Public Punditry

Over the last seventy-two hours, reports of sexual abuse within the SBC Executive Committee have come to light, exposing the past two decades’ cover-ups, lies, and harm coming at the hands and words of the denomination’s most powerful leaders. In the coming days the Executive Committee will reveal the list carrying the names several more abusers, which will further carry the wave of anger and disappointment around the world. As documented by the Washington Post, Christianity Today, and virtually every other news service across the country, subjects of shock, awe, and hypocrisy were the main takeaways. David French called the report by Guidepost Solutions LLC “A Southern Baptist Horror.” Russell Moore, former president of the SBC’s policy arm, the Ethics, and Religious Liberty Commission, took it a step further, naming it the “Southern Baptist Apocalypse.” In the aftermath, several pastors who served as SBC president were mentioned as abusers or complicit in abuse, including Steve Gaine...

Empty, Alone, and Doing the Right Thing Picture this for a moment: you’re running down a dark alley. There are towering high-rise apartments on each side of you, and debris is falling from above. There are elephants-sized tears welling up and running across your face like a window in the middle of a rainstorm. Up to this point, you’ve even forgotten why you began to run in the first place but unwilling to stop, lest you get trounced with empty glass bottles and crushed-up cans. You’re afraid, lost, and alone.   That’s how my faith walk felt for much of the past calendar year. Here’s the problem though. I wasn’t living a life filled with the cardinal sins: sex, drugs, and alcohol. I wasn’t abstaining from the church. I wasn’t refusing to read the Bible. My life has been the exact opposite. I was and still am a Bible student at a Christian school who occasionally spends his time preaching in churches and other times regularly attends and actively participates with a local congregatio...

If you’re reading this, more than likely there is someone near and dear to you graduating this weekend. They may be a family member, coworker, or in my case, some of your best friends. As the graduates strolled across the stages to receive their diplomas, their identity changed from “current student” to “alum.” There are a lot of different emotions between that identity change. These new alums leave behind classmates, friends, and professors as they take the next step pursuing their new lives, forming families and careers. This next phase of life may place them in a new city, state, or country, but regardless, they are placed in a new state of mind.     There will be more responsibilities, more stress, more bills, a 9-5 workday, and more of those god-forsaken student loan payments, all coming at a salary that is slightly larger than an intern. All these things require a healthy community and camaraderie to build up against these outside pressures and stressors, and to be frank...

It’s 2003. In the next decade, there will be a financial crisis, thousands of troops sent to the Middle East,  the United States will be led by their first Black president, and LeBron James will replace Michael Jordan as the preeminent face of the sports world. But you’re not worried about that right now. You’re at Chuck E. Cheese. The pizza has been served. Your spouse and 67 percent of offspring are sitting at the table in anxious anticipation for the gooey goodness of cheese pizza to hit their taste buds. But they’re not eating right now, they’re waiting on you. Why? Because you are knee deep in the ball pit, throwing ball after ball against the chain link walls in search of your youngest son.     It’s been fifteen minutes, and he’s nowhere in sight. His three-and-a-half-foot frame seems to be submerged in the sea of color, and you can’t grab him, because his blue and green stripes do not provide contrast striking enough to stick out, so you keep searching. You cannot ...