There is no safe space in John Piper’s cruel theology
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on June 30, 2026. Jesus orchestrated the brutal murder of your teenage friend and her mom. So says John Piper in a recent “Ask Pastor John” podcast episode titled, “Sovereignty and My Murdered Friend.” The podcast begins by acknowledging it’s a “very heavy episode” before asking people to donate […]
Understanding Al Mohler’s case against women
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on June 4, 2026. The so-called Mohler Amendment to prohibit women from functioning as pastors in Southern Baptist churches is being hailed by his minions as “critical for us at this juncture.” According to Brian Arnold, pastor of First Baptist Church Paducah, Ky.: “In a day and age […]
How bad theology has set us up for sexualized AI deepfakes
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on May 1, 2026. Given the research I conduct for writing, the ads my algorithm sends me can be all over the map. Nothing ever surprises me. But after looking into the recent story about 62 million visits to a website that contained instructions on how to sexually […]
Josh Howerton redefines following Jesus as becoming empire
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on February 5, 2026. Josh Howerton is an authoritarian theocrat who thinks his penis, pulpit and piety give him the right to rule the world. In a recent episode of his “Live Free” podcast, Howerton accuses YouTuber Rhett McLaughlin of gaslighting Christians. And in doing so, Howerton demonstrates how white […]
Sex, porn, bikinis, health care, hunger and Great Gatsby depravity
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on November 7, 2025. Those of us who grew up in white evangelical schools and churches are used to being coerced into submission under the threat of exile. In what we experienced as a theocracy, these institutions held total control over our lives, including what we did in […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Zuckerberg’s and Rogan’s masculinity sounds like evangelical complementarians
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on January 16, 2025. “It’s also good to know that you can kill people,” Joe Rogan opined in his podcast interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as the men began to giggle. “There’s a certain confidence from that,” Zuckerberg affirmed. “If you could sell it in a pill, […]
Unsurprisingly, The Gospel Coalition loathes the Wicked movie
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on December 5, 2024. One of the most noteworthy theological trends in 21st-century pop Calvinism has been the rehabilitation of the patriarchy. From Josh Howerton to Mark Driscoll to John MacArthur and more, iconic pastors are now routinely given platforms and sympathetic backstories that attempt to complicate categories of good and evil. This has dovetailed […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Butker’s commencement speech echoes MacArthur and other male supremacists
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on May 15, 2024. With Pride Month looming over the horizon and women graduating from college, Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker decided to attack “dangerous gender ideologies” when he gave the commencement address at Benedictine College. Butker, an outspoken conservative Catholic, believes the gender ideologies he is […]
Here’s how toxic male supremacy keeps on infecting the church, even in a supposed ‘apology’
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on April 10, 2024. “So, that’s awesome, man,” megachurch pastor Josh Howerton concluded in what he claimed was an apology to his congregation on Sunday. “Can we move on now? Y’all good with that? We’re gonna do that. That’s what we’re going to do. OK?” Then he clapped […]
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 […]
‘The moment we allow our hearts to go numb to the deaths of any children is the moment we shut down our humanity’
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on October 17, 2023. As someone whose ancestors immigrated to the United States from Lebanon, the faces of children suffering in the war in Israel remind me of my own children. The limp body of a 5-year-old girl being carried through the rubble, and the bare, bloody shoulders […]
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” […]
Why I have empathy for Karen Swallow Prior
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on July 5, 2023. “I’ve been struggling with regret lately, specifically in feeling like I wasted my whole academic career (given how things have turned out),” tweeted Karen Swallow Prior three months after resigning from the faculty of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. When she announced her retirement in March, Prior […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
‘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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]