Appealing to religious freedom is the way to counter Christian supremacism in America today
This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on August 7, 2023. Christian supremacism has gotten completely out of hand in the United States. We’ve seen it in the insurrection warfare of the New Apostolic Reformation, the battle against librarians by the likes of Kirk Cameron, the desire to punish homosexuality by Al Mohler, Dan Patrick’s claims that God wrote the […]
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 […]
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 […]
Of wonders and wounds, cloister gardens and chasmic Christianity
This article originally appeared on January 5, 2021 at Baptist News Global. The day I walked out of church, I had just finished assisting our children’s church lesson about how God created the world in six literal days. God had put the first two humans in a garden with one rule, and then sent them into […]
Worship event at National Mall illustrates merger of evangelical music and politics
This article originally appeared on September 29, 2020 at Baptist News Global. It was billed as a worship rally, but it could have been a political rally. Last Saturday, Sept. 26, nearly 100,000 evangelicals gathered at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., for the stated purpose of worshiping God. They were led by Vice President Mike Pence speaking and by Michael W. Smith in singing. Among […]