By Bob Allen Former President Jimmy Carter says the disproportionate number of African-Americans who are incarcerated is a remaining vestige of racism in the United States. “When the black Baptist leaders speak out and say what do Baptists need to…
Race and intentionality, then and now
By Bill Leonard In his recent book Moses, Jesus and the Trickster in the Evangelical South, University of Colorado history professor Paul Harvey describes the South “as a land of paradox and contradiction.” “How else, for example, can one grasp…
‘The Blind Side’ removal brings backlash
By Bob Allen LifeWay Christian Resources’ recent decision to no longer stock The Blind Side DVD on bookstore shelves has struck a nerve with Christian authors. Rachel Held Evans, who was asked by Thomas Nelson Publishers to remove the word…
The politics of race
By Miguel De La Torre At 53, I am old enough to remember a pre-Civil Rights era when all types of shenanigans were employed to prevent certain groups of people (predominantly African-Americans) from voting. Heavily populated black districts would elect…
Which would you prefer? Babel or Pentecost?
A friend from the Middle East is in a serious relationship with an American of another race. Her two children, born in the Middle East but raised in the U.S., are dating women from Asia. No one thinks anything about…
Jesse Jackson welcomes Luter’s election
By Bob Allen African-American activist and Baptist minister Jesse Jackson called the election of the Southern Baptist Convention’s first black president a “step in the right direction” and “a victory for the Civil Rights Movement,” but said it is too…
Your own personal Jesus
By Starlette McNeill Personal Jesus is an app that can send more than 200 personal quotes from the Bible to your iPhone or iPad, utilizing an image of Jesus Christ. The application also allows you to share these words with…
Old/new churches, old/new realities
By Bill Leonard Southern Baptists have just elected their first African-American denominational president, Fred Luter, pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans. Roman Catholic bishops in the U.S. are promoting a “religious liberty drive against a government and…
Southern Baptists elect black president
By Bob Allen One hundred sixty-seven years after forming over the right to appoint slaveholders as missionaries and 17 years after apologizing for the denomination’s racist past, the Southern Baptist Convention elected its first African-American president June 19. Messengers to…