Category: Uncategorized

How Trump’s dehumanizing language promotes white supremacy

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on August 15, 2025. “I’m announcing a historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse,” President Donald Trump declared this week while surrounded by six members of his administration. “This is Liberation Day in D.C., and we’re gonna take our capital […]

Here’s why authoritarians go after historians and journalists

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on August 8, 2025. “Those that don’t know any history think everything is an overreaction right now. Those that do know history think everything is an underreaction right now.” These were the words posted recently on Threads by medical physicist and musician Benito Thompson. To which Jemar Tisby replied, “As […]

Licensing agency finds religious trauma coach in violation of Code of Ethics

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on July 28, 2025. One of the best-known therapists and coaches working with people suffering religious trauma has been sanctioned by the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists for violating the group’s Code of Ethics on boundaries. In a letter dated July 25, Laura Anderson was informed […]

10 Bible verses Christian nationalists take out of context to seize power

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on July 20, 2025. Christian nationalists are world-class experts in seizing power by taking Bible verses out of context. Growing up, my independent Baptist high school constantly used Philippians 4:13 as proof we could win the state championship, Jeremiah 29:11 as proof God would let us get married […]

John MacArthur met his own definition of a false prophet

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on July 14, 2025. How should we respond when someone who uses theology to promote ignorant, misogynistic, racist, power mongering authoritarianism dies? To use biblical language, we might call these people false prophets, ravenous wolves, deceivers, anti-Christs, evil men, seducers, lovers of self, foolish and unlearned men, just […]

Prestonwood celebrates Trump and Supreme Court in morning worship

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on July 2, 2025. “This is a time for us to celebrate America,” Prestonwood Baptist Church Pastor Jack Graham declared in his all-white suit in a scene reminiscent of a Jesse Gemstone sermon in HBO Max’s The Righteous Gemstones. “Just because you love America doesn’t mean you don’t love […]

From Hamilton to subversive justice

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on June 27, 2025. When Baptist News Global Executive Director Mark Wingfield asked me five years ago if he could publish my piece comparing King George in Hamilton to Calvinism’s God, I had no idea the opportunities his invitation would bring me. One of my favorite opportunities has been attending the Cooperative […]

Evangelicals are mean to kids, beginning at home

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on June 13, 2025. Every Father’s Day weekend, complementarian women post on social media about how thankful they are for their husbands’ loving leadership. Photos of confidently smiling men who think the gospel requires them to be the heads of their households grace our newsfeeds. While many of […]

Will the SBC keep Lakepointe after kicking out Saddleback?

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on June 6, 2025. Given how often Dallas megachurch pastors have been in the news for abuse scandals or for run-of-the-mill sacralized misogyny over the past year, it’s only fitting that the Southern Baptist Convention would host its 2025 annual meeting in Dallas. When they meet next week, […]

You won’t believe our story of Medicaid waste, fraud and abuse

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on May 22, 2025. Three days before what we thought would be my wife, Ruth Ellen’s, final surgery for stage three breast cancer, my mind was racing as I was trying to finish moving out of our old house while confirming plans for where our five kids would […]

Woman preaches at Lakepointe ‘under the fathers of this house’

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on May 15, 2025. In a scene reminiscent of a Serena Waterford speech from Margaret Atwood’s dystopian depiction of totalitarian patriarchy in The Handmaid’s Tale, Dallas megachurch pastor Josh Howerton and his fellow elders allowed a woman to preach on Mother’s Day. If you’re a complementarian, that’s likely where […]

So Paula White’s a complementarian? Really?

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on April 30, 2025. While many express concern about Paula White’s leadership in the White House Faith Office due to her adherence to the prosperity gospel and her bizarre, tongue-speaking prophecies for Donald Trump, one of the surprising developments of this past week was video of her embracing […]

Trump, Harvard and Bob Jones University: The resurrection of racism

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on April 21, 2025. Donald Trump’s threat to revoke the tax-exempt status of Harvard University may be novel, but it is not new. It is, in fact, a resurrection of a previous kind of discrimination. There’s one other time in American history when a private university lost its […]

That time I got an angry call from the subject of an article about anger and abuse

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on March 23, 2025. Editor’s note: It is BNG’s policy to correct factual errors as soon as possible after learning about those errors. In the case of Rick Pidcock’s earlier piece mentioned here, we have not been informed of any factual errors or asked to make any […]

