No one markets products like evangelical preachers and Donald Trump. While Trump sells Bibles and golden sneakers and politics, Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Dallas is selling copies of his coffee table book version of his annual July 4 sermon…
If only First Baptist Dallas could rebuild with more love and less hate
The past week has been a roller coaster of emotions. Every time I’ve refreshed a news app or checked my social media feed, something shocking and groundbreaking has occurred. In a world where the words “breaking news” have felt cliché,…
‘Notre Dame of SBC’ burns in Dallas
A church building the Southern Baptist Convention president called the Notre Dame of the denomination fell victim to a four-alarm fire Friday night, July 19. Firefighters have not yet determined the cause of the fire that took down the historic…
Trump’s evangelical base believes God spared him from an assassin’s bullet for a purpose
Many evangelical Christians who already have declared Donald Trump to be God’s anointed choice for president see his near-assassination last Saturday as further sign of God’s favor and protection. And other Christians who oppose Trump see his near-miss as a…
First we had election deniers; now we have justice deniers
This time, the problem is not with America’s justice system; the problem is with conservative evangelicals’ warped view of what justice means. The folks always screaming about “law and order” don’t really care about law and order when it works…
Journalist’s book explores ‘crack-up of the American evangelical church’
After covering the “crack-up” of the Republican Party in American Carnage, award-winning journalist Tim Alberta explores “the crack-up of the American evangelical church” in The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism. Four years…
Baptists were for separation of church and state before they were against it
For a Baptist to oppose separation of church and state feels like disowning one’s own mother without cause. What more could Thomas Jefferson have done for Baptists than pen the First Amendment with John Leland, a Baptist preacher, looking over…
To claim the label of Christian nationalist or not?
Who is a Christian nationalist? And should some people be proud to be called such a name? I, like a majority of BNG readers, am convinced Christian nationalists are a threat to democracy. I have been listening to them make…
Now Robert Jeffress says the Ten Commandments are important
Robert Jeffress, after seven years of supporting a politician who routinely breaks most of the Ten Commandments, now wants to speak a word in favor of the commandments. In a Fox News opinion piece, “God’s Cure for the World’s Chaos…