On Aug. 8, 2024, I woke up to find my wife Ashley unresponsive. No one expects this in their 30s. I didn’t know it at the time, but she was suffering from a cardiac arrest event.

Those moments are hard to describe—calling 911, performing CPR (Ashley endured around 90 minutes of CPR), watching first responders do all they could do to save my wife.

When she was transferred to a hospital in Plano, I remember praying over her with two close friends: “God, I am praying for my wife to be healed. But you love her more. May you use her life for your glory.”

Unknowingly, God had been preparing me for this season.

What’s next?

In August 2023, I graduated with my second degree—a doctorate in ministry—from Truett Theological Seminary at Baylor University. It was an amazing experience and renewed my sense of calling to the local church.

After five years at First Baptist Church in Eastland, I began to ask a question familiar to many pastors after a season of completion: “What’s next, Lord?”

What I didn’t realize was God already had been answering that question long before I asked it.

In fall 2022, a church member approached me one day and asked if I had any books on prayer. He recently had retired and was praying through what God had in store for him in this new season. He informed me he was going on a prayer retreat in Colorado with a ministry called Strategic Renewal.

When he made it back to Eastland, he simply told me, “I know what I’m supposed to do.”

Over the next year, he and three others committed to praying every Sunday evening for their pastor, his family and their church.

A year later, on a Sunday evening, after Ashley had made homemade pizza, I told her I felt an urge to go and join these men in prayer. I left home, arrived late and planned to attend this one time to show my support for them.

The Lord, however, had other plans for that night. I didn’t know it then, but God brought me to this prayer gathering exactly one year after these men began praying faithfully for me and our church. In that moment, praying with them, my perspective on the importance and power of corporate prayer was changed.

A burden for corporate prayer

That fall 2023, I began reading about pastors and churches that had committed to making prayer central to their church.

To be honest, I believed in prayer and prayed as a pastor. I knew my prayer life could improve, but praying corporately with other believers was not part of my life.

I soon realized how prayer easily can become one ministry among many, rather than the foundation of all ministry. Prayer is not just the responsibility of a few while others “do” ministry. Rather, prayer is the power from which ministry flows.

At a Strategic Renewal conference that September, a speaker quoted Jesus’ words from Matthew 21:13: “My house shall be called a house of prayer.”

In that moment, conviction filled my heart. I had led in many areas but not in this one. I could not say I was a praying pastor or that I was leading a praying church.

Our Sunday evening prayer gathering remained small, but we prayed for vision and clarity on next steps.

While attending church during a Christmas trip to Oregon, I sensed God’s leading. Our church was to gather every Sunday evening for one hour of prayer. Since then, we’ve built a rhythm of corporate prayer that shapes everything we do.

I often tell our congregation our Sunday evening prayer gathering is my favorite hour of the week.

What does our Sunday prayer gathering consist of? Our entire hour is filled with Scripture-based prayer and worship. We spend half our time in praise and thanksgiving before we ever get to requests, and you always must pray your requests.

Creating a culture of prayer

Creating a culture of prayer doesn’t mean prayer is the only thing we do, but we want it to be the first thing we do.

We seek to spend half our time in prayer before committee meetings, and we have started praying in small groups during our Sunday morning worship service. Our ministerial staff is weaving corporate prayer into the rhythm of their ministries.

We are a long way from where I want us to be as a church, but I’m thankful for the Lord’s faithfulness.

When Ashley was in the hospital, she was on the most critical life support. On Saturday, Aug. 10, doctors wanted to bring her out of sedation. Two days prior, our music minister Mandi had called our church to pray corporately on Saturday, Aug. 10.

More than 200 people gathered to pray for Ashley that morning. Thankfully, Ashley would be spared and healed through the power of God in response to the prayers of God’s people.

Vision for the future

We still are striving to be a praying church, and I’m still striving to be a praying pastor. We haven’t arrived.

I’m often encouraged to hear how other pastors and churches are making corporate prayer the foundation of their churches. In these places, prayer is not a strategy, but it is woven into the culture of that congregation.

Over the past three years, the Lord has done something special in my life and in First Baptist Eastland. It’s our story, but it is a work God alone has done through the power of corporate prayer.

I tell my congregation this regularly: Even if God never answers another prayer you pray, he still is worthy to be praised because of the hope we have in Jesus.

My desire is to see co-laborers in the kingdom—especially those in rural churches like mine—seek the face of God through corporate prayer and, in doing so, become a house of prayer.

Kevin Burrow is the senior pastor at First Baptist Church in Eastland. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

How can Baptists pursue a rigorously biblicist witness in a rapidly changing world? Can such a methodology help us build more effective, more resilient institutions, and might it light the way for us as we seek to shed our captivity to toxic ideologies and cults of personality?

These are vital questions to address, not only for Baptists, but also for the larger evangelical community.

My hope is the following discussions will shed light on how the Bible can help Baptists navigate the turbulent waters of cultural change and socio-political polarization. I also hope to suggest how we might achieve this goal without descending into interminable conflict.

What Scripture is—and is not—for

What is the Bible for? Have you ever shut out whatever controversies dominate the day’s headlines and wrestled with this question? If you have, your mind likely turned to 2 Timothy 3:14-17. Here is how I translated these words from the Apostle Paul.

^“But, as for you, remain imbedded in what you have learned and in what you have believed, since you know from whom you learned it, and since, from childhood, you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom that leads to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, and for training in righteousness, in order that the person of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

Paul wrote these words to his protégé Timothy as the venerable apostle reflected upon the opposition and suffering he endured for Christ. The Scriptures helped him understand God’s purposes, shape the identity of his congregations and equip members for the ministry Christ had given them (see Ephesians 4:11-13).

Notice, the Scriptures provide both positive and negative feedback for believers, and in so doing not only give them the “wisdom” that leads to “salvation,” but also mentor them in “righteousness.”

Another way to put it is the Scriptures draw us into the narrative of God’s redemptive activity on behalf of the universe he created.

This story is, in one sense, all-encompassing, since the whole created order awaits the consummation of God’s work (Romans 8:19-22). And yet, as New Testament scholar Ben Witherington III has pointed out, the Scriptures that tell this magnificent tale are focused on matters of “history, theology, and ethics.”

This means many domains of human investigation lie outside the scope of the Bible’s revelatory work, and many others are explained only partially by appeals to Scripture.

God’s Spirit wields God’s word (see Ephesians 6:17) to shape the thinking, feeling, perceiving and acting of God’s people, but that does not mean the Bible tells us all we need to know about quantum mechanics, macroeconomics, the human genome or public health.

Rather, the church must raise up experts in these and other fields of interest, facilitate the Spirit’s work in shaping their character and commitments, and trust them to shape the church’s witness and lead the church’s ministries.

Theology is complicated but not impossible

As the imminent theologian Roger Olson demonstrated in his recent article on the Wesleyan tradition, speaking responsibly about God requires us to consult a variety of resources.

Other than Scripture, these resources are not authorities. They should not be used, in and of themselves, to dictate how individuals and churches wrestle with the gospel’s many demands.

Nevertheless, these resources can—and should—influence: (1) how we interpret individual biblical texts, (2) how we configure the various emphases of Scripture to create a coherent presentation of the Bible’s teaching, and (3) how we construe, express and apply the good news proclaimed by the Bible in our current context.

Moreover, it is not simply tradition, reason and experience that should be taken into account when we interpret the Bible and explicate its meaning for our time and place. Factors such as history, technology and, especially, culture also must be considered.

