We survived. Whether the pandemic, a cancer battle, or grief after significant loss, eventually seasons of despair and lament come to an end. As Christians, looking back at difficult seasons often reminds us of the faithfulness of our God. Gratitude may well up within us. By His grace, we survived. 

But what’s next? When we’ve come to the end of ourselves in a difficult season, how do we begin to live again? How do we move from surviving to thriving? 

The stories of three men in Scripture — Job, Daniel and Lazarus — and one recent example may help.  [Read more…]

In 1998, when I became editor of the Baptist and Reflector at the age of 40, I had attended mid-year meetings of the Association of State Baptist Papers (now Publications) held during the SBC annual meeting with former editor Fletcher Allen. I didn’t attend my first winter annual meeting until the next year but I was very familiar with the work of ASBP.

Last week, I attended the most recent meeting held in South Carolina and I was one of the oldest and longest tenured people there. Being one of the “seasoned” editors, as I was described in the printed program, didn’t bother me. I just turned 65. It’s a fact. I’m old. I’m happy God has allowed me to live this long.

What bothered me was the stark reality of how far our Baptist state papers have fallen over the past 25 years.

Many Baptist papers in 1998 printed at least 40 issues or more annually and some printed every week. [Read more…]

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following column is Part I of a three-part series. It was published in the current print edition of the Baptist and Reflector. The other two parts, which will be published in upcoming print editions, are available here: Part II and Part III. 

Should We Sing Those Songs?!

Have you heard about the new “worship war”? This one has nothing to do with musical style, what instruments we use, or even lyrical content. Instead, some are debating the suitability of worship music based on a song’s origins. Who wrote the song? Which denomination published it? What artist sings it?

These questions lead to the heart of the matter: Can a worship song be disqualified because of its source, even if the song is biblically accurate? Does a flawed source make a “good song” bad? Lately the questions are even more direct: “Should we sing songs from Bethel and Hillsong? What about Elevation and Jesus Culture?”

Why does it matter? According to CCLI, seven of the top ten modern songs sung in churches today are affiliated with these denominations. The list includes favorites like “Goodness of God,” “Build My Life,” “Living Hope,” and “Graves into Gardens.”

This popularity is alarming for a growing faction within evangelicalism, a group that considers these denominations somewhere on the theological spectrum between peculiar and outright heretical. As a result, any song affiliated with these sources is deemed “off limits.”

Social media and the blogosphere have added fuel to the fire. A debate once confined to theological elites is now fair game at deacons’ meetings, on church social media pages, in discussions among pastoral staff, and even at church business meetings. In fact, whether to sing those songs is the theological inquiry I receive most in my role serving Tennessee Baptists. [Read more…]

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following column is Part III of a three-part series. The other two parts are available here: Part I and Part II.

Should We Sing Those Songs?!

NOTE FROM THE WRITER: In Part I and Part II, we were introduced to the new “worship war,” a debate about the suitability of worship music based on a song’s origins. We explored the issue’s importance, highlighted some theological concerns, and assessed a few common objections. In Part III, we’ll see how hymnal editors treated this issue in the past, address some other concerns, and draw some final conclusions.

How did hymnal editors of prior generations handle this issue?

Charles Spurgeon offered the following in a hymnal he curated: “A good hymn is not rejected by the character of its author, or the heresies of the church in whose hymnal it first occurred; so long as the language and the spirit commended the hymn to our heart, we included it, and believe we have enriched our collection thereby.”

John Rippon, in his supplement to Watts’s Psalms and Hymns wrote, “It has not been my Enquiry, whose Hymns shall I choose, but what Hymns; and hence it will be seen that Churchmen and Dissenters, Watts and Tate, Wesley and Toplady, England and America sing Side by Side, and very often join in the same Triumph, using the same Words.”

In fact, I combed through dozens of hymnal prefaces and introductions. None seemed to factor the ethics or theological framework of the composer or denomination to determine a hymn’s suitability. Instead, each hymn was judged on its own merit.

Some argue that by singing those songs, we disobey the biblical command to avoid false teachers. As a dear brother in Christ explained to me over lunch, “When we flash the copyright info for a Bethel song on our screens, we essentially bring false teachers into our house.” [Read more…]

Do you notice church signs? You know, the types of marquees out front that often have pithy sayings. Sometimes they accidentally mean things someone had no intention of saying. 

But often, they communicate profound meaning with minimal words. 

That’s the case with the marquee at a small church in a county seat town near here. The sign reads: “Need direction? Let prayer guide you through 2023.” 

Prayer seems to be an ever-present topic of conversation these days. Obviously, prayer is never far from discussions pertaining to the Christian life or ministry, but over the past six months, I hear the call to prayer mentioned often. These are serious conversations where people are genuinely seeking God.  [Read more…]

Baptist Press posted an article on Feb. 1 with a headline that made my heart ache. It read, “Public trust in pastors falls to record low” (see article in full at baptistandreflector.org).

According to the latest Gallup survey, about one in three (34 percent) rate the honesty and ethical standards of clergy as high or very high. That percentage is a two point drop from last year’s historic low of 36 percent, according to Baptist Press.

BP reported the highest level of trust in American pastors was 67 percent in 1985 and 64 percent in 2001, following 9/11. Trust in pastors has fallen 30 points since 2001.

The primary reason cited for the decline in trust of ministers is sexual abuse scandals first exposed in the Roman Catholic Church and have since been revealed in other denominations, including our own — the Southern Baptist Convention. [Read more…]

I was determined to watch the released video of the Tyre Nichols murder. 

For more than three hours, I watched Memphis’ WMC-TV5 livestream news coverage of the brutal, frenzied, depraved, animalistic, tortured beating of Nichols by five Memphis police officers. The violence was non-stop. It was horrific. It was demonic. He was 60 yards from home. Nichols called for his momma. Those were his final words. Thank God his mother didn’t hear him. She too might have been beaten to death or gunned down if she’d come to his rescue. 

Nichols’s funeral was last week, but we should hold his death tightly and it must be more meaningful than another report in a fickle news cycle. We need to digest its implications and what it reveals to us, about us. His death speaks louder than the call for police reform. It exposes the spiritual condition of our society. It reveals how little we collectively value life.  [Read more…]