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‘Purple church’ pastors mull leadership strategies in polarising times

Ardmore Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, was the site of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina’s Annual Gathering on March 23-24, 2023. RNS photo by Yonat Shimro

Winston-Salem, North Carolina, US RNS Each Wednesday evening, a group of congregants from First Baptist Church of Mt Olive, located about 105 kilometres south-east of Raleigh, gathers for a Bible study called “Tackling Tough Topics Together”. The 10 to 20 regulars have discussed race, human sexuality and mental illness. Those kinds of conversations are rare […]

Deconstruction or reconstruction? US pastors discuss a reboot of evangelicalism

US Reconstructing Evangelicalism conference1

Oak Park, Illinois, US RNS A conference about the future of the nation’s largest religious tradition began with a bit of honesty. “Nobody knows exactly what an evangelical is,” said Joel Lawrence, executive director of the Center for Pastor Theologians, at the opening of the Reconstructing Evangelicalism conference on Monday. The conference, which drew about 400 pastors […]