Indeed, the most dangerous biblical interpreter or theologian may be the one who is unaware of her or his temporal, geopolitical, social and intellectual location, for such a person risks confusing her or his own, unexamined presuppositions with the convictions of those who are, by virtue of their life and testimony, the foundation of the church (see Ephesians 2:20).

Worship, Scripture and creeds

What are Baptists supposed to make of creeds? Creeds are statements of doctrine intended to summarize the faith Christians must affirm. They play a vital role in forming the self-understanding of many denominations. Iin some more liturgically oriented traditions, the recitation of the creeds is a regular, and even mandatory, aspect of every worship service.

I confess, I have mixed feelings about the creeds. One of my fondest memories of singing in church was when my music minister allowed me to perform Petra’s “Creed” for our congregation. Believe it or not, he kept his job, and he is still in ministry today.

All kidding aside, that event still means a lot to me.

It was an opportunity to introduce my congregation to one of the oldest Christian professions of faith through one of the newest genres of music. It was an opportunity to build an emotional, and maybe even spiritual, bridge between my tiny, provincial life and the beautifully expansive work of God, a work that stretches across time, geography, ethnicity and culture.

On the other hand, I am deeply troubled by the role creeds play in some worshiping communities.

I understand the impulse to bind a worshipping community to the universal church through the recitation of the Apostle’s Creed or the Nicene Creed.

Nevertheless, granting these documents such a central role in a congregation’s worship risks excluding otherwise orthodox believers from fellowship simply because they refuse to endorse a humanly generated statement of Christian conviction.

Moreover, the creeds, too, must be interpreted, and forgetting this fact may lead to a misidentification of their nature and function.

So, what should Baptists do? To promote unity across denominational lines, we should affirm the essential truthfulness of the two creeds mentioned above without committing ourselves to every detail.

Beyond that, I would advise us to make the reading of Holy Scripture the indispensable element of our worship, and I would urge us to maintain our conviction that Scripture alone defines whether our congregations are orthodox.

Universal buy-in required

As has always been the case, this way of doing church can work only if we all commit to it. No one can opt out because interpreting the Bible is hard or following Jesus is unpleasant. Likewise, no individual or institution can exempt itself from scrutiny based upon its mission or rights. If we are to be a “people of the Book,” then we all must be people of the Book.

Orienting our lives—and not just our disagreements—around Scripture will do much to tamp down the conflicts that inevitably flare up when humans get together. But we cannot deny one of the reasons our disagreements often become acrimonious is the very biblicism we rely on to defuse conflict.

Moreover, even the most heretical and destructive of ideas can be defended if we twist the Bible hard enough.

So, we must double down on our efforts to cultivate biblical literacy and exemplify Christian character. We must teach people the commitments and competencies needed to read the Bible accurately, sympathetically and obediently, and we also must model those commitments and competencies in our teaching, in our discourse with those who disagree, and in our lives.

Good character does not prevent bad hermeneutics, but bad character almost guarantees it.

We may need to return to the issues I have broached above when we talk about the priesthood of all believers and soul competency. For our next discussion, however, I will shift our attention to the distinctive that has kept me in the fold even when I felt the most out-of-step with my fellow Baptists. That distinctive is believer’s baptism.

Wade Berry is pastor of Second Baptist Church in Ranger and has been resident fellow in New Testament and Greek at B.H. Carroll Theological Seminary. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

I’m about to preach.

A few million people participated in No Kings rallies and protests on Oct. 18.

President Donald Trump responded to them with a video posted on his Truth Social profile.

Christians do have a King, and Trump isn’t him.

Our King—Jesus—is plenty clear about how we are to respond to those who oppose us.

We Christians need to follow our King’s lead, not our president’s.

We begin by remembering we do have one King. He is Jesus, and he has expectations of us.

Our King’s example

King Jesus said, “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also” (Matthew 5:39b).

When Jesus’ hometown crowd became furious with him, “drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill … to throw him off the cliff … he walked right through the crowd and went on his way” (Luke 4:28-30).

When Judas came to betray Jesus with a kiss, “Jesus replied, ‘Do what you came for, friend’” (Matthew 26:50a).

When Jesus was about to be arrested, one of his followers cut off the right ear of a man there to arrest him. “No more of this,” Jesus said and healed the man’s ear (Luke 22:49-51).

When they arrested him, Jesus did not resist.

When the guards beat and mocked Jesus, he did not curse them.

When Pilate questioned him, he did not lash out.

When Herod needled him and “the chief priests and the teachers of the law were … vehemently accusing him,” he said not a word (Luke 23:9-10).

When Herod and his soldiers “ridiculed and mocked him,” he did not retaliate.

When Jesus was spit on, he did not spit back.

When the crowd called for his execution—a most horrid execution—he said nothing.

As he was hung, exposed, on the cross and was insulted mercilessly, he asked God to forgive the people doing it (Luke 23:34).

Jesus died on that cross. Jesus was buried. And after three days, Jesus rose to life again.

After Jesus rose from the dead, he did not seek revenge.

I tell you, we have one King, and Trump is not him.

Our King’s command

The religious authorities were always trying to trap Jesus.

“One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’

“Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments’” (Matthew 22:35-40).

In his famed Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught: “In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12).

In that same sermon, Jesus said: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:43-44).

Jesus also said we will recognize true prophets of God by what they produce (Matthew 7:15-20), and the wise put Jesus’ words into practice (Matthew 7:24-27).

Jesus’ last instruction before returning to heaven was to “go and make disciples of all [people] … teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20).

I’ve quoted a lot of Scripture in this editorial, and that’s because we do have one King, and Trump is not him. Our King is Jesus.

I told you I was going to preach.

So, what are we going to do?

Every good sermon—or editorial—ends with practical application. I’m not saying I’ve preached a lot of good sermons or written a lot of good editorials. I’m just saying the good ones end with practical application.

Trump ran on grievance and revenge, and he was elected—twice. He owes his first presidency and his second to the votes of millions of Christians. I am not pointing a finger at you. I am saying Christians have a responsibility in this moment.

Our responsibility is to obey our King, and he is Jesus.

We obey our King by guarding how we talk about those who don’t think or vote like us. In keeping with what Jesus taught in his most famous sermon, we even must guard our thoughts against fantasies of revenge. The video Trump posted on Truth Social indulges in a vile fantasy of revenge.

In our speaking about our perceived opponents, we must not denigrate or dehumanize them. Even harder, we must not even think about them in dehumanizing ways. What is a dehumanizing way to regard opponents? Airdropping feces on them is a clear example.

The other side of what we shouldn’t do—dehumanize others—is what we should do. Here, we can take a cue from Jesus and a cue from Paul. Not from me. I don’t offer myself as an example here.

When we find ourselves surrounded by hostility aimed at us, we can walk through the crowd without a word. If Jesus didn’t see the need to defend himself with equal hostility, then we don’t need to either.

When others curse us and mock us—what we might loosely call “persecution”—instead of cursing those who curse us, instead of repaying evil for evil, we can bless them (Romans 12:14, 17). And, yes, this goes both ways.

It won’t be easy, but we’ve never found it easy to bow to a king.

Eric Black is the executive director, publisher and editor of the Baptist Standard. He can be reached at eric.black@baptiststandard.com. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

As I noted in my previous opinion article, the unique and unrivaled authority of Scripture is the starting point for most Baptists when they want to understand their tradition. Indeed, this is the lens through which they view all theological and moral issues.

Unfortunately, it also has been the axis around which some of our most ferocious and acrimonious disagreements have revolved.

Moreover, there always have been Christians who doubt the Bible can or should bear the load Baptists place on it when they start talking about Christian doctrines or practices.

