Statistics for 2021 from across multiple Christian denominations reveal a decrease in church membership and active participation, according to the parachurch organization Exponential and the Pew Research Center. This decline can be attributed, in large part, to the increasing number…
Roe v. Wade in real time
It was very late one night when my phone rang, the caller ID telling me this would be a crisis call. As a victim advocate, I had received hundreds of middle-of-the-night crisis calls over the years. For the sake of…
‘No, Beth Moore, I will not take your phone away’
It has been four months since Beth Moore publicly cut ties with the Southern Baptist Convention. Since that time, Moore has oscillated between prophetic and apologetic as she hones her new post-SBC voice. One moment she’s publicly calling out “hyper-complementarianism”…
Global church must confront gender-based violence with honest view of Scripture, BWA told
Christians must join efforts to combat the plague of gender-based violence around the world, but not without the church also repenting for its historic and ongoing role in perpetuating abusive attitudes and behaviors toward women, the Baptist World Alliance was…
Reflecting on a Baylor commencement 60 years later
“Oh, what a beautiful morning.” Those words obviously were made famous in the song by that title in the Broadway Musical Oklahoma!, which is my home state. I gladly loaned them to Texas on the morning of May 6 and…
Fox News anchor gives voice to 16 women in the Bible
Fox News anchor Shannon Bream’s favorite portion of her book about women in the Bible is retelling the story of the “unclean” woman found in Mark 5:21. “We’re told that she comes before (Jesus) trembling and in fear falls down…
Largest church in SBC ordains three women as pastors
The largest church affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention ordained three women as ministers May 6, sending shock waves through the male-centric leadership of the nation’s largest non-Catholic denomination. Saddleback Church, founded by Pastor Rick Warren and his wife, Kay,…
Book traces the complex story of women’s influence within Southern Baptist Convention
The role of women in the Southern Baptist Convention historically has been much more complex than narratives about female submission to a male-controlled denomination. “There were spaces in Southern Baptist life in which women sought and found agency, supported one…
Was Addie Davis’ ordination an anomaly or a precursor for the time?
Addie Davis made history in 1964 when she became the first woman to be ordained as a minister by a Southern Baptist church. Although she did receive her fair share of hate letters and calls for her to renounce her…