While the Texas megachurch said it “did not have all the facts” about Morris’s earlier misconduct, the woman who spoke out said she had informed its leaders years ago. Gateway Church founder and senior pastor Robert Morris has resigned, and his Texas megachurch is launching an investigation into allegations of abuse from 35 years ago….
This Juneteenth, the life of unsung civil rights hero Fred Shuttlesworth should be a clarion call to the biblical activism we still need to advance racial justice in America. In February, I preached one of the Black History Month sermons at Zion Baptist Church, a traditional Black church in Cincinnati. After the service, Judge Cheryl…
The Texas judge behind the political strategy for the “conservative resurgence” molested and assaulted teenage boys, according to allegations eight men made in court. The things that Paul Pressler did in private changed the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) radically and irreversibly. In private, in a French café in New Orleans in 1967, Pressler planned the…
It’s okay to mourn what’s lost without losing hope for what’s to come. This piece was adapted from Russell Moore’s newsletter. Subscribe here. In his New York Times column this week, my friend David French wrote about what it was like to be “canceled” by his denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America. He later told…
Reports of the death of fatherhood have been greatly exaggerated. There are many good dads, like mine, quietly blessing their children. Problems with fathers are nothing new. They go back to the beginning. Genesis alone is a vast catalog of fathers’ sins, whether those of Adam, Noah, and Lot, or the patriarchs themselves. What about…
Time off at the very beginning helps fathers prepare to bring up their children in the “discipline and instruction of the Lord.” When our first daughter was born, in the fall of 2021, she couldn’t nurse properly. For my wife, feeding her was an every-few-hours exercise in pure pain. Lactation consultants were consulted, to little…
From a wider slate of six candidates, president Clint Pressley takes the “strange honor” of leading the convention’s growing factions toward missional unity. In the weeks before the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) annual meeting, newly elected president Clint Pressley finished reading Malcom Gladwell’s book on precision bombing in World War II, Erik Larson’s bestseller set…
The first African American to have both a study Bible and a full Bible commentary bearing his name said he will submit to the “biblical standard of repentance and restoration.” Tony Evans, the longtime leader of a Dallas megachurch and best-selling author, has announced that he is stepping back from his ministry due to sin…
An excerpt on grief, forgiveness, and the gospel from Beechdale Road: Where Mercy Is More Powerful Than Murder. On Sunday, June 21, 2020, 18-year-old Linda Stoltzfoos of Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania, was kidnapped and later murdered by Justo Smoker—my brother-in-law. As you might expect, my family journeyed through tremendous grief, anger, and pain. But as you might…
Worship leaders convince curriculum company of the value of lifewayworship.com. Lifeway no longer plans to shut down its online music ministry resource lifewayworship.com . In July 2023, the company announced its plan to retire the platform—a “digital hymnal” that provides users with chord charts, vocal arrangements, and orchestrations—then paused those plans a week later after…