Here, I will enumerate some of the challenges to a Baptist theological methodology, standing as it does on the single pillar of Scripture. I hope to help Baptists understand the reasons our theology feels so brittle, and I hope my reflections will help Baptists be more patient with one another—as well as with those from other Christian traditions.

A doctrinal challenge

An initial challenge to the theological methodology of Baptists comes from the doctrine of revelation.

In brief, many Christians believe God reveals himself both through “his works” in nature and through “his words” in Scripture. A more detailed summary of how Christian theologians have understood the interrelationship of nature and Scripture can be read at BioLogos.

Affirming that God reveals something of himself and his activities through nature—something Romans 1:18-32 seems to take for granted—does not necessitate the treatment of natural revelation as equal to special revelation.

We don’t have to see science as equal to biblical interpretation to take seriously the idea we can learn about God and his ways from our experience of the universe he created.

Nevertheless, if God speaks to humanity through nature, then we cannot dismiss human endeavors to understand the natural world as antithetical to our faith and unimportant for our intellectual and spiritual growth. Rather, it is entirely possible we must look to disciplines like science, history and philosophy to make sense of what God is doing.

A hermeneutical challenge

Hermeneutics is the art and science of interpretation. Interpretation is a means by which we mentally assign meaning to texts, experiences or other data provided to us by our senses.

For example, is an extended finger a command to go in a particular direction, or is it an insulting expression of animosity?

The Bible is like any other document in that its meaning is not always self-evident. It must be interpreted.

The problem is not just that we disagree about how to interpret the Bible. It is that, too often, we assume our interpretation of Scripture carries the same authority as Scripture itself.

Alternatively, we assume the lines we have drawn from the specific text we want to interpret to our rendition of that text’s meaning are clear and incontrovertible.

On the other hand, erecting an impermeable barrier between text and interpretation would rob the Scriptures of any meaning—much less any authority.

Complicating matters significantly is the fact the journey from text to meaning varies wildly in length, complexity and difficulty from one text to another.

For example, “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13) seems easy enough to understand, but what about the commands God gave to the Israelites to annihilate their Canaanite neighbors? John 3:16 seems to be pretty straightforward, but the equally simple clause “this is my body” (Mark 14:22 and parallels; 1 Corinthians 11:24) inspired a controversy between Luther and Zwingli that endures to this day.

All of this means Baptists forever are fighting with one another over what constitutes a reasonable disagreement about how to interpret the Bible and what constitutes a violation of biblical authority.

Since there are no creeds to resolve the conflict and no ecclesiastical structures that can mediate disputes, Baptist institutions constantly feel under threat from those who do not understand their work or share their values, and individuals feel like they have no ability to hold the institutions they support accountable for apparently aberrant teachings.

A philosophical challenge

The Baptist theologian Stanley Grenz raised a related problem for how Baptists use Scripture. He argued modernity has conditioned people, including Christians, to work from an ostensibly infallible foundation to whatever truth they are trying to unearth.

This methodology is problematic because it assumes the universality of the truth uncovered and ignores the contextuality of the interpreter. For Christians, the methodology is also problematic because it ignores the Spirit’s role in shaping theological discourse.

Grenz preferred a dialogical model for theological reflection. He argued we ought to begin with the Scriptures, since they are the instrument the Spirit uses to communicate with the church.

He also argued tradition provides an important resource for understanding how the Spirit spoke through Scripture in times and places other than our own. That tradition, of course, is not infallible, so we always must return to the Scriptures in light of what we learn from the church.

But Grenz denied any knowledge derived from our engagement with Scripture can be anything more than provisional, since God is still at work in the church through the Spirit to reveal Christ and his will. As Paul observed in 1 Corinthians 13:8b-12, ultimate knowledge awaits the consummation of all things.

Grenz was a controversial figure in his day, and he came under continued attack after his untimely death. But I raise his concerns precisely because he was a Baptist.

Despite his opponents’ protests to the contrary, his writings demonstrate he was sympathetic both to evangelical concerns for doctrinal truth and Baptists’ affinity for Scripture. But he rightly understood the Spirit is the one responsible for teaching Christ’s body (John 14:26; 16:12-15), and his insights call into question whether a “hard foundationalism” really can sustain theologically robust discipleship.

A historical challenge

As Willard Swartley demonstrated in his book Slavery, Sabbath, War, and Women, the challenge of constructing a universally accepted interpretation of the Bible’s teachings on even the most important of moral issues has been frustratingly difficult.

Even readers who seem to share many contextual factors—time, culture, ethnicity and more—can read the Bible in very different ways due to the particularities of their social location, psychological makeup, conceptual and social intelligence, and other factors.

These differences in hermeneutical approach and doctrinal outcomes cannot be described as trivial. They contributed mightily to the bloodshed wrought by the Civil War, for example, and that bloodshed may have led to a substantial decline in Scripture’s credibility as a shaper of individual and community life.

As people turned away from the bible, they turned to other sources of authority and, not surprisingly, constructed new matrices of belief to guide their lives. And the dirty secret that often goes unacknowledged in our pulpits and seminary classrooms is many have found these alternate authorities to be more honest, more sympathetic and less demanding taskmasters than the Scriptures that were supposed to give them truth, freedom and life.

An ecclesiological challenge

A further challenge to the way Baptists handle the Bible can be seen when the church as a whole pursues unity and a coherent self-definition.

One of the things creeds provide is self-definition. “This is what we believe,” the church says, “and you have to believe this to really be one of us.”

Baptists, of course, always have written confessions of faith. Confessions even have been used as a mechanism for establishing and maintaining fellowship between churches. Nevertheless, Baptists traditionally have understood Christian identity really is found in fidelity to Scripture, not in fidelity to any particular construction of what Scripture means.

Moreover, Baptists have sought to plumb the depths of Scripture to resolve doctrinal and ethical disputes rather than resorting to a heavy-handed dependence on a creed, confession or ecclesiastical authority structure. This emphasis on Scripture, when coupled with other Baptist distinctives, has been a source of disunity rather than unity.

It is all too easy for individual believers to set themselves up as the final arbiter of what the Bible means, thus cutting themselves off from any accountability to the church. But as Baptists have sought to address this problem by making their institutions more accountable to specific enumerations of accepted doctrines, they have made it easier for the power-hungry to use confessions to promote their own interests.

What does it all mean?

Are these challenges fatal for Baptist identity? Do they require Baptists to relinquish their dogged determination to settle every matter through absolute submission to and sustained engagement with Scripture?

In my next article, I will argue Baptists not only can double down on their commitment to Scripture, but they must do so if they are to be a vibrant community of believers in an increasingly secular and frighteningly polarized country.

While we may need to reframe some of our convictions about the Bible in order to be more faithful to Jesus, Scripture still is indispensable for shaping who we are and for infusing our witness with the authenticity, fidelity and power it needs.

Wade Berry is pastor of Second Baptist Church in Ranger and has been resident fellow in New Testament and Greek at B.H. Carroll Theological Seminary. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

On Sept. 27, the Israeli government filed a FARA request with the United States government.

A FARA request—Foreign Agents Registration Request—is simply a request to lobby the citizens of the United states on behalf of a foreign government.

This particular FARA request was filed so the Israeli government could have the right specifically to lobby evangelical Christians regarding their opinions about the state of Israel and their opinions about Palestinians.

My concerns

Foreign influence

The first reason I find this troubling is any foreign government requesting permission to influence specifically Christians, specifically churches, and then the United States government granting that is troubling.

It doesn’t matter if it is Israel, who is an ally of the United States. It is really troubling that a foreign government would want to be involved in lobbying evangelicals at all, and that our own government would allow it. It sets a really bad precedent.

