Podcasts

In 2018, Word&Way launched the award-winning podcast “Baptist Without An Adjective,” a weekly show that features interviews with Baptists across the denominational, ethnic, national, and ideological lines that too often divide us. Here are the 10 most-downloaded episodes in 2020.

The pastor of Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris’s Baptist church praises her as “human decency and dignity at its best.” Amos C. Brown, a longtime civil rights activist who has pastored Third Baptist Church of San Francisco since 1976, made the comments in a Word&Way interview.

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, a Baptist minister in North Carolina, sees the removal of Confederate monuments across the country as “very biblical.” The author and activist talked about faith, racism, and advocacy on the latest episode of the Word&Way podcast “Baptist Without An Adjective.”

Musician Ken Medema hopes that Christians will work to build peace and wholeness — or what in Hebrew is called shalom — in their communities and across the nation as coronavirus exposes injustices in our society. He talked about faith and music on the Word&Way podcast “Baptist Without An Adjective.”

Tony Campolo, a well-known Baptist author says that while the impact of coronavirus may feel like our country is falling apart, Christians have an opportunity to help rebuild a more just system. He talked about finding faith in a time like this on the Word&Way podcast “Baptist Without An Adjective.”

Melissa Rogers, a Baptist expert in church-state issues who previously led White House faith-based efforts, says governments can impose mass gathering bans to temporarily restrict church gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic.

As Baptists around the world struggle with the coronavirus pandemic, the Baptist World Alliance will lead a three-pronged effort during Pentecost weekend to bring global Baptists together for worship. Elijah Brown, BWA general secretary, announced the initiative during an interview with the Word&Way podcast “Baptist Without An Adjective.”

As churches across the country avoid in-person worship services, a historian and sociologist of religion in American life sees parallels to a previous pandemic. Historian John Schmalzbauer draws encouragement from the fact churches survived the 1918 influenza pandemic as the coronavirus outbreak continues. 

As the coronavirus pandemic spread across the world, numerous governments responded by shutting down borders and ending international flights to prevent infected persons from arriving. For a Cuban Baptist pastor, this meant his quest to overcome international political squabbles left him and his wife stranded for days in Guyana by coronavirus travel closures.

Scott McConnell is executive director of LifeWay Research, the survey arm of the Southern Baptist Convention's LifeWay Christian Resources. Word&Way Editor Brian Kaylor interviewed McConnell in April during the annual convention of the Evangelical Press Association in Oklahoma City, Okla.