Jimi Calhoun is full of stories about musicians with whom he’s performed, churches he’s served, and the human possibilities for which he hopes. As a bass player, he’s played across the globe with Dr. John, Parliament Funkadelic, Buddy Miles and…
Love, hate and Harry Potter
May 2 is International Harry Potter Day, the anniversary of the climactic Battle of Hogwarts in the final Potter book, when love overcomes hate and death. It’s a very Easter kind of occasion, and intentionally so, according to author J….
Politics, faith and mission: A conversation with David Dark
David Dark is one of my favorite writers and thinkers, and for years now, I often finish reading him and think, “I wish I’d written that!” A professor of religion and the arts at Belmont University and an authority on…
Americans are not equally divided on culture wars, Robert Jones explains in BNG webinar
The popular view that the United States is split in half on cultural, religious and political values is a fallacy propagated by the evangelical-controlled Republican Party, according to Robert P. Jones, president of Public Religion Research Institute. “Two-thirds of the…
Politics, faith and mission: A conversation with Randolph Hollerith
Randolph “Randy” Marshall Hollerith was named the 11th dean of Washington National Cathedral in 2016. Under Dean Hollerith, the “nation’s church” has shed a decades-long reputation as an unfriendly place for people of color and has leaned into its call…
Register for Sunday’s webinar with Robert P. Jones with Greg Garrett, Timothy Peoples and Mark Wingfield
BNG’s first live audience webinar is scheduled for this Sunday, April 14, at 12:30 p.m. Central time. It will be broadcast live from Wilshire Baptist Church, with guests Robert P. Jones and Greg Garrett in dialogue with BNG Executive Director…
Politics, faith and mission: A conversation with Jillian Mason Shannon
I first met Jillian Mason Shannon last fall in San Antonio, but I’d known of her for some years because of my friendship with her father, the great pastor and preacher George Mason. What I knew long before I met…
Portents in the heavens and signs of the times: An eclipse, Harry Potter and a scholar changing his mind all in the same week
As if it were not enough to have Anne Graham Lotz and Marjorie Taylor Greene warning of God’s judgment on America through a solar eclipse, some in the Religious Right lost their minds over the weekend in two other social…
Politics, faith and mission: A conversation with Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde has been the Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C., since 2011. She has discussed faith and politics on PBS NewsHour, Meet the Press, Good Morning America, and the Today show, and is the author of several books,…