As the Southern Baptist Convention prepares for its annual meeting in Nashville next week, observers from inside and outside the denomination are watching to see what will happen on a number of controversial issues. To preview those issues and explore…
George Floyd’s murder: Knowing what cannot be unseen
Like you, I have read and heard many comments from people who viewed the video footage of the death of George Perry Floyd on May 25, 2020, at the corner of 38th Street and Chicago in Minneapolis. The painful video…
Black History Month: Remembering, waiting, watching
Black History Month has ended for 2021. This year during Black History Month the Public Broadcasting System aired a four-hour documentary, produced by Henry Louis Gates, about the Black church. Across the nation, people paid tribute to the contributions by…
The end of Trump’s presidency does not end America’s root problem
Donald Trump’s presidency ended with the United States leading the world in the number of deaths caused by the coronavirus pandemic. He left Washington, D.C., as more federal troops were in Washington than at any other time since the Civil War,…
It’s past time to admit the hard truths behind the Capitol riots
History will report that on Jan. 6, 2021, two weeks before the end of Donald Trump’s term as the 45th president of the United States, Trump told thousands of his supporters gathered in Washington, D.C., to march to the U.S….
Why are SBC seminary presidents rejecting Critical Race Theory if they teach about Jesus and the prophets who denounced injustice?
This article is part of a series on Critical Race Theory published throughout the month of December. See the links below for previous articles in the series. On Nov. 30, 2020, presidents of the six seminaries affiliated with the Southern…
Interfaith group calls on Biden administration to ‘restore’ religious freedom protections
A group of nearly 100 interreligious leaders has offered four suggestions to the incoming Biden-Harris administration on urgent work necessary to restore religious freedom protections. “The Trump administration has taken many actions that undermine religious freedom,” the group’s letter says….
Reports of the death of white Christian America are greatly exaggerated
In the beginning of his 2016 book titled The End of White Christian America, Robert P. Jones issued an obituary for white Christian America. The time of death was listed as “in the latter part of the first decade of…
USC study finds Blacks three times more likely to be stopped by police in LA County
A new study from the University of California offers concrete data on the meaning of “systemic racism” in policing — data not surprising to two Baptists with front-row seats to issues of policing and criminal justice. The USC report analyzed police…