Yesterday, I started teaching a new series to my adult Bible study class on 1 Thessalonians. As part of the introduction to this Pauline epistle, I attempted to explain to the class the kind of real persecution these early Christians…
It’s time to pay the Piper
On a crisp November night in 2016, I stumbled upon a message from John Piper that changed my theological and ministerial trajectory forever. I was an eager high school senior with a passion for (what I perceived to be at…
My journey from being a young-earth Creationist, Dispensationalist Republican to seeing my neighbor as worthy of my vote
My body was tense as I sat in the white-walled classroom of my Baptist high school in Middle Georgia. With the sounds of pretend canons firing at the Civil War reenactment across the street, I listened to my teacher tell…
Southwest Baptist University president resigns in struggle with Missouri Baptist Convention
Missouri Baptists continue to find themselves at the epicenter of the struggle between fundamentalism and non-fundamentalism that has dominated the Southern Baptist Convention publicly since 1979. The latest casualty is Eric Turner, who abruptly resigned as president of Southwest Baptist…
I wrote about climate change; now I’m hearing from mean Christians
I’ve had an interesting weekend. People on the Christian right have been emailing me to take issue with my BNG piece about white Christians and climate change. Unfortunately, they haven’t really engaged my arguments. They’ve mostly just called me names….
Fundamentalists have a problem with Jesus
When Mike Pence substituted the American flag for Jesus in his speech during last week’s Republican National Convention, he continued a long tradition of American fundamentalist Christianity, which seems to have a problem with Jesus. Pence did not misspeak. His…
For truth-tellers, tragedy and redemption are wrapped up in July 17
Today, July 17, marks the anniversary of one of the darkest moments in Baptist history. But as with so many events in the Christian saga, God worked with those who love God to turn darkness into light and to redeem…
Doing battle with atheism
My beef is not with atheists but with simplistic arguments like: “The Church is bad, therefore there is no God.”
Infant mortality rates higher in areas dominated by conservative Protestants, study says
Conservative Christians may not be as pro-life as they believe. Newly published research has found that American counties with higher proportions of conservative and fundamentalist Protestants experience higher rates of infant mortality. The study, “Religion and Infant Mortality in the…