Three stories from Jesus about the danger of hierarchy and gratitude
This story originally appeared at Baptist News Global on November 22, 2022. Remember the parable where Jesus warned against thankfulness in corporate worship? It’s a well-known parable in Luke 18, the first in a trilogy of scenes that question our assumptions about status and blessing in relationship with others. In the third scene, Jesus tells a rich […]
Learning from the political worship songs of our American past
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on November 16, 2022. The American Civil War was “a war with a musical soundtrack,” according to Christian McWhirter. And that soundtrack continues to echo through the American church today, illustrating the different life experiences of Black and white Christians in particular, once again “marching as to war,” […]
Should adultery and homosexuality be illegal? Mohler weighs in
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on November 8, 2022. “Should adultery be illegal? What about homosexuality?” These were questions posed to Al Mohler from a Christian schoolteacher who passed along ideas from a class discussion with his students. Four days before today’s mid-term elections, Mohler answered these questions in his daily Briefing. Mohler identifies […]
On Halloween, thoughts about passing from darkness into light
This article originally appeared on October 31, 2022 at Baptist News Global. Oct. 31 marks a holiday where many religious homes clash over how to view the relationship between material and spiritual reality. As a young child in a church affiliated with the General Association of Regular Baptists, I experienced Oct. 31 through the innocent presence […]
Our obsession with true crime dramas and what ‘Dahmer’ teaches us about heaven and hell
This article originally appeared on October 27, 2022 at Baptist News Global. One of the biggest trends in entertainment today is true crime dramas about serial killers. Forbes reported in 2020 that it was a “great year for fictional serial killers.” And now, two years later, our fascination with mass murder is continuing, but with a focus on true […]
How Trump’s latest comments on Israel align with evangelical Zionism
This article originally appeared on October 20, 2022 at Baptist News Global. Donald Trump is in the news again making negative statements about American Jews while flattering his evangelical fanbase. In my piece last week, I wrote about how the dispensationalist obsession with the end times led evangelicals to embrace the Christian Zionist beliefs that “modern-day Israel […]
How Michael W. Smith, George W. Bush and one popular worship song expose the problem of Calvinist theology and politics
This article originally appeared on October 11, 2022 at Baptist News Global. There is a reason why one of the most influential worship songs of the past quarter century expresses a truth that could turn evangelicalism upside down and yet has been repeatedly rejected and banned by conservative evangelical complementarian Calvinists. Growing up in an independent […]
What does complementarianism have to do with Domestic Violence Awareness Month?
This article originally appeared on October 6, 2022 at Baptist News Global. “Please don’t tell my husband I said anything. These men think they can bully women into submission.” I hear statements like this from Christian women in complementarian marriages quite often. But while many of these women are aware of the weight they bear, they […]
Our journey from private school to homeschool to public school
This article originally appeared on September 26, 2022 at Baptist News Global. The Baptist youth group I grew up in was made up of three main categories of students — the Christian school students, the homeschool students, and the public school students. Every fall, as we gathered on Wednesday evenings just a few short hours after our […]
The biblical view from the Tower of Babel
This article originally appeared on September 15, 2022 at Baptist News Global. Few stories in the Bible highlight the complexities of deconstruction and the way it divides us into speaking very different theological languages like the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. “What did Babel’s builders do wrong? Why did God punish them as he did? […]
Schools and spanking: Isn’t it time we stopped used religion to justify violence?
This article originally appeared on September 2, 2022 at Baptist News Global. “Make education violent again” seems to be the slogan for a public school district in Missouri. The Cassville School District decided on June 16, 2022, to bring back spanking after parents requested for the schools to spank their kids. In a scene reminiscent of […]
Desiring God is denying reality
This article originally appeared on August 29, 2022 at Baptist News Global. Last week, it was the almost humorous riff on beards as signs of God’s favor on manly men. This week, it’s a not-at-all funny critique of Critical Race Theory and intersectionality — by a white man who is the father of a multiracial set of […]
‘So you’ve been deconstructing, huh? What do you believe now?’
