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.
Why Dale Moody blew up his career
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.
Non-unanimous juries, rampant corruption and the fight to bring Jace Washington home
The level of misconduct involved in the mishandling of Jace’s case is egregious and abhorrent, a graphic illustration of the endemic discrimination by which the Walter Reed administration conducted its work over three merciless decades.
Why I love the Apostles’ Creed
progressive Christians, perhaps for the first time, leaped to the president’s defense, eager to broadcast their disdain for a religious relic they no longer believe.
If Jesus is such an embarrassment, why Does Jerry Jr. persist in calling himself a Christian?
Asked to explain his statement that there was literally nothing Donald Trump could do to lose his support, Jerry Falwell Jr. shared his twisted theory of two kingdoms.
Exciting Times for Friends of Justice
This has been a great week for Friends of Justice!
When churches fail: the abiding challenge of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Dietrich Bonhoeffer has emerged as a hero for both evangelical and liberal Christians. But he wasn’t interested in being a hero or a martyr or a saint; he was interested in speaking the truth even when he feared it had vanished from the face of the earth.
Silence in the Face of Evil: Learning from Elisabeth Schmitz.
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” Although these words have frequently been attributed to Bonhoeffer, they do not appear in any of his writings. It was Elisabeth Schmitz who denounced silence in the face of a horribly specific evil other members of the Confessing Church seemed hesitant to name.
Ed Young Calls Democratic party “a godless religion”
The devout and the religiously indifferent must learn to work together or nothing of lasting significance will be accomplished.
Three Disturbing Books
All three books emphasize the pervading sense of white superiority common to our ancestors in the white world, and following their descendants into the “New World”
Friends of Justice 