On Sunday, First Baptist Church of North Tulsa’s current sanctuary throbbed with a high-decibel service as six congregations gathered to mark the centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre and to honor the persistence of the Black church tradition in Greenwood.
Just two days after Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, accused former President Paige Patterson of theft, Patterson preached at First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, a Southern Baptist megachurch led by Robert Jeffress. Patterson claimed a “lynch mob” was trying to get
Three years after trustees at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary fired Paige Patterson as president, the school alleges Patterson and his wife Dorothy took items from the SWBTS and improperly contacted SWBTS donors to shift funding to the Pattersons’ personal nonprofit.
Columnist Sarah Blackwell writes about “beneficial mutations” that allow organisms to thrive in a new or changing environment. She proposes two areas where churches need to embrace such mutations.
Ryan Burge explored the relationship between different faiths and the TV news they watch. Some very interesting patterns emerged across religious traditions – and the nonreligious – and the type of media being consumed.
In this issue of A Public Witness, we’ll look at what canceling is — and isn’t. We’ll also consider the Christian virtue lacking in our politics, culture, and churches when our first reaction is to silence others whose opinions differ from our own.
Beau Underwood writes that he likes asking people “what makes you believe in and follow Jesus?” But he also reflects on that question in his own life since he has the responsibility to work out his own salvation with fear and trembling.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s newest guidance about masks was about individuals; its advice for “communities of faith” has not been updated since Feb. 19 and currently does not mention singing.
While Rep. Matt Gaetz’s behavior may pose legal troubles for him, it proves embarrassing to a religious movement whose claims ring hollow when championed by such a messenger. Worse yet, his views are emblematic of a dangerous belief system rampaging through the country and its churches.
As Tulsa pauses to mark the somber centenary of the Tulsa massacre in its Greenwood district, where Black Wall Street was located, Black people of faith are among those saying the time has come to repay as well as to remember.