This article originally appeared on August 23, 2022 at Baptist News Global. There is perhaps no greater trend in American Christianity than deconstructing the theology and ethics of white evangelicalism. Books, articles, podcasts and even music are being created daily to explore the reasons why so many people are leaving the faith they’ve known. And there […]
No, Dan Patrick, God did not write the U.S. Constitution
This article originally appeared on August 15, 2022 at Baptist News Global. “We were a nation founded upon, not the words of our founders, but the words of God because he wrote the Constitution.” So said Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick at the second Conservative Political Action Conference held this year with the theme “Awake, Not Woke.” The conference was […]
How The Jetsons and Westworld help us think about robots, personhood and faith
This article originally appeared on August 10, 2022 at Baptist News Global. The internet droned on last week about the future of artificial intelligence and the human race when people began to compute that George Jetson was born on July 31, 2022. The Jetsons premiered in 1962 with a storyline that was set in 2062 and George Jetson being […]
New data show America’s challenge is not because ‘both sides are wrong’
This article originally appeared on August 1, 2022 at Baptist News Global. There is a popular trend among some evangelicals to criticize both sides of political and religious debates equally while proposing a third way that appears to be above the fray. They might say, “While the right says this and the left says that, I […]
White evangelicals want to control you so their kids can live forever
This article originally appeared on July 25, 2022 at Baptist News Global. Imagine a world where the “land of the free and the home of the brave” operates like a fundamentalist Christian school. What kind of freedom would be possible? As difficult as it may seem to imagine Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale coming to a city near […]
Why you don’t need to play a drinking game to understand the wonder of the James Webb Space Telescope’s first images
This article originally appeared on July 18, 2022 at Baptist News Global. A moment more than 13 billion years in the making happened last Tuesday as the James Webb Space Telescope revealed its first five images to the world. Hailed by NASA as “the dawn of a new era in astronomy,” the images revealed a deep field of […]
There’s a straight line from eugenics to ‘biblical family values’ to white supremacy and the anti-abortion movement
This article originally appeared on July 5, 2022 at Baptist News Global. Pro-life conservative evangelicals erupted into unanimous jubilation at the news of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. But while united in their celebration, they are divided in their vision for the future of the pro-life movement and unaware of its past. Karen Swallow […]
What has John MacArthur actually said about race, slavery and the Curse of Ham?
This article originally appeared on June 20, 2022 at Baptist News Global. “This whole genealogical effort could lead to a new genre of bumper stickers, I think, like ‘My forefathers were Philistines’ or like ‘Goliath was in my family’ or ‘I come from a long line of Hittite kings’ or here’s a good one, ‘My […]
What I learned listening to others who have left the faith
This article originally appeared on May 25, 2022 at Baptist News Global. In the wake of the Guidepost report that Southern Baptist Convention executive leaders covered up knowledge of sexual abuse for decades, we are reminded once again of how religious abuse has deeply traumatized millions of our neighbors. One of the ways evangelicals have processed a […]
The tangled web of evangelical opposition to abortion while believing in original sin, eternal conscious torment and the mysterious age of accountability
This article originally appeared on May 10, 2022 at Baptist News Global. Few topics enflame conservative evangelicalism’s self-righteous ire like the topic of abortion. We’ve all seen social media posts from friends that depict or describe abortion procedures in the most graphically violent ways in order to shock us. Who could possibly be in favor of violently […]
What will Twitter’s $44 billion purchase do to theological discourse?
This article originally appeared on April 27, 2022 at Baptist News Global. Imagine if the online theological discourse that led to the rise of Donald Trump and the conservative determination to use political power and misinformation to push their agenda on others was owned by a man rich and powerful enough to buy and control it for $44 billion. That is essentially […]
Exiles in Babylon conference gets so much right but can’t apply its logic about race to sexuality
This article originally appeared on April 6, 2022 at Baptist News Global. While many conservative evangelicals focus on fighting culture wars in an attempt to save the United States from progressive ideologies, New York Times bestselling author Preston Sprinkle seems to have accepted that Christians should reimagine their identity as exiles rather than as culture warriors. As host […]
Here’s a better way to talk about Lia Thomas and transgender athletes
This article originally appeared on March 24, 2022 at Baptist News Global. When Lia Thomas touched the wall during the 500-yard freestyle swim and became the first NCAA Division I national champion who self-identifies as a transgender athlete, many people quietly wondered whether her victory was something to celebrate or lament. On one hand, historic victories from underdogs […]
How the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy became a litmus test
This article originally appeared on March 14, 2022 at Baptist News Global. “Do you affirm the doctrine of inerrancy as articulated in the Chicago Statement?” demands Denny Burk, professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, tweeting his line in the sand to defend what he thinks are attacks against historic orthodoxy by the ever-so-dangerous Beth Allison Barr. Bringing up […]
Plagiarism is the least thing to worry about with Voddie Baucham, who is a threat to children, women and daughters
This article originally appeared on March 7, 2022 at Baptist News Global. After Baptist News Global broke the news that Voddie Baucham was being asked to accept a nomination to become the next president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Theobros could hardly contain their excitement. Owen Strachan tweeted: “What Voddie saw TEN YEARS AGO, many evangelicals still refuse to see. […]
How to talk with your kids about porn without sending them straight to hell
This article originally appeared on February 24, 2022 at Baptist News Global. The first time I saw pornography was at a public school playground during summer break when I was 8. I had ridden my bike over to the school to play, when a couple teenage boys called me over and said they wanted to show […]
Interview: “What’s Missing From the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill Podcast?”
