After Annual Meeting, Southern Baptists Begin the Hard Work of Abuse Reform

Survivors sensed a godly shift as messengers approved plans and their new president put sexual predators “on notice.” Southern Baptists sang slow and low, “Lord, have mercy on me,” in the cavernous meeting hall where they apologized for their failure to care for survivors and approved long-awaited measures designed to keep predatory pastors and irresponsible churches out of the convention. Tiffany Thigpen attended the annual meeting in Anaheim, California, with fellow abuse... Read More

Summer Solstice Reminds Us of God’s Grace to All

Why it matters that the Lord lets the sun rise on both the evil and on the good. This Tuesday, the sun will hang in the sky over the Northern Hemisphere for what is colloquially known as the “longest day of the year.” In reality, the sun’s position will be no different than usual, but our perception of it will be different owing to the earth’s tilt on its axis as it orbits the sun. Where I live in the mid-Atlantic, we’ll enjoy over fourteen hours of sunlight,... Read More

The Last Gift My Father Gave Me

A surprising encounter with my dad, Jesus, and Jerry Seinfeld opened a door to long-awaited healing. Last April, I found myself sobbing unexpectedly and uncontrollably while sitting in a barbershop for a haircut. It was the first time I’d really wept since my father passed away a month earlier. I’ve had a complicated relationship with grief. Six years before, I left vocational church ministry. I resigned from a church I’d helped plant 15 years earlier, a church I thought... Read More

Synod Votes to Simplify, Clarify Cross-Borders Relationship of the Christian Reformed Church

Task force proposal promises to help US and Canadian congregations work together more easily. What’s the relationship between the Christian Reformed Church in North America in Canada and the Christian Reformed Church in North America in the United States? It’s complicated. The Christian Reformed Church in North America (CRC) is single denomination. But legally it exists as two separate entities—one incorporated in Michigan, the other north of the border. Bound together by... Read More

Juneteenth is a Chance to Rethink Our Gun Culture

Christians should work together to address our nation’s hate-motivated gun violence. On May 14, I joined a group of pastors from Brooklyn leading a march through Chinatown, Manhattan. I’m a member of the 67th Precinct Clergy Council—also known as the “GodSquad”—which has long worked to prevent gun violence in our neighborhood of East Flatbush through street engagement, education, leadership training, neighborhood organizing, targeted interventions, victim... Read More

Evangelicals Can Agree: We’re Women, not ‘Bodies with Vaginas’

To verbally dismember women is denigration, not inclusion. When the Supreme Court’s draft decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization leaked in early May, a tweeted response from the American Civil Liberties Union had a curious omission: It listed groups the ACLU said would be disproportionately harmed by the end of Roe v. Wade (1973), but it didn’t mention women. And this wasn’t the ACLU’s first foray into treating women as... Read More

For Christians, Juneteenth Is a Time of Jubilee

Observing Juneteenth as a national holiday affirms what we believe about our faith and our freedoms. was never taught about Juneteenth growing up. I was born and raised in Philadelphia, the “cradle of liberty,” in Pennsylvania—which was the first state to end slavery with the Gradual Abolition Act of 1780. Philly was one of the major stops on the Underground Railroad, thanks to the abolitionism of the Quakers, and the home of Richard Allen’s Free African Society. And... Read More

World Vision Employee Convicted of Terrorism, Despite Lack of Public Evidence

Israeli court says the Palestinian who directed humanitarian aid in Gaza was secretly working for Hamas. An Israeli court convicted Mohammad el-Halabi, former Gaza director for World Vision International, on terrorism charges Wednesday. The Beersheba District Court ruled that he is guilty of being a member of a terror organization, providing information to a terror group, taking part in forbidden military exercises, and carrying a weapon. Halabi has not yet been sentenced. He is expected to... Read More

Saddleback Female Pastors Debate Raises Bigger Questions for the SBC

Even without a decision on whether to disfellowship Rick Warren’s megachurch, Southern Baptists are left wondering about where a denomination of independent churches draws its boundary lines. Retiring megachurch pastor Rick Warren stood up among a crowd of Southern Baptists to address the convention for what could be his last time. The 68-year-old leader referred to his remarks as both a “love letter” to the denomination and his “dying words.” “Are we going... Read More

What Antisemitism Looks Like When It Is Carved into Church

Q&A with World Evangelical Alliance head Thomas Schirrmacher on the problem of offensive public sculptures and how Christians came to embrace evil conspiracy theories about the Jews. A sculpture outside of a Wittenberg church where Martin Luther once preached shows three small people in pointy hats, meant to be Jews, sucking from the teats of a large female pig. A fourth figure stands behind the sow, lifting up the pig’s tail, and looking at its butt. The obscene and bizarre image... Read More