Involuntary

Second, if you read the filing, I’m worried about it, because it’s involuntary.

They use geofencing. Geofencing is a technology where, if you drive onto a church campus, one of those listed in the filing, and your phone is then picked up, you will be served up targeted messages.

One could call those messages propaganda designed to get you to have a different opinion regarding the nation of Israel and/or the Palestinians.

I mentioned this because you don’t get to opt in.

So, the pastors of these churches don’t get to decide if they want to be part of this program. The leadership of these churches, the membership of these churches, don’t get to decide. They’re just targeted, because the government has given permission to a foreign actor to target the phones of these particular groups.

Dangerous precedent

The next reason I’m really worried is it sets a really dangerous precedent.

If we allow a foreign government to request and get permission to lobby our churches, what might happen next?

Now, I don’t want to act like churches have been political neutral zones, but I really do think this is a step that is a little dangerous, where we allow a foreign entity to begin to lobby and to do so openly.

I really worry about it opening Pandora’s box here, specifically with political influence on churches, specifically when pastors and church leaders don’t have the opportunity to reject that.

What to do

If you’re worried about this and you’re wondering what you can do, you can read through the filing and see if your church is listed. There are a lot of churches listed in Texas. There also are some in California, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada.

If you see your church listed, you might want to make your church leadership aware they’re being targeted. They might want to think about how is best to handle that in whatever way is appropriate in your particular church setting.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The full list of targeted churches begins on p. 34 of the FARA filing. An interactive map of targeted churches is available here. Numerous Texas Baptist churches are included.

Steve Bezner is associate professor of pastoral theology and ministry at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary and has served churches throughout Texas. This opinion article is an edited transcript of Bezner’s Facebook story posted Oct. 21 and used by permission.

Contrary to the belief of a lot of church-going folks, pastors are not hired servants.

They are servants, for sure, just as police officers and firefighters and nurses. But they are servants of God and, as such, are here to help each of us to garner a better understanding of how we can glorify God and please him.

The pastor is not there to wait on us. The pastor is not there to unplug our toilet or change our flat tire. The pastor is there to help with our spiritual needs the same as a nurse helps with our medical needs or a police officer with our legal issues.

Pastoral salaries

Pastors have families and need downtime. Our churches must require our pastors and their families to take vacations and time off. They cannot be treated as robots to hop and jump for our pleasure.

Is your congregation aware of the salary being paid to your pastor? Is it enough for the pastor to live on? Is the pastor stressed due to financial worries? If we get stressed over money issues, have we ever thought our pastors might have the same problem as well?

What can we or our church do to help them?

Our churches give millions of dollars annually to various ministries across the globe, but look at that 15-year-old car our pastor is driving around in. What can we do to make driving safer for the pastor and the pastor’s family?

Weddings and funerals

While we are at it, what days off does our pastor have?

Let’s see, weddings usually take place on Saturdays, with rehearsal dinners on Friday nights. Funerals often are on Saturdays, as well. These are scheduled for the convenience of the families, to allow for their family members to travel for the event.

While these might be joyous in the case of weddings or sad in the case of funerals, the pastor may not know the participants and probably doesn’t feel the same emotions as the families, especially if the pastor has lost a day off.

There’s also the matter of paying pastors an honorarium for services rendered. In many cases pastors receive little or nothing for performing weddings and funerals on their days off.

Of course, weddings and funerals are part of any clergy’s duties and responsibilities, but the timing of these events should be considered in relationship to the pastor’s working schedule. Events scheduled outside of normal working hours should be compensated.

Churches could give out a pamphlet explaining how funerals and weddings work and that payments for these services are appreciated, even suggesting customary amounts. At a minimum, a pamphlet can explain the pastor’s responsibilities during weddings and funerals.

At my age, I might die at any time. Do you think it is going to matter to me who presides over my funeral service? I am not going to be there. I don’t care if some associate pastor or someone else takes charge of my service.

Weddings and funerals are significant rituals of our lives, but let’s get real and consider what it takes for a minister to officiate at these events.

The pastor’s family

Our pastor has a family. Our pastor may have kids who go to school, play in sports, perform recitals, have roles in drama programs. They also have birthdays and anniversaries and may be taking care of their own parents.

When our pastors’ daughter stars in a play at school on the night we want our pastor to attend a rehearsal dinner for our daughter’s wedding, how do we think our pastor’s daughter is going to feel? Is she going to be happy or resentful? We know the answer to this.

Is our event so important and so special we couldn’t consider the church providing us with some other staff member to perform our service?

Pastors have the same stresses and problems we do. They can’t complain about their issues. They certainly can’t discuss their issues with members of the church, and they certainly can’t afford to offend their largest “donors” who want them to perform some special function.

In short, they are not free or at liberty to use a truly short word: “No.”

Our church’s largest tither wants the pastor and only the pastor to perform the marriage service for his only daughter on the weekend the pastor had scheduled a trip to Paris for the pastor’s wedding anniversary.

Tickets are paid for, passports secured, hotels booked, and now Mr. Warbucks comes and tells the pastor his daughter must be married on such-and-such date because it has major significance for one reason or another. No other date will do.

What the pastor wants to do and what the pastor feels has to be done probably don’t match.

But that’s not the question. The question is what are we going to do?

Are we going to be inconsiderate Christians demanding things that give rise to resentment, or will we be Christlike and realize our pastor has feelings and needs like all the rest of us?

The choice is ours and ours alone.

Peary Perry is an author and husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather. To learn more about him, you can visit www.pearyperry.com or email him confidentially at pperry@pearyperry.com. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

In Part 1, I distinguished between Christian nationalism as ideology or as instinct or mood. I also distinguished between the mission of the church and that of the state.

Now, I will look at the six main arguments for Christian nationalism and see how they hold up when measured against the gospel, William Stringfellow’s insights on the “powers and principalities,” and the cruciform love of Jesus.

1. God’s sovereignty extends to nations

Christian nationalists often start here: Jesus is Lord of all. If he’s King of kings, then rulers and nations must answer to him. And that’s true. Scripture makes it clear no authority exists outside God’s sovereignty.

But here’s the problem: God doesn’t relate to nations the same way he relates to people. He speaks to rulers and communities inside nations. He calls them to justice, truth and humility. But he doesn’t “save” or “convert” a nation like he does a person. Nations aren’t people; they’re powers.

And when a nation tries to “be Christian,” it usually ends up baptizing its own agenda with God-language. Rome claimed to bring peace to the world—Pax Romana. America claims to spread freedom and democracy. Both end up demanding devotion that should belong to Christ.

Now, many ordinary folks who lean toward Christian nationalism aren’t making a philosophical argument here. They just want to see their leaders honor God in some way, like how a family prays before dinner. That instinct comes from a good place.

But here’s the danger: An ideal household is bound by love and personal devotion to Jesus, while a nation is bound by law and force. Parents can demonstrate the love of Jesus and ask their kids to pray with them. A government can mandate only outward conformity. That’s not faith; it’s performance. At worst, it becomes persecution.

Yes, Jesus holds governments accountable. Yes, he cares about justice. But accountability isn’t the same as anointing. When the state claims to be “Christian,” it starts speaking in God’s name. That’s not worship; that’s idolatry, like the serpent Nehushtan, as I referenced in Part 1.

2. Biblical precedent for nations honoring God

Here’s another Christian nationalistic perspective: In the Old Testament, Israel was a nation under God. Doesn’t that mean nations today should aim to honor God the same way?