Check out my interview on the Gravity Leadership Podcast! EPISODE DESCRIPTION: “Many have listened with great interest to the Christianity Today podcast The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill,exposing the leadership abuses of Mark Driscoll and the fallout among the members of his church. On this episode we will take a closer look at how […]
A response to Tish Harrison Warren about livestreaming worship
This article originally appeared on February 1, 2022 at Baptist News Global. “I think it’s time to drop the virtual option,” says Tish Harrison Warren in an op-ed for the New York Times, arguing that churches should stop livestreaming their services. She explains: “Bodies, with all the risk, danger, limits, mortality and vulnerability that they bring, are […]
This is a tale of testicles, fertility, the length of men’s hair, and one bizarre tweet
This article originally appeared on January 24, 2022 at Baptist News Global. Owen Strachan woke up on Martin Luther King Jr. Day with decades of injustice weighing heavily on his mind: Men with long hair. Strachan, who is former president of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and is now provost and research professor of […]
How a student’s fashion design project upset the created order at Bob Jones University
This article originally appeared on January 18, 2022 at Baptist News Global. Let’s call this controversy Wrap-Coat-Gate. Trustees and administrators at Bob Jones University recently grew so alarmed over a wrap coat designed by a student for a class project that they publicly called the student’s work sacrilegious, blasphemous, dishonoring to Jesus, offensive, and egregious. […]
Beth Moore is not the first Baptist to journey to the Anglican Church
This article originally appeared on January 5, 2022 at Baptist News Global. When Beth Moore left the Southern Baptist Convention in 2021 and soon after was seen in a photo serving Communion at an Anglican church, the social media outrage became a reminder that few people seem to rile up Southern Baptist and conservative evangelical TheoBros as much […]
Tim Tebow and Demaryius Thomas and the world we see
This article originally appeared on December 20, 2021 at Baptist News Global. After having what will one day be recognized as a Hall of Fame NFL career, Demaryius Thomas died unexpectedly of what police are calling “a medical issue” in his Georgia home on Dec. 9, 2021. He would have turned 34 on Christmas Day. As […]
The weakness of complementarian theology on display in Duggar trial
This article originally appeared on December 9, 2021 at Baptist News Global. As we reflect back on 2021, one theme will be how three of the major conservative evangelical denominations have become compromised by sexual abuse and sexual abuse coverups. The Presbyterian Church in America became embroiled in a scandal over the past couple years when a […]
BNG column sparks Thanksgiving Twitter war of words between complementarians and two female scholars
This article originally appeared on November 29, 2021 at Baptist News Global. When David Gushee wrote his article “The Deconstruction of American Evangelicalism” for Baptist News Global, he kicked off what would become the focus of the next stage in the debate between conservative evangelical complementarians and their egalitarian counterparts. That debate took the form of […]
Interview: “Josh Harris, Evangelicalism, and Deconstruction, with Rick Pidcock”
Check out my interview on the Full Mutuality podcast! EPISODE DESCRIPTION: “Author and musician Rick Pidcock joins the show to share his thoughts on Christianity Today‘s podcast, ‘The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill,’ evangelicalism’s take on deconstruction and the ex-evangelical phenomenon, and the platforming of former evangelical pastor Josh Harris. You can read Rick’s […]
What if Thanksgiving were a time to celebrate the natural creation?
This article originally appeared on November 23, 2021 at Baptist News Global. Christian churches in the United States often take advantage of national holidays to communicate particular theological points. For example, Memorial Day and Veterans Day provide opportunities to celebrate the idea of Jesus sacrificing his life on the Cross for spiritual freedom. Independence Day triggers […]
The Way Down is about the weight of power being wielded by a hierarchical God
This article originally appeared on November 18, 2021 at Baptist News Global. It was an overcast morning near Smyrna, Tenn., as a small Cessna private jet abruptly descended toward the earth. Seven people on board, who had been looking forward to a trip to Palm Beach, Fla., were now taking their final breaths. And as the […]
The five pillars of conservative evangelical Calvinism that are incompatible with love
This article originally appeared on November 12, 2021 at Baptist News Global. The majority of my adult life has been spent within the conservative evangelical Calvinistic world of Desiring God, Grace to You, Ligonier and The Gospel Coalition. Having grown up in the rules-focused world of the independent, fundamental Baptists, these ministries provided a much-needed relief […]
Book Review: “Why Is There Suffering?” by Bethany Sollereder
During my time at Northern Seminary, two of the most impactful theological insights for me had to do with learning to recognize my theological assumptions and examining the consequences of my beliefs. In her new book, Why Is There Suffering: Pick Your Own Theological Expedition, Bethany Sollereder provides a brilliant path for exploring how our theological […]
As Facebook evolves to Meta, what is the future of consciousness and control?
This article originally appeared on November 3, 2021 at Baptist News Global. On the heels of the recent whistleblower accusations against Facebook, the social media company has decided to change its primary organizational name and logo. Founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted the irony of the name-change timing during the launch of Meta, Facebook’s new parent company brand. “With […]
The Evolution of Consciousness and Modern Worship
This article originally appeared on September 27, 2021 at The Center for Christogenesis. The sound of a thousand people singing filled the room in perfect sync with the driving sound of the band. As we sang and played, my eyes looked around the room. These were people whose stories I knew. As a worship leader, […]
How did an openly queer artist climb to No. 1 on the Christian music charts?
This article originally appeared on September 27, 2021 at Baptist News Global. The openly queer Christian artist Semler was elated to report the breaking news that the parking attendant at a Switchfoot concert supports gay rights. And that wouldn’t be the only surprise of the night. As they drove to their parking space, Semler joked about how huge […]
Reimagining the ‘kingdom’ of God as something other than an ancient hierarchy
This article originally appeared on September 13, 2021 at Baptist News Global. One of my biggest disconnections with the Bible is regarding its kingdom language. I totally understand why the biblical authors used it. It was how people back then thought about ultimate reality. So, of course, God would be talked about as the ultimate king. […]
Knocking down the straw man of theological liberalism
This article originally appeared on August 30, 2021 at Baptist News Global. One of the growing frustrations many deconstructing Christians, ex-evangelicals, liberationist and liberal theologians share is how conservative organizations like The Gospel Coalition constantly misrepresent us through “straw man” fallacies. In the field of logic, a “straw man” is when somebody twists or exaggerates another […]
I lived in the culture of ‘The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill,’ and there’s one part of the story that’s wrong
This article originally appeared on August 24, 2021 at Baptist News Global. The more people talked about Christianity Today’s new podcast, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, the more I knew I eventually would need to listen to it. In 2004, my wife and I left our families and friends behind to move across the country and […]
Coffee, conversation and Christianity go together like cups and saucers
This article originally appeared on August 20, 2021 at Baptist News Global. Across the American South, it’s hard to sit in a coffee shop anywhere and not overhear a Bible study or a conversation about Christian faith. America’s obsession with coffee — whether from Starbucks or the hippest new local spot — has spilled over to […]
Is there a balm in singing the spirituals, and if so, who should sing them?
This article originally appeared on August 11, 2021 at Baptist News Global. In the heart of the Bloomfield neighborhood in Macon, Ga., our Baptist church and school served as the place where 300 white people came every Sunday for church and throughout the week for school. On Sunday, we had a bus ministry that provided a […]
Pastor Greg Locke is all over the internet spreading conspiracies; here’s why you shouldn’t believe him
This article originally appeared on August 2, 2021 at Baptist News Global. Two years before he divorced his wife of 21 years and married his secretary, pastor Greg Locke rose to internet fame through a Facebook video decrying the morality of Target restroom policies that allowed people to use the restroom they felt expressed their correct gender. He said in […]