Josh Butler isn’t done talking about God and sex yet
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on April 20, 2023. When The Gospel Coalition and The Keller Center scapegoated Josh Butler due to his article about sex and the church — an excerpt taken from his Beautiful Union book they previously hailed as “the Protestant magnum opus on sexual ethics we’ve been waiting for” — many people wondered […]
Preston Sprinkle’s strange interview with Sheila Gregoire and Rebecca Lindenbach
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on April 13, 2023. Ten days after defending his decision to endorse Josh Butler’s controversial book about Jesus, marriage and sex, Preston Sprinkle released a Theology in the Raw interview with Sheila Gregoire and Rebecca Lindenbach where he continued to prioritize the perspective of men. But this time, his line of reasoning parroted […]
Please be kind when you invite us to church on Easter
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on April 5, 2023. This is the week when church members eagerly invite family, friends and neighbors who rarely, if ever, attend church to attend Easter services. What may seem like an invitation to hope could be perceived as something else, though. Many non-churchgoers carry wounds that may […]
Old wounds and power hierarchies are in fashion at Bob Jones University
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on April 3, 2023. After consolidating his power over the Bob Jones University board of trustees last week, Chairman John Lewis won his face-off against university president Steve Pettit. Pettit, who has served as president of the ultra-conservative school since 2014, had given the board an ultimatum before […]
Let’s stop treating the dignity of women as a secondary issue good Christians can disagree on
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on March 22, 2023. While complementarians sacralize the subjugation of women, perhaps the strongest obstacles to change are the priorities of egalitarians. We’ve witnessed the muscle of complementarian men weaponizing the Bible and wielding the gospel to fortify their authority and power in the church and at home. […]
Now, Pastor Greg Locke is a demon slayer
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on March 14, 2023. Nashville pastor Greg Locke gained national notoriety for his rebellion against COVID precautions, his denial of the pandemic itself and his enthusiastic support for Donald Trump. Now he’s found new life as a demon slayer. “It was never about the controversy. It was never […]
We don’t need more ‘context’ to understand Josh Butler’s article on sex and the church
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on March 6, 2023. In the wake of The Gospel Coalition publishing a male-centric sexual fantasy about Christ penetrating the church, we are getting a clearer picture of how their alliance is characterized by carelessness and control in an attempt to build author platforms by cultivating and protecting […]
Why aren’t we talking about the theology that drives white Christian nationalism?
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on February 21, 2023. Poll after poll and webinar after webinar lays out the data on white Christian nationalism. The facts of this threat to both democracy and faith are well-documented. What’s missing from nearly every public discussion is the toxic theology that fuels white Christian nationalism. Behind the […]
Sex, Tech, and Faith: Sexual Ethics for a Digital Age (Review)
This past year, I connected with the American Academy of Religion to write academic reviews of books about religion. For my first review, I discuss Sex, Tech, and Faith: Sexual Ethics for a Digital Age by Kate Ott. You can read my entire review of her book here.
