<![CDATA[Reclaiming Orthodoxy]]>https://www.zionmcgregor.comhttps://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!j8YA!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F05741d28-eea4-4bf7-a09c-2497bfad09b4_1254x1254.pngReclaiming Orthodoxyhttps://www.zionmcgregor.comSubstackSun, 13 Sep 2026 04:00:58 GMT<![CDATA[Guard the Faith: Reimagining the National Convention, and Why It All Matters ]]>https://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/guard-the-faith-reimagining-the-nationalhttps://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/guard-the-faith-reimagining-the-nationalThu, 27 Aug 2026 18:31:32 GMT

On a September day in 1895, in a church in Atlanta, a scattered and only recently freed people did something audacious. They built a national voice out of almost nothing. The national body cannot be everywhere, and it should stop trying to be. Its genius is not proximity but altitude, and to reclaim that genius we should first remember what it was built…

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]]><![CDATA[The Artery: Reimagining the Work of the State Convention]]>https://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/the-artery-reimagining-the-work-ofhttps://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/the-artery-reimagining-the-work-ofFri, 21 Aug 2026 20:33:08 GMT
General Missionary Baptist State Convention of Mississippi gathering.

A capillary can carry only so much. Some of the work a church needs is simply too large for the cluster of congregations down the road, and yet too intimate for a national office that has never seen the inside of its sanctuary. That middle distance belongs to the state convention. If t…

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]]><![CDATA[Begin at the Association: Reimagining the Body Closest to the Local Church]]>https://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/begin-at-the-association-reimagininghttps://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/begin-at-the-association-reimaginingSun, 16 Aug 2026 00:36:08 GMT
Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, Pastor Michael Noble, leads a prayer after a bible study on Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2017, Newark.

Ask a weary pastor where the denomination actually touches his week, and he will not point you to the national convention in some distant city. He will point, if he points anywhere, down the road, to the handful of churches near…

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]]><![CDATA[The Generation That Walked]]>https://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/the-generation-that-walkedhttps://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/the-generation-that-walkedSat, 08 Aug 2026 18:05:53 GMT

Not long ago I sat toward the back of a district association meeting and counted the gray heads. There were many of them, faithful and dignified, the mothers of the church in their white and the veteran deacons in their dark suits, the men and women who have kept the machinery of denominational life turning for the better part of a century. What I could…

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]]><![CDATA[Who Actually Grows The Church?]]>https://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/who-actually-grows-the-churchhttps://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/who-actually-grows-the-churchSun, 26 Jul 2026 07:40:21 GMT

I have watched the same scene unfold at more ministry gatherings than I can count. Two pastors meet, shake hands, trade the usual words about family and the drive in, and then, almost involuntarily, one of them asks the question that quietly governs so much of American church life: “So, how big is your church now?”

It is a small question, and it seems ha…

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]]><![CDATA[THE OPPORTUNITIES OF DENOMINATIONAL WORK]]>https://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/the-opportunities-of-denominationalhttps://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/the-opportunities-of-denominationalSat, 18 Jul 2026 03:55:30 GMT
National Baptist Convention gathering early 20th century.

Ask a pastor why his church belongs to no association, no convention, no fellowship of accountability, and he will often answer with the language of purity: we do not want the bureaucracy, the politics, the diluted doctrine, the compromise. There is real wisdom buried in that instinct. But there i…

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]]><![CDATA[ARE AFRICAN-AMERICANS SAFE IN EVANGELICAL CHURCHES?]]>https://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/are-african-americans-safe-in-evangelicalhttps://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/are-african-americans-safe-in-evangelicalSun, 12 Jul 2026 04:46:11 GMT
Illustration by Zion McGregor

A Black woman I know, a faithful churchgoer for the whole of her adult life, who joined a white evangelical church once told me why she stopped raising her hand in Sunday school. It was not that she lacked an answer. It was that the room had made clear, gently and without a single cruel word, that her answer was not the kind…

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]]><![CDATA[The MisEducation of the Holy Spirit in the Baptist Church Pt. 3]]>https://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/the-miseducation-of-the-holy-spirit-6c7https://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/the-miseducation-of-the-holy-spirit-6c7Fri, 03 Jul 2026 19:45:35 GMTPART THREE OF THREE

Parts One and Two established that the formalism charge does not survive scriptural scrutiny, that no denomination holds a patent on the Spirit, that certain charismatic frameworks risk instrumentalizing the Third Person of the Trinity, and that the Spirit’s communal, eschatological, and discerning dimensions, all present in the Black…

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]]><![CDATA[The MisEducation of the Holy Spirit in the Baptist Church Pt. 2]]>https://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/the-miseducation-of-the-holy-spirit-b96https://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/the-miseducation-of-the-holy-spirit-b96Fri, 26 Jun 2026 14:02:16 GMTPART TWO OF THREE
A stain glass depiction of Pentecost Sunday.

