On New Year’s Eve, Lake Superior State University released its annual list of English-language words and phrases that should be banished in 2023 because they are overused and trite. Please don’t call this list the Greatest of All Time or…
The present crisis for church staff
Churches in America have been living amid rapid change for several decades now, accelerated like a dive on a roller coaster by COVID. Previously, much of our attention has focused on institutional change and challenges, the big picture of congregations…
‘We’re so blessed!’
This is the first in a November series produced by BNG on what it means to be “blessed,” a word so flippantly used that it often loses meaning. Before I tell you this story, I need to explain about the…
When voting based on the economy is the wrong thing to do
There’s a long tradition in American politics of voting based on economic interests. We shouldn’t be surprised that gas prices and food prices have a direct bearing on who people vote for or against. But there are good reasons not…
On social media, the Bible verses are flying in a debate over student loan forgiveness
Within hours of its announcement, the new White House plan to forgive $10,000 to $20,000 per person in student loan debt became a theological dividing line as much as a political one. Critics of the debt forgiveness initiative turned to…
Two views of parenting, and how school lunches and school libraries are alike
One of the underlying factors in today’s battles over public education is two polar opposite views of parenting. Parents who want to ban books from school libraries and tell classroom teachers what parts of American history to teach and how…
Here’s what I’m learning in therapy
I’m not a person who lives with classic depression, but there have been several times in the last few years where I truly didn’t care whether I lived or died. The most recent episode lasted nearly two years. I chalked…
No, BJC has not become a leftist mouthpiece
Last week I heard someone suggest that Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty has moved to the left politically and abandoned its historic Baptist tradition. There’s an agricultural word to describe the fallacy of that argument, but I won’t use…
Why I’ve never written about abortion before now
Note: This article includes a graphic description of miscarriage. Last week, a friend who is a compassionate pro-lifer asked me about the opinion pieces on abortion we’ve carried at BNG before and after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe…