marriage?
As speakers take the stage at Q Ideas, an annual conference for Christian “culture-makers,” a large digital timer facing the audience starts to tick down the time remaining in their nine- or 18-minute talks. That clock lends a certain urgency…
Why we need a “third way” on gay rights
Danny Cortez is the pastor of a small Southern Baptist Church in La Mirada, Calif. A few weeks ago, he created a stir in Baptistland by calling for a “third way” on gay marriage. In a letter to his congregation,…
Competing with big box churches
There’s a “big box” church in our town that’s all the rage. If you live anywhere in America that’s even slightly urban, there’s probably a big box church in your area as well. By “big box” I mean the kind…
Now that we have eliminated evangelism, let’s work on eliminating evangelical
In some moderate to progressive denominations it is all about the “E” word. Either these denominations vilify certain “E” words and seek to eliminate them from the proactive movement of the denomination, or they are embrace more deeply certain “E”…
More questions about Christian beliefs
In Friday’s post I attempted to answer two questions that were asked of me by a group of friends in my church, Baptist Church of the Covenant in Birmingham. In response to the question “Wouldn’t the world be more peaceful…