Sometimes theology walks through the front door before we are ready for it. Before we have read the book. Before we called our seminary professor. Before the deacons have formed a committee, the pastor has prepared a sermon series or…
If America really cared about mothers and Mother Earth …
As I neared the end of my pregnancy, I took the same drive on a giant highway I do almost every day to get to work. Today, in a new way, I noticed the grackles and doves and other birds…
Public school policies cannot serve just one kind of child
There are two children in this story, and the lawsuit can only see one of them. The one it sees is easy to love. A child whose parents are raising them, feeding them, praying over them, and who find out…
In conversation with Kendall Mariah
I’m wearing Jordan sneakers. Kendall Mariah is wearing Lilly Pulitzer. That probably tells you almost everything you think you need to know about us. It also tells you almost nothing. I met Kendall while interviewing to become her pastor. She…
Toy Story 5 brings the tech debate home, but it underplays the risks
The most improbable fantasy moment in Toy Story 5, Pixar’s latest entry in its unavoidable animated film franchise and likely one of the year’s biggest box-office hits, comes at an unexpected juncture in the story. (Some light spoilers follow.) It…
Parenting expert Michelle Icard helps Cooperative Baptists rethink discomfort, risk and growth
For author and parenting expert Michelle Icard, growth begins on what she calls “the uncomfortable path.”
The dying art of parenting
I’m sitting at a sunroom table, my 84-year-old parents to my right and left. Dad just asked Mom, “Did you find my will in the safe deposit box?” She had. Moments ago, to make sure they had their bases covered,…
We are a nation of bullies
“Mommy, Jason is being mean to me, and I can’t get him to stop!” My 6-year-old daughter was calling from her hour-long school bus ride home (no, she doesn’t have a phone but uses a Fitbit watch for emergencies). In…
Our love for Black children must speak louder than headlines
When I saw the recent headlines of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos being reunited with his father after being held in a Texas detention facility for more than a week, I softened at the sight of the blue bunny hat. And…
More Americans worried about cost of raising a family
The percentage of Americans concerned about the cost of raising a family has jumped sharply during President Donald Trump’s first year back in office, according to the latest American Families Survey. Worries around the economics of family shot up 13…
Remembering Stephanie
On the third Sunday in Advent in 1991, as we returned home from Crescent Hill Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., 16-year-old Stephanie Erin Leonard announced to us: “I think it’s time for me to be baptized.” It was the first…
Dad of trans daughter writes about how to slay dragons
Parents must lean into communities of affirmation to endure the religious, cultural and political backlash that comes with parenting gender nonconforming children, author Sim Butler said. Butler said his new book, The Dragons Do Come: Raising a Transgender Kid in…