By Sam Speers and Kristopher Norris As the 2016 election cycle begins amid much pomp and fanfare, American Christians will once again face the question of how to navigate a fraught, and curious, political arena. In what has already been…
Gandhi and the Baptist preacher
By Doyle Sager While attending the Baptist World Congress in Durban, South Africa, this summer, some friends and I took advantage of our free afternoon and enlisted a guide for a tour of some local history. Two surprises greeted me….
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…
Evangelism devoid of the Gospel
I returned home mid-afternoon to a rubber-band wrapped around my front door knob. A small booklet was attached to the rubber-band. The words – “THIS WAS YOUR LIFE!” – were printed across the black-and-white cover, all in caps, bolded, inked…
Billy Graham’s shadow: Chuck Templeton and the crisis of American religion
It was August of 1949 and Billy Graham had never been so depressed. Twelve years after “surrendering to preach” on a Florida golf course, the evangelist was wrestling with doubts. He had been reading neo-orthodox theologians like Karl Barth and…
Millennials and evangelism: An attempt at dialogue
By Aileen Lawrimore “Well,” the teen said after thinking only for a moment, “I’d like to talk about evangelism.” I was with a group of young people — ages 19-35 — and I had asked what issues of faith they’d…
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…
Who will go to Destination Unknown?
“Destination Unknown.” That was the stated course of the troop ship on which Julia Graham and her first husband, Henry, embarked in May 1945, with their 7-month-old son, as Baptist missionaries to the Middle East. Julia and Henry and the…
‘Are you not entertained?’ Discipleship and Pew Research findings
Have you ever claimed to be something you’re not? I once posed as a town sheriff, brandishing a gun and stopping everyone who disobeyed the law. Of course, at the age of 4, and with a plastic orange-tipped six-shooter, my…