Questions to ask while pondering if Asbury is hosting a ‘true revival’
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on February 21, 2023. Surprise! It’s a revival! So said Thomas H. McCall, a theology professor at Asbury Theological Seminary, located adjacent to the ongoing spiritual event at Asbury University in Wilmore, Ky. “Sometimes God does what Johnathan Edwards called ‘surprising work’ and what John Wesley referred to […]
Why Women Talking has women talking and complementarian men fuming
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on February 14, 2023. As much as conservative evangelicals love to hate Hollywood, sometimes Hollywood plays the role of the prophet, exposing the brutal power dynamics of complementarianism’s “male headship.” Such is the case with Brett McCracken, senior editor and director of communications at The Gospel Coalition. His article about […]
BioLogos Integrate helps us make all things new while beginning where we’re at
This piece was paid for by BioLogos Integrate. However, the opinions expressed within are my own and include my thoughts about the strengths and weaknesses of the curriculum. At the heart of Christian theology is the story of a God who meets humanity where we are at by entering into our world, wearing our skin, […]
Interview: “Courage to Question” on the Divorcing Religion Podcast
Last year, I covered the Conference On Religious Trauma in an article for Baptist News Global. While I figured they would probably be a bit unsure of how somebody writing for a Baptist news organization would cover their conference, I was very appreciative of the access they allowed me to have. After the article was […]
del Toro’s Pinocchio is a tale of faith that is not wooden
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on January 31, 2023. Little did Pinocchio know as he stood amidst the congregation, playfully mimicking the crucifix with outstretched arms and joined feet, that he would soon be hung on a cross as well. In Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, now streaming on Netflix, del Toro has much to […]
As more Americans delay health care they can’t afford, it’s time for the church to be a light once again
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on January 24, 2023. Imagine facing a medical condition and choosing to do nothing because of money. That was the case for 38% of Americans in 2022, up 12 percentage points from the previous year. According to Gallup, 27% of Americans reported the medical issues they were putting off […]
How our view of creation and incarnation shape our view of intersex people
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on January 18, 2023. Every disconnection from communal wholeness goes back to a disconnection within the self, which is fundamentally experienced in bodies. So the way Christians talk about Jesus being born as a human body has the potential to shape either wholeness or disconnection from self and […]
The New Apostolic Reformation drove the January 6 riots, so why was it overlooked by the House Select Committee?
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on January 10, 2023. As the U.S. Capitol building was under siege January 6, four of the six protest permits issued that day were to independent charismatic Christian groups that had spent the previous two months waging a spiritual war focused on overturning the election. Eight days prior […]
Kirk Cameron is promoting his new children’s book by protesting against other children’s books — and CRT and drag queens and librarians
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on December 4, 2023. Actor Kirk Cameron of “Left Behind” fame is cashing in on evangelical fears of LGBTQ people as he wages a war with “woke libraries” in a publicity stunt for his new children’s book. “It’s terrifying to me,” Cameron said regarding children’s books that depict […]
Ten things I learned as a religion writer in 2022
As 2022 draws to a close, I wanted to reflect back on what I’ve learned this year as a religion writer. The vast majority of my articles are published by Baptist News Global, which is a reader-supported, independent news organization that covers “the people, events and ideas that are shaping American religion and culture.” They […]
Russell Moore and Mike Cosper almost get there: A conversation on theology and anger
This article originally appeared on December 30, 2022 at Baptist News Global. At the turning of the year, religion writers and pundits reflect on the stories and conversations that shaped us and look forward to the conversations ahead. So far, Baptist News Global has shared a piece about how content creators shaped these conversations across a variety of platforms, as […]
Amy Grant will host a same-sex wedding, Franklin Graham objects, and where does that leave Michael W. Smith?
This article originally appeared on December 20, 2022 at Baptist News Global. Amy Grant is hosting her niece’s same-sex wedding on her farm, and Franklin Graham wants everyone to know he disapproves. Of course, this should come as no surprise to Graham. In a 2013 interview with the LGBTQ news outlet PrideSource, Grant said she knew by the […]
Doomsday Vault created to preserve conservative preaching against cancel culture
This article originally appeared on December 16, 2022 at Baptist News Global. In a world where peer-reviewed evolutionists are taken seriously and LGBTQ people are treated as peers, Bob Jones University and Sermon Audio have come up with a conservative evangelical counter-offensive known as The Vault. The two organizations have joined forces to build a doomsday vault […]
What have we learned about Matt Chandler’s sin and restoration? Not much
This article originally appeared on December 5, 2022 at Baptist News Global. Among the many reasons people are leaving institutional churches, there is one that runs deeper than them all. John MacArthur says it’s because “they deconstruct the Bible to give room for their pet sins and tolerances.” The Gospel Coalition says it’s because we have church […]
On meeting death as a sister
This story originally appeared at Baptist News Global on December 1, 2022. What if death isn’t the enemy we often think it is? And what if reconsidering our theology of death might help us live deeper into the union of self and neighbor? In four weeks, Christians across the world will celebrate the birth of Jesus. […]
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 […]