When you come across something in your history that is wrong, “the thing to do is to confess and seek forgiveness,” Richard Hays told a large gathering of LGBTQ Christians and allies Oct. 25. Hays, a New Testament scholar who…
T-shirts send a message about gun violence
Churches across Texas are participating in a campaign to raise awareness about gun violence and build coalitions focused on its prevention. Texas Impact designed its Vidas Robadas — Spanish for “Taken Lives” — project to connect university and church-based advocates…
Americans are not equally divided on culture wars, Robert Jones explains in BNG webinar
The popular view that the United States is split in half on cultural, religious and political values is a fallacy propagated by the evangelical-controlled Republican Party, according to Robert P. Jones, president of Public Religion Research Institute. “Two-thirds of the…
Next BNG webinar will have a live audience and feature Robert P. Jones with Greg Garrett, Timothy Peoples and Mark Wingfield
BNG’s next webinar will be a first, with a live audience in addition to the online audience. The event will take place Sunday, April 14, beginning at 12:30 p.m. Central time. It will be broadcast live from Wilshire Baptist Church,…
A word of thanks for associate pastors
I never assume people know who I am, even though I’m more well-known than I deserve in the circles we travel in. That’s not entirely new to this role as executive director of Baptist News Global. In my previous life,…
A primer on leading public prayer
Sunday, April 30, was my last Sunday as minister of music at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas. That day my colleague, George Mason, senior pastor emeritus, offered Prayers of the People, a regular part of our worship liturgy led by…
Nine ‘Mama Bears’ testify how anti-LGBTQ legislation is harming their families
Loving and supporting LGBTQ children does not make Christian parents bad Christians, Mama Bears founder Liz Dyer said during a roundtable presented by the Human Rights Campaign. “I like to emphasize that my faith led me to become affirming of…
A heavenly reunion: Imagining my two mothers meeting at a Formica dinette on a cloud
Editor’s note: Lawanna McIver Fields died at her home in Nashville, Tenn., Nov. 5. She was well known in Baptist circles for a number of reasons, among them her role as a lay leader at Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas…
American churches turn to prayer and song in solidarity with Ukraine
On the first Sunday of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, churches across America took to their knees and their feet, and turned to song and silence to utter their prayers for Ukrainians under siege. “When people were sharing their prayer…