A 20-year old tried to assassinate a presidential candidate this weekend. Now I know that, technically, we consider 20-year-olds adults. But I teach 20-year-olds. I know they’re still somewhere between childhood and adulthood, their brains not yet fully formed. But…
Yes, there’s a double standard but Biden still must leave the 2024 race
President Joe Biden’s news conference at the conclusion of the NATO summit tonight wasn’t the train wreck of his debate two weeks ago, but it did nothing to assuage his friends who believe he should not run for reelection. What…
‘By the Time You Read This,’ a mother’s quest to tell the rest of her daughter’s story
January 30, 2022, will forever be etched into the mind of April Simpkins. She continues to grieve the loss of her daughter, Cheslie Kryst, who by all outside appearances had been living a perfect life. Cheslie was Miss USA in…
How can the church help youth struggling with mental illness?
With the demands of social media and the stress and challenges of greater social isolation as evidenced during the COVID pandemic, youth today are facing significant pressure with limited support. Ask any youth you know, and they will tell you…
A pastor’s wife’s questionable suicide sparks suspicion and highlights the fruit of abusive theologies
Mica Miller’s body was found at 3:03 p.m. April 27 in Robeson County, N.C., with a gunshot wound to the head, an hour and a half drive away from her home in Myrtle Beach, S.C., two days after serving her…
Courtney B. Vance and Robin Smith want to help Black men thrive
It’s been said that COVID-19 was the great divider in our country. However, the pandemic brought together actor Courtney B. Vance and author Robin B. Smith to write about another health crisis. In their new book, The Invisible Ache, the…
Clearer picture emerging of UMC’s future
Even before its official year of splintering is completed, United Methodists are carving out a clearer identity for the denomination’s future and a clearer picture is emerging of who has stayed and who has left, about clergy health and the…
What I learned when I invited a friend to church who processes the world differently than me
I love my church. Inviting my friend to join me for Pentecost Sunday and lunch afterward was an easy, uncomplicated act. The service that day was jubilant; our people warmly inviting. There was much shaking of hands and a few…
Charles Marsh has a story to tell of evangelical anxiety
Charles Marsh knows something about evangelical anxiety. He grew up in the middle of it as the son of one of the most prominent pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention. The SBC of Marsh’s childhood was the racially tinged Mississippi…