It sounds convincing—until you remember Israel was unique. Israel wasn’t just one nation among many. It was God’s chosen covenant people, set apart for a season to prepare the way for Jesus. No modern nation holds that role.

Psalm 33:12 says, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD.”

But that blessing was for Israel, not a blank check for any state that sprinkles Bible verses over its constitution. When Jonah preached to Nineveh, they repented, but that didn’t make them a covenant people. They simply humbled themselves before God’s sovereignty.

In the New Testament, the “holy nation” language gets transferred. And it doesn’t get transferred to Rome, or to America two millennia later. It gets transferred to the church (1 Peter 2:9). A transnational community made up of every tribe, tongue and people group—that’s the holy nation of God living as ambassadors of the eternal kingdom of heaven.

This is where nuance matters. Many who quote verses like Psalm 33:12 aren’t trying to create an idol. They just long for God’s blessing on their country. That’s understandable. But blessing doesn’t come through fusing gospel and government. Blessing comes when the people of God live faithfully as the church, no matter what nation they inhabit.

When America—or any other modern country—claims biblical Israel’s mantle, it’s not submitting to Scripture. It’s using Scripture to crown itself. That’s not blessing; that’s taking God’s name in vain.

3. The common good requires moral foundations

Now, this point deserves real attention. Christian nationalists argue: Laws never are neutral. Every law reflects someone’s morality. If we don’t base our laws on Scripture, they’ll be based on something else.

That’s true. But it overlooks something vital—the difference between the state’s role and the church’s role.

The state’s job is “rough justice”—restraining evil, protecting the vulnerable, maintaining order through force. It can’t form saints. It can’t disciple hearts. That’s the church’s job.

Here’s the danger: When the church outsources moral formation to statute, both church and state deform.

The state tries to become a moral tutor it never was meant to be. The church becomes a lobbying group, measuring success by political wins instead of faithfulness to the cross.

And let’s be aware: The powers are happy to baptize “morality” when it helps them survive. “Law and order” sounds good, but it’s also been used to justify segregation, deny civil rights and silence dissent.

This is where instinct and ideology diverge again. For some, Christian nationalism as instinct simply means: “We need guardrails in society, so things don’t collapse.” That’s fair. But those guardrails aren’t the gospel.

The common good indeed is moral, but gospel morality is cruciform. It takes up the cross for enemies and the vulnerable, moves toward the least, and embodies generosity that law can’t compel.

Statute can prohibit theft. Only the Spirit forms a people who share possessions (Acts 2; 2 Corinthians 8–9). Statute can punish fraud. Only the church can cultivate truth-telling that refuses propaganda. Statute can regulate violence. Only the Eucharistic community can break cycles of vengeance by forgiving 70-times-seven.

The law can restrain harm. Only Christ can transform hearts.

4. Historical roots in America

Christian nationalists often appeal to America’s history—the Mayflower Compact, references to God in founding documents, the Bible on the lips of early leaders. They argue we’re just “returning” to our roots.

But here’s the problem: America’s history is complicated. Yes, there were moments of biblical influence. There also were centuries of slavery, genocide of Indigenous peoples and systemic racism—such as Jim Crow. To highlight one side and ignore the other is what William Stringfellow called “bombast”—puffing ourselves up with half-truths.

And notice this: Even the founders who referenced God in public documents also enshrined disestablishment. They didn’t want a state church. They knew what happened when governments took on the role of religion.

It’s worth remembering: Not everyone who appeals to America’s roots is trying to worship the nation. Sometimes they’re just proud of their heritage. That’s not inherently bad. Gratitude for one’s country is good. Patriotism in moderation is healthy. But allegiance belongs to Christ alone.

The creed is not the pledge. The sacraments are not the founding documents. The church’s story is not America’s story. When we confuse them, we end up bowing to Nehushtan.

5. Protecting families and future generations

This argument tugs at the heart: We need Christian nationalism to protect our kids from moral confusion, to safeguard families from collapse. Who doesn’t want their kids safe?

But here’s where the powers sneak in. The powers and principalities, the politicians and lobbyists cry out, “Think of your children!” It sounds holy, but it can be used to justify almost anything—wars, censorship, even oppression. And in the end, what they really are crying out is: “Empower us to protect your children! Put your faith and your children’s lives in our hands.”

The gospel calls us to protect families, yes, but in the way of the cross, not the sword. The family is God’s institution, and we never should diminish our Christ-centered devotion to our spouses and children.

It’s also important to remember Jesus’s radical words on family: “Whoever does the will of my Father is my mother and brothers.”

The state can pass laws protecting its current definitions of “family.” The church literally is a new household itself. Our mission isn’t only to preserve traditional family structures. It’s to embody a family where the lonely find belonging, where the poor are provided for, where the vulnerable are sheltered.

Now, many who gravitate toward Christian nationalistic instincts are afraid—afraid their kids will grow up in a culture where truth and stability are eroded. That’s a sincere concern. The answer isn’t to dismiss it, but to redirect it.

The state can restrain harm. It can outlaw abuse and provide basic protections. But it can’t raise disciples. It can’t transform hearts, so parents pray with their kids. Only the Spirit-filled church can do that.

The early church transformed family life in Rome, not by changing laws, but by adopting abandoned infants, caring for widows and treating marriage as covenant instead of contract. That kind of witness changes culture more than any political program.

Here’s the bottom line: When we put our hope in the State to save the family, we end up losing both, and the church loses her witness as the household of God. Families are protected when the church steps up in sacrificial love, not when the state waves a Bible over its policies.

6. Witness to the nations

Finally, Christian nationalists say: A Christian nation could shine as a light to the world, just like Israel was supposed to.

But Jesus never called America a be city on a hill. He gave that title to his disciples—to the church. A community bound not by borders or constitutions, but by baptism into Christ.

When nations try to take on that role, the result is civil religion—a shallow witness that confuses national pride with gospel truth. That’s not light; it’s smoke and mirrors.

But let’s be fair: Many who long for America to be a “light” don’t mean to idolize it. They just want their nation to be a place where goodness and justice shine. That desire can be affirmed.

But it must be clarified: The true witness of the church is cruciform love—forgiving enemies, caring for the poor, living in unity across dividing lines, telling the truth when lies are easier, worshiping a King who laid down his life. That’s what shines.

If a nation wants to “shine,” its best move is to get out of the church’s way. Protect freedom of worship. Ensure justice. Safeguard peace. Then, let the church be the church—free, bold and holy.

The light of the gospel doesn’t come from the flag. It comes from the cross.

Nick Acker, a native Texan, is co-lead pastor of Grace Ventura Church in Ventura, Calif., adjunct faculty member at Stark College and Seminary and a resident fellow at East Texas Baptist University’s B.H. Carroll Theological Seminary, and author of Exegeting Orality: Interpreting the Inspired Words of Scripture in Light of Their Oral Traditional Origins. He finds his greatest joy in his wife and three children. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

Since joining Texas Baptists by way of assuming the pastorate of a historic Texas Baptist church, I have grown to love and deeply respect Dr. Julio Guarneri. He and the whole of our network of churches have been nothing but kind and welcoming.

What follows in no way is a contradiction of what Dr. Guarneri wrote and expressed in his recent weekly update, but rather a continuation of the thoughts he raised, at least from my perspective.

Guarneri’s weekly update

In his weekly update, dated Oct. 15, 2025, Guarneri laid out a convincing plea for churches to work together in what he refers to as doctrinal affinity. As he states it:

“Doctrinal affinity is not the same as doctrinal uniformity. While there are Christian doctrines and Baptist principles that are non-negotiable, there are beliefs and practices where local churches have freedom. It is enough for a church to hold to Christian orthodoxy and historical Baptist principles to collaborate with Texas Baptists for the cause of missions.”

