By Jeff Brumley Many criticized prominent evangelicals like James Dobson and Mike Huckabee for claiming last week’s Connecticut school massacre was God’s punishment of a morally disobedient nation, but don’t expect such views to change. Scholars say the belief in divine retribution…
Scholar says gay teen suicide a moral issue
By Bob Allen Simply denouncing acts of overt violence against gays without addressing the underlying message that people with same-sex attractions are abnormal and inferior to heterosexuals is not enough, a gay Baptist minister argues in a recent Religion Dispatches…
Talking points and tragedy
By Amy Butler There are moments when words fail us, even those of us who wrestle words to a page for a living. Last week was one of those times. What words can possibly console the parents of 20 little…
Mumford & Sons sing of grace and life
I have been listening to Mumford & Sons’ new album Babel. Its deep biblical allusions and challenging lyrics about relationships and redemption invite repeated listenings. There’s enough in the album to keep my attention for a while. Two songs in particular have…
God with skin on
By Amy Butler One of my spiritual mentors used to remark around Christmas every year about how amazing it is that God decided it would be a good idea to come to earth as a human. “Jesus was God —…
Book shares struggles of Baptist women
By Jeff Brumley Growing up Baptist, Jennifer Harris Dault says her calling into the ministry was clouded by comments and assumptions along the way that the pulpit was no place for women. “I had this feeling as a kid that…
Making room for joy
By Molly T. Marshall I have always been an avid reader of Dr. Seuss. Long before I became a theologian, I knew that his whimsical rhyming contained great wisdom and ethical insight. He was well ahead of his contemporaries on…
Tennessee Baptist leader says goodbye
By Bob Allen A past president of the Tennessee Baptist Convention who served on numerous key committees over the years is saying goodbye to attendance at annual meetings, explaining the organization has become so theologically narrow that it is no…
The mystery of Advent
By Elizabeth Evans Hagan Advent has always been a mystery to me. Maybe it is because I never celebrated it in the churches of my childhood, where we just rushed into singing every verse of “Joy to the World” the…