Given the current mood in the country and the moral and ethical dilemmas the nation faces, how is the church to respond? Baptist pastor Wendell Griffen offers leadership on how to deal with the challenges and opportunities of being people of prophetic hope in a divisive time.
Think Millennials are self-focused? Think again.
I don’t know about you, but I view the daily headlines with a sort of fascinated dread. I can’t bear to watch and I can’t turn away. Every day, there’s more bad news for public education, undocumented immigrants and the…
Living out the ‘fierce urgency’ of the prophets in U.S. culture
Prophets rarely fare well in their own historical setting. Their clarity of vision disturbs the nonchalance with which most people engage their personal context. Prophets scrutinize those policies and practices that most of us blithely ignore, and they shine the…
Of presidents and popes: how we’re looking too high
I know a pastor who left a large, suburban church where he served for 25 years to plant a new church in one of the poorest areas of town. He joined with another non-profit and they formed a new LLC…
What I learned when Missouri prosecuted Baptist clergy
I don’t know what you were doing the week of Aug. 15, but I had a ring-side seat, watching a bit of local history right before my eyes. The Medicaid 23 trial took place just a block from my church…
Finding Christian leaders in a shifting religious terrain
It’s that time of year again. New books, backpacks, technology, schedules, classes and teachers conspire with learners to develop their lives. At every level of education, including graduate study in seminaries, the goal is to engage students in the practices…
Grief fatigue: Are we really making a difference in the world’s healing?
Last week I had the opportunity to meet with a group of millennial social justice leaders who were meeting across the street at Union Theological Seminary. I probably shouldn’t have read their bios before I headed over to their closing…
In N. Charleston, justice advocate avoids anger, burnout with centering prayer
Last year was an especially difficult one for folks in and around Charleston, S.C. Bill Stanfield, CEO of a faith-based community development organization, centering prayer emerged as his response.
When wielding power can be healing
“Money and power.” That’s what the gentleman who telephoned me from Mississippi said. The pressure on his home state and on my home state of North Carolina for recent legislative and gubernatorial actions, viewed widely as discriminatory, are all about…