Let us frankly acknowledge that the word “evangelical” has become a working synonym for the religious right and is thus beyond salvaging. I have given up on the e-word. I am effectively post-evangelical. If you share this sad distinction, we need to talk. Many post-evangelical … Continue reading Is the Bible God a loving God?
This story appeared in major Canadian newspapers in 2007, shortly after the massive rally in Jena, Louisiana.
Over the years I’ve learned a lot from Appalachian serpent-handlers. They are what we call “hot gospellers” who “get saved hard,” the ultimate biblical literalists, see Mark chapter 16. They’re not crazy, but they are rather weird. They taught me this: For serpent handlers, the sacrament is alive, and it can kill you. Every time you go to worship it is a matter of life and death.
“A man with the Bible in one hand and a whip in the other will use the Bible to justify the whip.”
There will be no seventh trial for Curtis Flowers. If the Supreme Court of the United States doesn’t vacate the 2010 conviction in the Flowers case, jaws across America will hit the floor. Mine will be one of them. Curtis is almost sure to get … Continue reading Why there will be no trial seven for Curtis Flowers
fter years of conversations with ordinary Americans, Brooks now seconds the motion laid out five years ago by Ta-Nehisi Coates in an essay in the Atlantic. If the center-right Brooks finds Coates persuasive, you might too.
I am passing along my latest opinion piece for Baptist News Global.
Dale Moody was a professor at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary between 1947 and 1983. If you are familiar with W.A. Criswell you will have a pretty good notion of Moody’s speaking style. He was brash. He was an inveterate name-dropper (and he had so many names to drop). Moreover, he claimed to believe the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.
The comparisons end there. Unlike Criswell, Moody embraced the theory of biological evolution and had no trouble believing that the earth was every bit as ancient as the scientific community claimed. His conservative theology notwithstanding, Moody had kissed dispensational eschatology (think “Left Behind”) and fundamentalism goodbye.
In the early 1980s, Moody sacrificed his career over the Southern Baptist doctrine of eternal security, popularly known as “once saved, always saved.” No one could understand why the popular preacher and teacher would challenge one of the pillars of Southern Baptist orthodoxy.
In this piece, I argue that Moody’s crusade against “once saved, always saved” anticipated the clergy sexual abuse currently roiling the Southern Baptist Convention.