Why we can’t convince some Christians to love their neighbor

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on March 14, 2025. It shouldn’t be this difficult to convince conservative Christians to love their neighbor. But in seemingly every example of someone in power mistreating the marginalized these days, the Religious Right sides with the person in power. The presence those on the right have in […]

Our debate ultimately is about the dignity and humanity of women

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on March 5, 2025. A conservative friend on social media recently admitted that some of the storylines around Donald Trump’s second term have been extreme but concluded this is simply the way the pendulum swings. In one sense, what he said was true. Since Jimmy Carter, the Democrats […]

Are we a democracy or a republic? Why words matter

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on February 27, 2025. “The United States is not a democracy! It’s a republic!” my independent Baptist high school government teacher declared over the sound of gunfire and cannons exploding in the Civil War re-enactment across the street. Almost three decades later, the debate still isn’t settled. And […]

Feeling overwhelmed? Think local, Tyler advises

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on February 18, 2025. It can be overwhelming to consider that there won’t be a presidential election for nearly four years, or even the possibility of winning either the House or Senate away from the control of Christian nationalists for another two years. One recent CNN headline said, “Democrats confront […]

When a church’s sexual abuse is so pernicious the church should close

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on February 11, 2025. “The nation of Israel was born because Joseph went to prison,” former IHOPKC pastor Mike Bickle told the congregation in what would become his final sermon in October,2023. “He’s thrown in prison because of the betrayal of his brothers.” Then he concluded, “The nation […]

Why Trump seeks to create a government of one person

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on February 7, 2025. “Do you believe I am unwittingly supporting the Antichrist?” Benjamin Cole asked BNG Executive Director Mark Wingfield in perhaps the most contentious episode of BNG’s “Stuck in the Middle with You” podcast to date. In an hour-long conversation on current politics, the temperature started to rise […]

White evangelical men weaponize the gospel against women because they don’t respect women

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on January 27, 2025. “Do men desperately need respect, while women desperately need love?” This was the question posed by Sheila Gregoire on a recent episode of the “Bare Marriage” podcast. “That is the thesis of a lot of best-selling books in evangelicalism like Love and Respect; For Women Only; His Needs, Her […]

Notre Dame event models the hospitality needed for national healing

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on December 11, 2024. As I walked through the snow toward McKenna Hall at Notre Dame University, I imagined the next 12 hours would include hard truths and valuable insights from professors and pundits about the reelection of Donald Trump and the Republican takeover of Congress. The 2024 Election […]

Hegseth’s nomination fits the TheoBro pattern creating abuse culture

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on November 26, 2024. Given the state of their churches, it makes total sense that conservative evangelicals would elect a president who has a history of bragging about sexual assault. And it also makes sense that this sexually abusive president would nominate five people to his cabinet who […]

Dispirited Christians must prepare to stand in the gap, historians urge

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on November 20, 2024. “We’re obviously in a very different space than we were in the last two times we had this conversation,” Robert P. Jones said to open the third “Faith and Democracy” tour event with historians Diana Butler Bass, Jemar Tisby and Kristin Du Mez. The […]

Here’s the toxic racism and misogyny you let loose with a vote for Trump

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on November 11, 2024. If Kamala Harris had won, no Black people would be receiving text messages threatening to make them slaves again, and no women would be being told, “Your body, my choice.” When Trump wins, those things happen. And when Trump loses, insurrections happen. That is the […]

The mysteries of the Latino vote for Trump

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on November 7, 2024. I’m furious at white evangelicals today, and especially at my white evangelical neighbors. A little over a month ago, Hurricane Helene left our neighborhood looking like a disaster zone. To this day, we still have large trees down in our yards and streets. And while the […]

When ‘thy kingdom come’ is a threat more than a blessing

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on November 4, 2024. Every election season since I left the final church I was a part of in 2019 is a reminder of why I don’t think I could ever go back. And I know many ex-evangelicals agree with me. I’m writing this just days before the […]

Why inerrancy is a threat to democracy

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on October 21, 2024. If 200,000 Democrats met at the National Mall three weeks before a presidential election, erected an altar and started smashing it while yelling about the GOP candidate getting thrown from a tower, trampled by horses, eaten by dogs and turned into dung, the demand […]

A tale of two rallies on the same day in North Carolina

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on October 16, 2024. The juxtaposition of experiencing the “Kingdom to the Capitol” tour followed by the “Faith and Democracy” tour in North Carolina on Sunday was a contrast in theology and politics that demonstrates the fracturing of American Christianity unlike any pairing of events in a single […]

