Robert T. Banks Jr., a prominent missions leader among Southern Baptists in the second half of the 20th century, died in Atlanta Jan. 19 at age 91. Banks served as executive vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Home Mission…
As a 21-year-old seminarian, David Fearon challenged the RSV translators on the word ‘homosexual’
David Sheldon Fearon, 84, died peacefully in his home in Nanaimo, Vancouver Island, B.C. Canada at the beginning of January. On Oct. 22, 1959, Fearon, then a 21-year-old seminary student at McGill University’s School of Religious Studies, Montréal, Quebec, wrote…
BNG columnist David Ramsey dead at 61
BNG columnist David Ramsey died at his North Carolina home Sunday, Dec. 11, after a brief illness. He was 61. “BNG greatly mourns the loss of this beautiful life among us, someone who courageously chronicled his own journey from cradle-roll…
Pioneering missionary journalist Craig Bird dies in Texas
Baptist journalist and educator Craig Bird died Dec. 12 at age 73 due to complications from a fall he experienced the week before, according to his family. Bird, who was born in Arkansas on Oct. 4, 1949, to Clyde and C.W….
A Southern Baptist saint: Gratitude for the life of Leslie Jordan
When I saw the tweet that read “Comedian Leslie Jordan dead at 67,” I gasped. Then immediately, I felt a tear forming in my eyes — and I never cry. I began scrolling until I found an article that confirmed…
How Don Durham and I became neighbors
In the first chapter of The Glad River, author Will Campbell introduces two main characters, Claudy “Doops” Momber and Kingston Smylie. Flung into the cold military-industrial machine, the men first cross paths during basic training. Be it the impending war,…
CBF mourns passing of visionary Foundation leader Don Durham
A church consultant and former president of the CBF Foundation who left that role in 2010 to manage a farm in rural North Carolina that grew food to give away to community feeding ministries has died of natural causes at…
‘Thank you, bell hooks, for your biblical vision of love’
Editor’s note: Author and activist bell hooks died Wednesday, Dec. 15, at her home in Berea, Ky. This is a tribute to her influence. I first heard bell hooks when she spoke at a graduate school event in 1999. She…
Remembering Ralph Carmichael, the father of contemporary church music
It has been an unusual, loss-filled few weeks in the world of church music. One by one we have seen the obituaries of some of the major players come across our desks. A few weeks ago, long-retired professor of music…