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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Seminary provides safe space to engage difficult questions
This article was based on an interview I gave to Northern Seminary and originally appeared on July 26, 2021 at Northern Seminary. When Rick Pidcock decided to go to seminary, he was actually on a journey away from pursuing church leadership. He was also going through a challenging season of deconstructing his faith. Before applying […]
While we’re talking about guns in America, let’s talk about our fear-based theology that also drives gun sales
This article originally appeared on July 19, 2021 at Baptist News Global. The sound of skidding tires filled the air as the car spun around, the window rolled down, and an arm reached out. It wasn’t until the third shot that I realized that I was staring down the barrel of a gun. With nowhere to […]
Lessons learned during the pandemic as a parent who found joy in the desert
This article originally appeared on July 7, 2021 at Baptist News Global. Months ago, we sat around the wooden table in our booth, enjoying our food and reminding our kids to be mindful of the other customers around us. With five kids under the age of 10, it isn’t an everyday experience to be able to […]
How could God command the violent murder and plundering of Israel’s neighbors?
This article originally appeared on June 26, 2021 at Medium. For one of my seminary classes, we had to write a pastoral letter to someone about the commands in the Hebrew Bible for Israel to kill their neighbors. We were given a number of academic resources that we were to interact with to explore how […]
The role of seminaries in guiding ex-evangelicals like me through deconstruction
This article originally appeared on June 24, 2021 at Baptist News Global. Over the past decade, evangelicals have had to come to terms with the fact that people are leaving the church in droves. According to a recent Gallup poll, just 47% of Americans are members of a church, falling from 70% in 1999. This decline in […]
American Christianity in China also imports gender bias and Calvinism
This article originally appeared on April 9, 2021 at Baptist News Global. Imagine if America’s coalition of conspiracy theorist, cowboy Christianity had colonized its way into the world of international politics and sexual abuse cover-ups under the guise of spreading the gospel. Research scholar Mary Li Ma believes this isn’t an imaginary scenario, but a very real one […]
Oprah’s interview with Meghan and Harry offers a lesson on when the ‘institution’ is the church
This article originally appeared on March 15, 2021 at Baptist News Global. As Bishop Curry spoke about the power of love during Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s royal wedding in 2018, having recently joined the Anglican Communion myself, my heart was full. But when I watched Oprah’s interview with Harry and Meghan last week, I was stunned at […]
Think you understand what it’s like to live on minimum wage? Here’s my story.
This article originally appeared on January 26, 2021 at Baptist News Global. Two weeks before I got married, I lost my job delivering pizzas because I had gotten three tickets for minor traffic violations over the previous two years. So when we got back from our honeymoon, I landed a job working at another fast food […]
My journey from being a young-earth Creationist, Dispensationalist Republican to seeing my neighbor as worthy of my vote
This article originally appeared on October 27, 2020 at Baptist News Global. My body was tense as I sat in the white-walled classroom of my Baptist high school in Middle Georgia. With the sounds of pretend canons firing at the Civil War reenactment across the street, I listened to my teacher tell us about how President […]
I’m a stay-at-home dad who’s learning the power of relationships
This article originally appeared on September 23, 2020 at Baptist News Global. I’m a stay-at-home dad for five kids under the age of 10. One of the most common responses to my recent piece about how John MacArthur doesn’t love his neighbor has been people attacking me for being a stay-at-home dad. Who am I as a stay-at-home […]
Coronavirus summer highlights the best and worst in Christian camps
This article originally appeared on August 4, 2020 at Baptist News Global. I stood next to my friend in the parking lot of our Baptist church with my large suitcase while our moms took our photographs. I was 8 years old. And I was about to experience my first time away from my parents overnight at […]
How John MacArthur loves the Bible but not his neighbor
This article originally appeared on July 28, 2020 at Baptist News Global. As he walked across the stage July 26 to the large, wooden pulpit, the auditorium that seats 3,500 people was filled with non-masked, non-socially distanced conservative evangelicals with another 1,000 people gathered outside who all jumped to their feet for a standing ovation. The […]
How Reading Aristotle Frees Us from John Piper and Albert Mohler’s Complementarianism
This article originally appeared on July 11, 2020 on Medium and was edited on September 6, 2021 to include recent quotes from John Piper. After growing up in the patriarchal world of the Independent Fundamental Baptists where men would sit on couches watching football and waiting to be served their dessert while maintaining absolute control […]
In ‘Hamilton’ King George has Calvin on his side
I watched “Hamilton” last night for the first time. And I was struck by the parallels in King George’s song You’ll Be Back to the Calvinistic view of God. The lyrics say: “The price of my love’s not a price that you’re willing to pay …Now you’re making me mad …And when push comes to shoveI will […]
A Response to Kevin DeYoung’s Culture War Strategy
This article originally appeared on June 20, 2020 on Medium. I’m sound asleep when suddenly I get jolted awake by my screaming four year old son. Bleary eyed, I try to get a grip on my surroundings as I role out of bed, pull up some shorts, and put on a shirt. My four year […]
How My Evangelical Theology Disconnected Me From My Black Neighbors, and How I’m Healing
This article originally appeared on May 29, 2020 on Medium. In 2015, I was a huge conservative talk radio listener. Every day, I’d tune in to Hugh Hewitt, Mike Gallagher, Dennis Prager, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin. I was sold on everything they said. Then every few months, another black man would die at […]
The Church in Lonely Exile
This article originally appeared on March 23, 2020 at Worship Overflow and reflects my desires at the time for churches entering into the Covid-19 pandemic. As our days of staying home due to the coronavirus turn into weeks, Christians are feeling something they have most likely never felt on Sunday mornings before, at least in the West. […]
Mythical Deconstruction
This article originally appeared on February 29, 2020 at Worship Overflow. A pair of YouTubers who I admittedly had never heard of named Rhett and Link recently shared their de-conversion stories. Now, I’ve never watched any of their videos other than the two videos about their personal stories. But with that said, there was much about their stories that […]
Uncategorized
This article originally appeared on September 17, 2019 at Worship Overflow. You may have noticed over the past few articles I’ve posted that they’ve each been listed as “Uncategorized.” At first glance, this may appear to be due to laziness on my part. But in a weird way, it has actually been a healing exercise for […]
Moving Through Doubt Toward Wonder
This article originally appeared on July 20, 2019 at Worship Overflow. Every moment of loving, creative overflow begins with the seed of wonder. We may not even recognize it as such. In fact, we may not even notice what is happening in our souls until the seed of wonder begins to grow into questions. This […]
Squirrels and Sacraments
This article originally appeared on March 23, 2019 at Worship Overflow. I sat down into my chair as the light filled room began to slowly sing with the soft whispers of old and new friends. We’d been having a stunningly beautiful experience of wonder, rest, and community over the past 16 hours. And as the morning […]
When This Particular Castle Crumbles
This article originally appeared on January 31, 2019 at Worship Overflow. Two years ago, I purchased the Worship Overflow domain and was excited about starting my new blog. A couple years prior, I had gone through an extensive season of healing. I had gained much clarity regarding my gifts and desires. And I was ready […]