Don’t be surprised white evangelicals still support Jesse Watters
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on August 6, 2026. Given that white evangelicals have spent the last decade largely ignoring the sexual abuse being perpetrated by their pastors and politicians and even calling such allegations a hoax, it’s no wonder they’d celebrate sexually abusive pundits as well. According to 2025 data from Public Religion […]
Why are evangelicals freaking out over James Talarico?
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on March 12, 2026. He’s being called “Pastor Pornhub” and “the living embodiment of Satan on earth” by Christians on the religious and political right. So who is this terrifying figure? Is he a Dallas megachurch pastor who had to step aside for a “restoration process” after some […]
Of course, evangelicals are complaining about Stranger Things
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on January 5 2025. “Being gay is not a superpower,” one person wrote on social media. Immediately, my heart sank. Although I was still catching up on Stranger Things episodes, my gut told me we were on the precipice of yet another conservative panic attack over the existence of gay […]
How I learned to stop obsessing over lust and you can too
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on January 9, 2025. This second week of January is likely hard for plenty of evangelical men who made New Year’s resolutions not to lust. I know, because I used to be one of them. Even President Jimmy Carter had to deal with this. In a 1976 interview […]
Who is Alistair Begg, and why are American fundamentalists so upset with him?
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on February 1, 2024. “I’m not ready to repent over this. I don’t have to,” Alistair Begg boldly declared in a sermon titled “Compassion vs. Condemnation” at the non-denominational Parkside Church in Cleveland last Sunday. The accusations being leveled against Begg are that he has caved to the LGBTQ movement […]
What grief, denial and fear have to do with the evangelical fascination with Trump
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on January 26, 2024. “Whether Trump means it or not is kind of irrelevant because he’s saying the things to people who are hurting,” filmmaker Michael Moore told a gathering of voters in his 2016 documentary TrumpLand. “It’s why every beaten down, nameless, forgotten working stiff who used to be part […]
Will Christian Trump supporters exchange their humanity for ignorance or for violent delights?
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on January 10, 2024. “MAY THEY ROT IN HELL,” Donald Trump posted in all caps on Truth Social Christmas Day. “AGAIN, MERRY CHRISTMAS!” Although this message was par for the course when it comes to Trump, it also offered a moment that caught many people off guard. “What […]
If Good News Clubs get access to public schools, so does After School Satan Club
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on November 21, 2023. The Satanic Temple agreed to a settlement with Pennsylvania’s Saucon Valley School District last week for $200,000 in legal fees and access to their buildings for their After School Satan Club. It’s another victory for those who oppose Christian supremacy by appealing to the same religious […]
Association of Certified Biblical Counselors needs to look deeper than Bill Shannon to understand what ails them
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on November 7, 2023. The Association of Certified Biblical Counselors has removed Bill Shannon, women’s pastor and counseling pastor at John MacArthur’s Grace Community Church, from their approved counselors list due to credible allegations of protecting abusers and harming women. The accusations were cosigned in September by Hohn Cho, […]
Here are some ways to listen to Palestinian Christians
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on October 10, 2023. With war raging once again in Israel and Palestine, it seems far more people have opinions to proclaim about it than openness to listening. After the horrific attacks carried out by Hamas in which more than 1,600 people were killed and many more injured, […]
Must we change our language to reach climate change deniers?
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on September 19 2023. How can journalists reach evangelicals who get triggered by the term “climate change”? This is the question Rebecca Randall asks in a piece last week for BioLogos. Despite the fact that 97% of scientists accept climate science and 92% of Americans who identify as “highly religious” […]
Another C.S. Lewis knock-off letter shows what evangelicals get wrong about sex
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on August 22, 2023. Note: This article includes an explicit discussion of sexuality. Desiring God’s latest installment of cheap Screwtape Letter knockoffs features Greg Morse attempting to mimic C.S. Lewis’ classic novel by writing a letter from a “marriage counselor” demon named Grimrod to his dear nephew Globdrop. In […]
2023 was the year the evangelical obsession with Pride month turned violent
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on July 13, 2023. I toted my brood of children through Target, as Kevin DeYoung suggested, when suddenly I noticed the display of Pride T-shirts. At first, I thought it was nice that my LGBTQ neighbors would receive kind messages like “Free Mom Hugs” and “You Belong.” It seemed especially […]
The influence of celebrity culture on the court, in the church and in journalism
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on June 22, 2023. While the Denver Nuggets defeated the Miami Heat to win the NBA title for the first time in their 47-year history last week, Southern Baptist complementarians defeated the egalitarians to win the title of “pastor” exclusively for men for the first time in their […]
The hidden battle in Christian higher education: A conversation with Scott Okamoto
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on May 12, 2023. One of the most under-the-radar battles going on within American evangelicalism today is a civil war between Christian higher education and the local church. If you’ve missed this new trend, there’s a good reason: The more overt stories of abuse within schools and churches […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]