Ministries that promise to transform gay people into straight people instead cause immense spiritual, emotional and physical trauma that can take decades of counseling to undo, according to the panelists on an Aug. 24 BNG webinar titled “The Christian Case…
The need to be persecuted
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…
What’s wrong with ‘Left Behind’?
One of the biggest lies perpetuated in modern American Christianity is about the end times. Just by paying attention to popular culture and conversation, you would assume that the “Left Behind” theology is the most accepted — and maybe the…
My life as a bad baseball player and why you should get vaccinated
As a kid, I was a bad baseball player and always got stuck out in right field, where there’s less action happening and less chance I could mess up an important play. In these days of COVID vaccination drives, you…
How will your church rebuild after the disaster of the past year and a half?
Have you ever known someone whose home was destroyed by a fire or a flood or a tornado or other natural disaster? I have. And I’ve been thinking about those friends while watching the choices churches are making after their…
Baptist advocates for Equality Act say they are motivated by love of freedom as a faith virtue
Advocating for the Equality Act offers a meaningful way to push back against the faith-based white supremacy that oppresses LGBTQ Americans just as it always has done to women, people of color and members of minority religions, a panel of…
What the Critical Race Theory debate has to do with Professor Harold Hill
I’m not an expert on Critical Race Theory, and neither are you. So let’s all stop pretending we know so much more than we do. This term, which refers to an academic construct that originated in law schools, has become…
Editing our narratives has the power to heal future generations
There’s a common thread to much of the social conflict we’re seeing in church and society these days, and it has to do with our willingness to edit our own stories. Let’s call it a hardening of the narratives. One…
BNG webinar this Sunday invites notable SBC exiles to explain what’s going on and why it matters
As the Southern Baptist Convention prepares for its annual meeting in Nashville next week, observers from inside and outside the denomination are watching to see what will happen on a number of controversial issues. To preview those issues and explore…