by Randall Balmer | Oct 14, 2026 | Opinion
Jim Bakker’s death last week at the age of 86 brings to a close one of the sorriest chapters in the history of American evangelicalism. The televangelist scandals captured the nation’s attention in the late 1980s. Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s lavish lifestyle...
by Randall Balmer | Sep 17, 2026 | Opinion
When I was writing Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, I visited Standing Rock Indian Reservation, which straddles the border between North and South Dakota. There I met a remarkable man, Innocent Good House, a Sioux Indian and rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Fort...
by Randall Balmer | Aug 13, 2026 | Opinion
I’m not a theologian, either by training or temperament, but I offer here a fresh argument about the ordination of women. (I can’t believe we’re still discussing this in the third decade of the twenty-first century!) This isn’t so much a brief in favor of women’s...
by Randall Balmer | Jul 22, 2026 | Opinion
In 1874, Lewis Miller and John Heyl Vincent, both Methodists, inaugurated the Chautauqua Lake Sunday School Association on the shores of Lake Chautauqua in western New York. The idea was to provide instruction for Sunday school teachers and out-of-school vacation...
by Randall Balmer | Jun 3, 2026 | Opinion
You really have to feel sorry for Robert Jeffress. The faithful are looking to the pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, which once claimed to be the world’s largest Baptist congregation, for political advice. He’s under some pressure to deliver. Over the past...