Now they’re going after Bluey for being woke

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on October 8, 2024. “We can’t know whether Bluey will one day go the woke way of Peppa,” The Gospel Coalition’s Brett McCracken wrote two years ago in response to the cartoon Peppa Pig introducing “a character with ‘two mummies.’” According to McCracken, “Pressure is immense and relentless for even the most innocent children’s entertainment […]

Looking for God in the midst of the storm

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on October 4, 2024. The wind was rushing so strong that it sounded like someone left water running outside as I woke up early last Friday morning. When our kids found their way through the dark house to our room, we looked out the window to see […]

10 examples of conservative evangelicals turning truth into dangerous lies

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on September 18, 2024. Conservative evangelicals claim to be the arbiters of truth in a post-truth world. But if we take a moment to consider how the last few months have gone, we’ll notice a pattern emerge. Story after story, conservatives are the ones who seem to be […]

Deconstructing God as king

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on August 30, 2024. As Donald Trump criticizes Kamala Harris for supposedly “turning Black,” laughing too expressively or creating AI-generated crowds, his poll numbers are slipping. Therefore, many of his political advisers are urging him to focus on policies. One of the most common statements from conservative pundits […]

White Calvinist theology has gone to hell

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on August 23, 2024. “They’re going to hell,” declared Founders Ministry president and Southern Baptist pastor Tom Ascol. In a scene reminiscent of Oprah Winfrey’s “You Get a Car” giveaway, Ascol proclaimed, “Kamala Harris is going to hell, … (Anne) Branigin is going to hell, Jake Tapper is […]

Who are the billionaires and celebrity pastors supporting Megan Basham?

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on August 15, 2024. Megan Basham may have been given the 2024 Boniface Award for “fearless and faithful” journalism by the Association of Classical Christian Schools for taking “a stand for the Christian viewpoint … without bitterness and in a godly and grace-filled way.” But her latest book, Shepherds […]

How concerned should we be about conspiracy theorists counting our votes?

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on August 11, 2024. Growing up as an independent fundamentalist Baptist, the highlight of each year for our church was the weeklong revival meeting, where we began each night with songs that prepared our hearts for a sermon by a fiery evangelist who then gave an altar call […]

What JD Vance and Harrison Butker have in common

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on July 23, 2024. The most disturbing truth we’re learning this week about Republican Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance isn’t his demonization of the poor in Appalachia, his words about staying in abusive marriages for the sake of the kids, his claim that becoming pregnant through rape is an inconvenience, or even his […]

Must our quests for liberty be mutually exclusive?

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on July 16, 2024. There’s a strange tension in the minds of many people between the desires for independence and community. It comes up often in conversations about churches and denominations. A church may want to be independent yet participate in the community of a denomination or family […]

Don’t blame ‘the media’ for reporting your own violent language

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on July 14, 2024. Boston Globe reporter James Pindell stood in front of the press riser in the 91-degree heat as the gun smoke settled and Donald Trump rose up with blood running down his cheek, pumped his fist, and yelled, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” The crowd, understandably in shock, […]

When being a pastor is ‘the most important calling,’ family values take a back seat

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on June 27, 2024. Most of the noise at this month’s Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting was from men attempting to cement their pastoral power over women, Christian nationalists attacking religious liberty, messengers seeking to censure SBC leaders publicly, and the convention voting to oppose in vitro fertilization.These […]

What’s happening to megachurch pastors in Dallas?

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on June 25, 2024. Megachurch pastors in Dallas are starting to drop like flies. On June 9, Tony Evans stepped away for an unspecified period of time from the 10,000-member Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, a church he started in his living room and led for 48 years, explaining vaguely that […]

Watching SBC men posture for position is exhausting

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on June 10, 2024. It’s exhausting to the soul. That’s what I’m feeling as I consider all the possible stories I could write regarding what white conservative men have planned for this year’s Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Indianapolis. Capturing most headlines is the Law Amendment, which […]

The Harrison Butker story is so much weirder than you know

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on May 24, 2024. “The headline could just be, ‘Man who kicks ball for a living and has no other job criticizes women who want to be nurses, surgeons and U.N. Secretary General,’” said Brad Onishi on the Straight White American Jesus podcast episode that featured discussion about the Kansas […]

What can we learn from children about being liberated from Kendomland?

This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on April 30, 2024. April 2024 has been the month when the Kens of the Mojo Dojo Casa Churches came out in full force to flex their patriarchy power in preach-offs. It started with Josh Howerton telling women to crown dishonorable men as their kings and telling women to stand, […]