I wholeheartedly agree.

As he also reminded us, “We should resist the temptation to demand uniformity in every secondary issue, because that diminishes our ability to work together for the sake of the gospel.”

That truth is both freeing and motivating, allowing us to be generous with one another in areas of freedom.

Where I would offer caution, however, is in urging readers to think through these things with greater nuance—especially as it relates to different groups and organizations within our convention.

The local church: Doctrinal alignment

The Bible repeatedly calls for unity and for believers to be of the same “heart and mind.” The early church devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and that shared doctrine fostered unity, generosity and love. For that reason, a local church must expect doctrinal alignment among its leaders and teachers.

Alignment means walking in the same direction together, united in core convictions and practices. No other group or organization should force a local church to abide by their particular standards, but within the congregation itself, there must be a shared commitment to doctrine and mission.

This means one church may organize its staff differently than another or may arrive at a different conviction about, say, women preaching on a Sunday morning. Each local body should have the freedom to determine what it believes best aligns with Scripture. But within that body, clarity and alignment are essential.

The network of churches: Doctrinal affinity

When we gather as a network of churches, doctrinal affinity is both necessary and sufficient. As Guarneri emphasized, “It is enough for us to be orthodox Christians and historic Baptists in order to lock arms for missions.”

This “big tent” approach allows us to pursue missions together without demanding identical positions on every issue as it relates to the local church. What binds us together is a family resemblance of belief and practice rooted in Christian orthodoxy and historic Baptist principles.

Affinity makes cooperation possible, even across lines of difference.

The entities we support: Doctrinal agreement

Entities—our seminaries, universities and mission boards—are in a different category altogether.

These organizations exist to serve and resource the churches. Because they are entrusted with teaching, training and sending, they should be expected not only to share doctrinal affinity, but to fully affirm and champion the doctrinal stances of the network as a whole. In other words, our entities must operate in doctrinal agreement.

Agreement conveys a binding commitment to the statements of faith adopted by our network. These standards are not restrictive for the sake of control, but for the sake of confidence. They ensure those who are trained and sent out by our entities faithfully reflect Baptist convictions.

This is how we, as churches, can support them in good conscience—knowing they are aligned with us in belief, conviction and mission.

A framework of use

Doctrinal statements are valuable so long as we recognize their different uses in different contexts:

• The local church: Doctrinal alignment—leaders and members walking in the same direction.
• The network of churches: Doctrinal affinity—a generous, cooperative spirit across differences.
• Our entities: Doctrinal agreement—formal affirmation of Baptist convictions.

None of this is about control or restriction. Rather, it is about fostering genuine partnership, mutual assurance and a free, open spirit of cooperation.

We are a large body of churches, and while we will not all agree on every particular, we should be confident those who represent us—especially in education and missions—do so with convictional faithfulness.

Conclusion: Cooperation with conviction

I am deeply encouraged by the vision Dr. Guarneri has cast. His call for doctrinal affinity is a much-needed reminder we are better together when we unite around the essentials and extend grace in areas of freedom.

By carefully distinguishing between doctrinal alignment in the local church, doctrinal affinity in our cooperative network and doctrinal agreement in our entities, we can remain both convictional and cooperative.

We do not have to choose between clarity and cooperation, between conviction and unity. We can hold fast to the truth with courage, while also locking arms with one another for the mission of Christ.

That balance—anchored in Scripture, guided by Baptist principles and motivated by the gospel—will allow Texas Baptists to flourish as a centrist, cooperative, mission-minded family of churches clear on what we believe and eager to work together for the kingdom.

Josh King is pastor of Valley Ridge Church, formerly known as First Baptist Church of Lewisville. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

October is Pastor Appreciation Month. How are you appreciating your pastor? If more than one pastor or minister serves your church, how are you appreciating all of them—men and women?

I know. What other profession gets a whole month of appreciation? Administrative professionals only get one day. Why do pastors need a whole month?

For one, how many other professions are 24/7, 365 days a year, 366 in a leap year? Your pastor works far more than 30 minutes on Sunday mornings.

How many other professions marry you, bury you, baptize you, disciple you, dedicate your newborns, rejoice with you one moment and mourn with you the next, and carry the weight of communicating God’s word week after week after week alongside the fear of leading anyone astray?

How many other professions are measured by budgets, baptisms and, ahem, bodies in seats because the real fruit is intangible, often takes so long to appear and is out of the “professional’s” control?

And how about those pastors and ministers who do all of this while also working one or two other jobs? What about bivocational ministers?

October is Pastor Appreciation Month. Today, I’m giving a shout out to bivocational pastors and ministers. Frankly, you amaze me.

By the numbers

Bivocational ministers and their churches often feel invisible. Larger churches tend to be more prominent. Their leaders tend to headline the conferences and conventions, sending the unintended message that smaller, part-time or bivocational churches don’t have as much to offer, aren’t as important.

We like to measure importance by the numbers. So, let’s consider some numbers.

Ira Antoine, Texas Baptists’ director of bivocational ministry, reports about 60 percent of churches affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas are bivocational. Among Hispanic and African American BGCT churches, 90 percent are bivocational. International churches also are mostly bivocational. And bivocational is the growing edge of all ministry.

The BGCT reports 5,300 churches. That means almost 3,200 BGCT churches are bivocational. There are many whole Christian denominations with far fewer churches than that—among them, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), with which Texas Christian University is affiliated, Presbyterian Church in America and Salvation Army.

While individual bivocational congregations may feel invisible, by sheer numbers they clearly should not be ignored.

But bivocational churches and their ministers are so much more than the numbers.

What is ‘bivocational?’

Antoine defines a bivocational minister as “one who works outside the church to provide suitable financial stability for the family. This includes retirees who continue in ministry while drawing retirement income.”

Bivocational ministers who are not retired work full- or part-time jobs in any number of other fields. They are teachers, bus drivers, coaches, doctors, lawyers, business owners, delivery drivers, insurance agents, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, chaplains, funeral directors, scientists, physicians, IT specialists, landscapers, denominational employees and more.

Some bivocational ministers receive some income from the churches they serve. Many serve churches too small to provide any income to their ministers. To make ends meet, plenty of bivocational ministers work one or more jobs outside the church. Which means they have all the same pressures full-time ministers experience and even less time off.

Why in the world would anyone do this? Are they crazy? Is something wrong with them? Well, no, not any more than the rest of us.

So, why would a person willingly serve in what seems to be such a thankless position?

One, because God called them.
Two, because they are fiercely committed to God.
Three, because they are passionate about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Four, because though it may be exhausting, it isn’t thankless.

I’ll say it again: Bivocational ministers amaze me.

Shout out

There’s a Congolese refugee who drives a cargo truck back and forth across Texas at night so he can serve as his church’s pastor during the day.

There’s a fire inspector who made his living traveling the United States investigating fires for an insurance company so he could serve his church without burdening it with his financial needs.

There is a suburban man teaching in an urban public school to ensure his congregation doesn’t go without spiritual leadership.

There are three international co-pastors following God’s call to their diaspora communities in Texas while also continuing to minister to their countries of origin.

These are just four stories of thousands that can be told. These stories, by their brevity, make bivocational ministry sound easy—or at least easier than it is. No, bivocational ministry is not easy. Not at all.

These stories also might make bivocational ministers sound like superheroes. In my book, they are heroic, though not superheroic. Bivocational ministers are not comic book characters and don’t want to be.

