We are faced with an unpleasant truth. We have a choice: We can react against the news, or we can rise to the circumstances by bringing our best resources to bear on the problem of sexual abuse and misconduct in our midst. Now is the time for us to employ all that’s best about us.

To survivors and churches: Far more people have been sexually abused than are reported. The reasons for underreporting are numerous. It’s long past time to defang those reasons.

Hospitality is a wide word. It means different things to different people. We like to think we are hospitable people, but how do we know our efforts are perceived as we intend? Likewise, how do we recognize when people from other cultures are extending hospitality to us?

In the State of the Union address and the Democratic response, one statement jumped out to me, a call for our first allegiance.

Lillian Hinds serves as witness to God calling women to the pastorate. February is the Baptist Women in Ministry Month of Preaching.

Abortion happens in the real world, and so we have to deal with abortion in the real world, which includes all the difficulties of human stories.

Skateboarding is a subculture complete with clothing, magazines, music, lingo and values, “a celebration of irresponsibility” where teenagers find a home and belonging. John Barnard did until men from a church took a chance.

Names are useful things, but they can also get us into trouble. Names identify us, but they can also hurt us. In this examination of the names we use for each other, Editor Eric Black follows up on his earlier editorial about centrist Baptists.

Is all the talk about a border wall distracting Christians from their call in this world? Editor Eric Black examines one Christian leader’s conception of the border wall and whether or not such a wall is the best solution to the real issue.

I grew up under the illusion that Baptists were one big happy family. At least, that’s what I thought as a young child. My exposure to the real state of affairs happened in 1988. I was in seventh grade, and I was appalled at how I saw adults, Christian adults, treating one another.

The coming year promises to test our understanding of goodness. Followers of Christ—evangelical or otherwise—will not have to wait to practice goodness in this world. We will have the opportunity to do the honorable thing even before the end of this editorial.

We are smart people. We are sophisticated people. We’ve made so much progress. And we still can’t save ourselves. In answer to our clamoring for a savior, a child is born to us who is Christ the Lord.