This World Communion Sunday at McGill Baptist Church in Concord, NC: “A Communion That Embraces Differences” (Exodus 16:2-4; Ephesians 4:1-16; John 6:24-35).

Representing the Gardner-Webb University School of Divinity at the tri-state assembly of Tennessee Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Alabama CBF, and Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Georgia. Stop by and visit awhile if you’re there!

Pope Leo XIV > Karoline Leavitt (and the administration for which she speaks) as to what constitutes inhumane treatment.

Headed to Chattanooga to represent the Gardner-Webb University School of Divinity at the Tri-State Assembly of Tennessee Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Alabama CBF, and CBF of Georgia. If you’re there, I hope you’ll stop by our booth to learn about our degree programs & an upcoming lecture series.

“October— And kingdoms rise And kingdoms fall But You go on And on” —Title track from U2’s sophomore album, released 44 years ago (gulp!) this month

This is what it means to be a “synodal church” that listens to one another in walking together on the path to fuller participation in what God is doing. www.americamagazine.org/news/2025/09...

Today's the fourth anniversary of the release of my book Baptists, Catholics, and the Whole Church: Partners in the Pilgrimage to Unity, a copy of which appears in this photo. Creative captions invited in comments. 😉 And if you're interested, give it a read: www.amazon.com/Baptists-Cat...

#AuthenticPopeLeoXIVQuote today reported by Reuters: apple.news/AYaKDFPaoRXK...

1/2 While I agree with Pope Francis that “there is no such thing as a just war,” I also believe that just war theory, especially its principles of “jus in bello”—ethical conduct in warfare, i.e. “rules of engagement”—provides important safeguards against another My Lai Massacre.

Thank you, Cardinal McElroy. www.americamagazine.org/dispatches/2...

I’m a native Texan, historical theologian, and Baptist minister. As such, I think that having David Barton advise the Texas State Board of Education is an abysmally bad idea. (And that David Barton is an abysmally bad “historian.”) www.texastribune.org/2025/09/24/t...

Join us for Peter Enns’s Mary Washburn Wilson lectures on the theme “Reading the Bible Prayerfully and with Eyes Open” at Gardner-Webb University School of Divinity on October 28.

This Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost at McGill Baptist Church in Concord, NC: “Living Toward the Future” (Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15; 1 Timothy 6:6-19; Luke 16:19-31).

On September 25, 1976--49 years ago--the band that would come to be known as U2 was formed in the kitchen of drummer Larry Mullen Jr.'s childhood home. www.u2songs.com/shows/1976_0...

A couple of highlights of our School of Divinity chapel service at Gardner-Webb University today—hearing Dean Jim McConnell preach on God’s inclusive love of all people from Isaiah 56:1-8 and Acts 8:26-40, and a new-to-me hymn communicating the same that I really like.

Theological PSA: since the "Rapture" is neither a biblical concept nor supported in the Christian tradition (apart from its appearance as a novel concept in a very fringe Christian movement in the 1830s), nothing of the sort is happening tomorrow. Or ever.

Theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez helpfully defined a key task of theology as critical reflection on Christian praxis. Baptist journalist and editor @briankaylor.bsky.social does that here in relation to these examples of Christian practice. publicwitness.wordandway.org/p/chris-toml...

That’s my band, referencing the Songs of Surrender version of “Beautiful Day” quoting Mexican poet Rosario Castellanos.

Thanks to GWU communications intern (and Furman University graduate) Avery Copeland for this article in the new edition of Gardner-Webb: The Magazine.

Catholic perspectives—National Catholic Reporter digital editor John Grosso on comments by Cardinal Dolan and Bishop Barron: www.ncronline.org/opinion/card...

“The liberties that we can't do without seem to disappear like ghosts in the air When we don't even care it truly vanishes away” youtu.be/HEdTTks-S_w?...

I'm looking forward to having this conversation sponsored by the Gardner-Webb University Department of Religious Studies & Philosophy student Religious Studies Association this afternoon. All are welcome--and not only Religious Studies & Philosophy students!

I wasn't aware of these responses to Pope Leo XIV’s very appropriate denunciation of violence, expression of sorrow and prayers for the Kirk family, & call for reconciliation—or Charlie Kirk’s previous criticisms of Pope Leo & the cardinals’ election of him. www.thelettersfromleo.com/p/maga-is-up...

Pages from my front-page article in the print edition of Riforma, the newspaper of Italian Baptists, Methodists, and Waldensians. English text published by Baptist News Global: baptistnews.com/article/a-wo...

Almost 36 years ago, a "professor watchlist" & charges by the Vice President of El Salvador that Ignacio Ellacuría & other faculty of the University of Central America had "poisoned the minds of our nation's youth" led to the martyrdom of Ellacuría & his colleagues. stignatiussf.org/news/what-ma...

Statement from the American Association of University Professors: www.aaup.org/news/academi...

Riforma, a newspaper published by Italian Baptists, Methodists, & Waldensians, invited me to offer my perspective on the killing of Charlie Kirk and responses to it in the article linked here (in Italian; English version will be published later today by @baptistnews.com). riforma.it/2025/09/15/s...

This Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost at McGill Baptist Church in Concord, NC: “Bad News/Good News” (Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10).

√ Received my COVID-19 vaccine (Moderna updated 2025-2026 formula) today at a CVS Minute Clinic, covered by insurance (though under 65, I have a qualifying condition).

Political violence is never the answer to what ails the political order.

No particular theological point in sharing this—just a great live performance by a band I enjoy. (I take that back: honest reflection on self and relationships is in fact theologically significant.) youtu.be/qmreHu_XOMc?...

This Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost at McGill Baptist Church in Concord, NC: “The Shaping of Our Discipleship” (Jeremiah 18:1-11; Philemon 1:1-21; Luke 14:25-33).

When this is what leaders of the civil order who seek the support of Christians and are in fact supported by many Christians are doing, saying, and promoting, the ministers and theologians of the church are obligated to denounce it.

Even in Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan universe, the "Clear and Present Danger" op was framed as a very bad thing.

Not The Onion.

With whom are we at “War”?

The vaccine mandates that were in place in Texas when I was a public school student there 1973-1986 were a wise public health measure, in my opinion. (Anecdotally, my contemporaries and I are doing just fine.)

We have a cover!

Proofing 2nd page proofs.

I’m not a genocide expert. But these people are. “The IAGS is the world's largest professional association of genocide scholars and includes a number of Holocaust experts.” www.bbc.com/news/article...

#AuthenticPopeLeoXIVQuote from today’s Angelus message:

This Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost at McGill Baptist Church in Concord, NC: “What We Can Count On” (Jeremiah 2:4-13; Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16; Luke 14:1, 7-14).

#AuthenticPopeLeoXIVQuote — today's general audience: "In life, we don’t have to have everything under control. We can be content to choose to love freely every day. This is true hope: We know know that, even in the darkness of trial, God’s love sustains us & ripens the fruit of eternal life in us."

Thanks to Glenroy Lalor for letting me know that my @ncronline.bsky.social article in the "Views on the First U.S. Pope" series was published also in a Catholic newspaper in Jamaica.