To the bivocational men and women serving our churches: Thank you for following God’s call, even where there’s no spotlight. Thank you for being willing to give your all to that call. Thank you for continuing to pursue it and push through when the results don’t seem to match the effort, when it is more than hard … and it’s often more than hard. You amaze me.

It’s Pastor Appreciation Month. Your ministers don’t need another tie or corsage. Taking your minister to lunch is nice. Giving your minister a vacation is better. But if you really want to show your appreciation, put your hand to the plow and labor with them … so they can actually take that vacation.

Eric Black is the executive director, publisher and editor of the Baptist Standard. He can be reached at eric.black@baptiststandard.com. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

In Numbers 21, Israel found themselves under siege by poisonous snakes. God gave Moses an odd command: Make a bronze serpent, raise it on a pole and let people look at it to live. And it worked. A gift of grace. A sign of healing in a desperate moment.

Fast forward centuries later to 2 Kings 18. That same bronze serpent was still around, but now the people were bowing down to it, burning incense, giving it a name: Nehushtan. What was once a good gift had become an idol. King Hezekiah had to smash it into pieces.

That story is more than history; it’s a warning. Human beings have a way of turning God’s gifts into substitutes for God himself.

William Stringfellow, a theologian who spent his life exposing America’s idolatries, saw the same thing happening in modern institutions.

He said the Bible’s language about “powers and principalities” wasn’t just about demons. It was about real-world structures—nations, corporations, ideologies—that take on a life of their own. They aren’t neutral; they demand loyalty. They promise security. And when we give them our hearts, they end up enslaving us to death instead of bringing life.

Nehushtan isn’t just an artifact of Israel’s history. It’s a parable of how something meant for good—like family, money or even a nation—can become an idol when it gets lifted higher than Christ.

That’s why I worry about Christian nationalism. At its best, it tries to honor God’s place in public life. At its worst, it turns America into Nehushtan—demanding the loyalty, devotion and worship that belong only to God.

Christian nationalism has its defenders, and they make arguments worth hearing. But when we measure them against the gospel, against Stringfellow’s insights on the powers, and against the cruciform love of Jesus, we begin to see cracks in the foundation.

A needed reframing

The research from Neighborly Faith suggests what gets called “Christian nationalism” isn’t always a single, dangerous ideology. Instead, it often shows up as a mix of attitudes, cultural instincts and fears about losing values—sometimes more about identity and belonging than about consciously idolizing the nation.

Some people labeled as “Christian nationalists” are motivated by love for their families, gratitude for their freedoms or concern for cultural changes they don’t fully understand. Many are willing to work across differences and do good in their communities. That’s not the same as an organized, militant ideology.

So maybe a reframing is needed.

Christian nationalism as ideology

This is the “Nehushtan” version: America is treated as God’s chosen nation, the cross gets fused with the flag, and political enemies are treated as enemies of God. That’s where it becomes idolatrous and dangerous.

Christian nationalism as instinct or mood

This is what you see in a lot of ordinary folks: love for family, gratitude for freedoms, fear of cultural changes they don’t understand. Often, they’re not trying to worship the nation. They just don’t have language to separate love of country from loyalty to Christ.

The first category likely calls for clear resistance: name it, call it out and show why it’s idolatry—“cleanse the temple.”

The second calls for patience and dialogue: listen, affirm what’s good and gently help people untangle their patriotism from their discipleship—“explain the way of God more accurately” (Acts 18:26).

That kind of reframing gives us more room to engage people in the pew without lumping everyone together but still being clear about where the gospel draws the line.

The distinction between the state and the church

This is where another important distinction comes in. The state has a mission from God. And the church has a mission from God. They are not the same mission.

The state’s mission is limited but necessary. God uses governments to keep basic order: punishing theft, restraining violence, protecting citizens. That’s good.

But notice: it’s always external. It can tell you what not to do, but it can’t change who you are. Laws can prevent a thief from breaking into your house, but they can’t make that thief generous. They can’t make him love his neighbor.

The church’s mission is different in kind, not just degree. The church exists to show the world Jesus crucified and risen, to embody his life by the Spirit.

That means not just restraining evil but creating new life—sharing possessions so no one goes hungry, forgiving enemies 70 times seven, laying down power to wash feet. That’s something no government ever can legislate. It takes the Spirit. It takes the cross.

That’s why it’s so dangerous to confuse the missions. When we ask the state to do the church’s job, we lose both. The state becomes an idol, pretending it can change hearts. The church becomes a lobby, chasing laws instead of embodying love.

But when each stays in its lane, they both serve God’s purposes. The state keeps order in the world. The church shows the world a new creation.

With that in mind, next week we will look at the main arguments for Christian nationalism and see how they hold up when measured against the gospel, Stringfellow’s insights on the powers and the cruciform love of Jesus.

Nick Acker, a native Texan, is co-lead pastor of Grace Ventura Church in Ventura, Calif., adjunct faculty member at Stark College and Seminary and a resident fellow at East Texas Baptist University’s B.H. Carroll Theological Seminary, and author of Exegeting Orality: Interpreting the Inspired Words of Scripture in Light of Their Oral Traditional Origins. He finds his greatest joy in his wife and three children. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

The world is a very different place than it was when Baptists formed their first churches four centuries ago. The intellectual and cultural shifts that created the modern world were only just beginning, and many of the views Baptists championed were thought to be both heretical and dangerous.

Subsequent developments have proven out the wisdom of those fathers and mothers of our tradition.

They advocated for, and sometimes died for, a world that was more free and more humane. Whether they meant to or not, they reframed the way Christians view their disagreements, and they prepared western societies for a world far more diverse than many imagined possible.

Nevertheless, there always were questions about the kind of Christianity for which Baptists advocated, and though we may not like their methods, the persecutors of the Baptist faith gave voice to concerns still viable today.

Moreover, voices have emerged within the Baptist tradition that question the validity and applicability of some of our most cherished distinctives.

For more than a century, Baptist individuals and institutions have displayed a significant vulnerability to heresy and a particular resistance to efforts at theological, moral and political accountability. One cannot help but wonder whether these trends are related to how Baptists understand themselves and to how they construe the basic doctrines of the Christian faith.

Examining Baptist identity

I will examine the various components of Baptist identity, asking hard questions about their biblical basis and their consequences in a rapidly changing religious and cultural context.

I hope to help Baptists understand why some of our institutions are under so much strain.

I am not an expert in North American religious history or systematic theology. I simply am an informed observer who wants every branch of the universal church, and especially the one I inhabit, to be faithful representatives of Jesus.

I will be using Karen Bullock’s rubric for understanding Baptist identity as my guide. Dr. Bullock is an imminent historian of Anabaptists and Baptists, and she has been a friend since I was in seminary a quarter of a century ago.

More importantly, her rubric—presented and developed in her Pinson lecture of 2024—is clear and comprehensive, even if others would prefer to present Baptist identity with different emphases.

Telling my story

A friend used to describe himself as “a 9-month Baptist,” by which he meant he was a Baptist nine months before he was born. My roots in Baptist life don’t run quite that deep, but they do frame much of my acquaintance with the teachings and institutions of Christianity.

My mother was from an Assemblies of God family, and to this day her theology retains a mildly Pentecostal tinge. My father was part of a Landmark Baptist denomination. When they got married, they compromised by attending a Southern Baptist church, though we also attended churches in these other denominations from time to time.

Like many who grew up in the rural South, I did not have as wide an exposure to the church’s vast variety of denominations as those from more urban settings.

Studying in an ecumenical divinity school for my doctorate helped me see the church, and my own tradition, from vantage points I had not before. It also helped me contextualize the conflicts that by that time had afflicted Baptists in the southern United States for decades within a more comprehensive accounting of North American religion.

