Rick Pidcock

Surrounded by FBI agents attempting to coax them into their vehicles, five of Samuel Bateman's underaged wives huddled tightly.

Given the research I conduct for writing, the ads my algorithm sends me can be all over the map. Nothing ever surprises me.

In the summer of 2001, I risked getting expelled by Bob Jones University for the chance to watch Michael W. Smith in concert at a Franklin Graham crusade at Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C. This was just one year removed from the university overturning their ban on interracial dating. So back then, we considered Smith and Graham to be compromised liberals.

“The rumors are real,” pastor Mike Signorelli wrote on X. “I was brought into a private briefing with other pastors. No phones, no cameras, no recordings. We were told plainly: Disclosure is coming, and what follows will shake the faith of many. If pastors don't start preparing their people now, it will be too late.”

What does pluralism mean for people who believe there's only one way to God, who believe God reigns, but who live in a nation that values liberty and justice for all?

Evangelicals flocked to Washington, D.C., over the weekend to attend the Trump administration's “Rededicate 250” event on Sunday, which was billed as “rededicating” the country to being “one nation under God.”

As my son and I walked through the press screening and out to the gathering space for Rededicate 250, I began having flashbacks to my years in a white evangelical megachurch.

As Southern Baptists prepare to consider Al Mohler's so called “Truth and Unity Amendment” at their annual meeting in Orlando next month, many Baptist women are becoming weary of Southern Baptist men defining “unity” as joining together to silence women.

The so-called Mohler Amendment to prohibit women from functioning as pastors in Southern Baptist churches is being hailed by his minions as “critical for us at this juncture.”

The headlines each year going into the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting seem to focus on Southern Baptists' latest attempts to put women in their place and keep them there.