A preliminary question: Is Baptist identity parasitic?

There was one experience, however, that got me particularly interested in Baptist identity—and especially in its problems. A friend of mine was looking for a new denominational home. He also was teaching in a school that had been deeply influenced by Reformed thinking but whose students were often from Baptist or quasi-Baptist churches.

One day, my friend asked me what I thought was distinctive about the Baptist tradition. I rattled off some of the things I had learned from H. Leon McBeth in my Baptist history course while my friend listened politely.

When I finished my unplanned soliloquy, my friend said something to the effect, “So, Baptists did not take a unique position on the core doctrines of the church?”

I understood what he meant. He was thinking in terms of the soteriological controversies between Calvinists and Arminians (or Wesleyans) or between Lutherans and Catholics. As many observers have pointed out, much Baptist soteriology in those early days was intentionally Calvinistic or semi-Calvinistic in flavor.

So, were Baptists really just parasites? Were they moochers off of the Reformed tradition, or did they make a meaningful contribution to the theological discourse of the church?

We can acknowledge with gratitude that most of the Trinitarian and Christological issues that have been important in defining orthodoxy were settled long before Baptists came along.

We can also acknowledge there has been no consensus among Baptists about soteriology—except to affirm the Protestant view that salvation is acquired by grace through faith alone. Indeed, though most Baptists have leaned Calvinistic, others have adopted a more Arminian soteriology.

Baptists’ own identity

Nevertheless, I am convinced Baptists do have a doctrinal identity of their own, and I am convinced they need not be ashamed of their place in the pantheon of Christian traditions.

As I will discuss in subsequent parts, Baptists confronted the church with serious questions about its nature, composition and purpose.

Moreover, as Russell Moore pointed out in his 2024 lecture at Dallas Baptist University, Baptists rightly emphasized the personal nature of salvation and explicated the implications of that truth for a wide variety of controversial topics.

It even could be argued Baptists provoked serious discussions of what sola scriptura really means.

In Part 2, I will turn to the question of Scripture. Its authority is the undisputed starting point for most Baptists as they consider their heritage and theology, but it also has been the source of significant controversy among Baptists for decades.

Wade Berry is pastor of Second Baptist Church in Ranger and has been resident fellow in New Testament and Greek at B.H. Carroll Theological Seminary. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.

CORRECTION: Spelling of Arminian has been corrected.

CAUTION: This editorial discusses sexual abuse and its consequences.

Two Dallas-area megachurch pastors made the news during the last week. Their stories give us a chance to think about how we respond when pastors sin.

Two megachurch pastors

On Oct. 5, following a restoration process after admitting a year ago to an undisclosed sin, Tony Evans told his congregation he would not return to lead Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, the church he founded.

On Oct. 2, Robert Morris, founder of Gateway Church, pleaded guilty in an Oklahoma courtroom “to five counts of lewd and indecent acts with a child” he committed in the 1980s. He resigned from Gateway in June 2024 after Cindy Clemishire accused him of molesting her.

Stories like these have been too common over the last several years. They raise important questions about how Christian leaders should be held accountable for their sin, what that accountability should be, when or if a Christian leader can or should be restored, and what restoration should be.

A Baptist Standard reader asked me some of those questions the day after Morris was escorted out of the courtroom by Osage County sheriff’s deputies.

Questions

The reader, who gave me permission to include his questions here, asked me: “Since there is no evidence of any similar activity” by Morris in the last 40 years, and since he went on to grow a prominent church, “when does your past sin stop following you while you are building good things on behalf of God?”

I feel you bristling. While you bristle, consider that the questioner is trying honestly to grapple with the messy meeting of sin, accountability and reconciliation. We all need to grapple honestly with this.

In answer to the question, though: Morris’ sin didn’t need Clemishire’s accusation to pick up his scent and start following him. His sin followed him just fine on its own all those 40-plus years. That’s what unconfessed sin does.

If a person kept sinning, our reader continued, he shouldn’t be in ministry.

Some would say Morris did keep sinning by not telling the truth for 40-plus years.

“Should something that was committed 40 years ago be enough to stop anyone from repenting and going forward in the name of God? When does he recover?” our reader concluded.

By the time I got to the end of our reader’s email, I had so many thoughts lining up in my mind that I opted to take the weekend before responding. And when I did, I still couldn’t address all the questions adequately. I can’t here, either. We need a conversation for that.

We can start, however, by looking at similarities and differences in Evans’ and Morris’ stories. The similarities in their stories are striking, but they pale in comparison to the significant differences.

Comparing situations

Evans’ sin, still publicly undisclosed, seems to have occurred recently. Morris’ sin occurred more than 40 years ago.

Evans maintains his sin was not a criminal act. Morris’ sin absolutely was criminal, punishable by the state.

As far as we know, Evans admitted his sin on his own and took himself out of church leadership.

Two days after Clemishire’s accusation, Morris told The Christian Post he “was involved in inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady” while in his early 20s. He left out how old she was. When Clemishire’s accusation made that detail known, Gateway leadership said Morris had confessed to “a moral failure,” but they had “no idea the person involved was a minor.”

Evans underwent a restoration process. Morris may or may not do so, unless one thinks incarceration and sex-offender registration is a restoration process. It is not.

At the conclusion of his restoration process, it was announced Evans announced would not return to staff or leadership role at Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship. Morris, well, we’re not that far yet into Morris’ story.

How long?

Let’s go back to the questions our reader posed and focus as he did on Morris.

Should there be a statute of limitations for Christians? Going back to the facts of Morris’ story: Morris wasn’t forthright about what he did until he was publicly accused. Meanwhile, his sin impacted Clemishire for a full 40 years and more. As the old spiritual says, “You can run on for a long time, but sooner or later, God’ll cut you down.”

About repentance: Nothing and no one can stop a person from repenting, but repentance is different than accountability. Repent or not, we’re still accountable for our sin. When that sin violates human law—which Morris’ did—we’re also accountable to the state.

How about forgiveness? Should Morris be forgiven? While Scripture tells us to forgive those who sin against us, this again is a different thing than accountability. We need to let go of the fallacy that holding people accountable for their sin negates forgiveness.

Sexual abuse is wrong; it is evil. Sexual abuse is sin, and sin has consequences.

Sexual abuse harms a person in profound ways that are not easy to “just get over.” Clemishire has lived more than 40 years with the consequences of Morris’ sin. Anyone who thinks she hasn’t worked on “getting over it” doesn’t know what sexual abuse does to a person or how much work she’s likely done.

Restoration?

And then there’s that last question: “When does he recover?”

That question really sent my mind to work. First, what do we mean by “recover?” Sometimes, we use “recover” and “restore” interchangeably. Their definitions typically are person- and situation-specific.

Second, recovery or restoration is not the same thing as returning to a ministry position, much less one so prominent, though a person eventually might serve in a completely different capacity. This doesn’t mean that person hasn’t recovered or been restored. Also, just because a person is “restored,” doesn’t mean that person has “recovered.”

If I was making the decision, I would not return Morris to the pulpit and absolutely would not give him leadership over minors.

I still haven’t answered “when.” We need a conversation for that, and the affected people need to be part of it. We can’t do that in an email thread or editorial.

Tony Evans and Robert Morris are two very public and prominent figures. They’ve held themselves up to countless people for decades as examples of Christian living. We ought to learn from them now, even if we’d rather not have to learn how to face a pastor’s sin, or our own.

Eric Black is the executive director, publisher and editor of the Baptist Standard. He can be reached at eric.black@baptiststandard.com. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.