Part One established that the charge of formalism against the African-American Baptist church does not survive scriptural or historical scrutiny, that no denomination holds a patent on the Spirit’s presence, and that certain charismatic frameworks risk reducing the Third Person of the Trinity …

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]]><![CDATA[The MisEducation of the Holy Spirit & the Baptist Church]]>https://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/the-miseducation-of-the-holy-spirithttps://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/the-miseducation-of-the-holy-spiritTue, 23 Jun 2026 04:33:54 GMTPART ONE OF THREE

Some people enter a conversation carrying questions; others arrive carrying footnotes. They do not present their conclusions as contributions to a discussion but as corrections to one. They survey a tradition largely from the outside, identify what they believe it lacks, and then, with the composed confidence of a physician diagnosing …

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]]><![CDATA[State of the Black Church: Has Culture Moved the Cornerstone?]]>https://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/state-of-the-black-church-has-culturehttps://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/state-of-the-black-church-has-cultureMon, 15 Jun 2026 17:13:03 GMTA Four-Part Series on the State of the Black Church | Conclusion

WHAT THE DATA CANNOT CAPTURE

Here is what the data cannot capture, and what the cultural commentator must be careful not to miss: the church does not derive its mandate from sociology. Its mission was not given by culture, and it cannot be revoked by culture. The ekklesia, the called-out ass…

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]]><![CDATA[State of the Black Church: The Fault Lines Within]]>https://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/state-of-the-black-church-the-faulthttps://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/state-of-the-black-church-the-faultThu, 11 Jun 2026 10:46:47 GMTA Four-Part Series on the State of the Black Church | Part 3 of 4

Friedrich Schleiermacher the father of liberal theology, a Black Hebrew Israelite figure, and AI avatar represent the challenges of our times.

Perhaps the most consequential and least discussed dimension of the Black church's present crisis is not sociological at all. It is theological. B…

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]]><![CDATA[State of the Black Church: The Missing Men and the Competing Gospels]]>https://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/the-missing-men-and-the-competinghttps://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/the-missing-men-and-the-competingMon, 08 Jun 2026 23:08:56 GMTA Four-Part Series on the State of the Black Church | Part 2 of 4

Hip-hop recording artist Kendrick Lamar represents a generation of Black men the church has struggled to reach.

THE MISSING MEN

Of all the demographic patterns embedded in the data, none is more consequential or more underreported than the departure of young Black men from the church. Pew'…

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]]><![CDATA[The State of the Black Church: The Ground Is Shifting]]>https://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/the-state-of-the-black-church-thehttps://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/the-state-of-the-black-church-theFri, 05 Jun 2026 19:24:35 GMTA Four-Part Series on the State of the Black Church | Part 1 of 4

A NATION IN SPIRITUAL DRIFT

Walk through almost any American city on a Sunday morning and you will encounter a strange bifurcation. On one side of the street, the barbershops are quiet, but the corners are not. Young Black men huddle in clusters, phones in hand, ears fed a steady diet of st…

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]]><![CDATA[Distinguished Gentleman: Statesman of the Pulpit]]>https://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/distinguished-gentleman-statesmanhttps://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/distinguished-gentleman-statesmanFri, 22 May 2026 15:04:56 GMT

There is a particular kind of person who does not merely speak about God but speaks for God, who does not simply announce the news of heaven but stands as its credentialed representative in the geography of human suffering. This was the pastor-statesman. And before we mourn his passing or celebrate his memory, we must understand who he was in the most f…

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]]><![CDATA[What Are You Preaching?]]>https://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/what-are-you-preachinghttps://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/what-are-you-preachingWed, 13 May 2026 04:01:56 GMT
Pastor T. K. Anderson preaching at the Lilly Grove Missionary Baptist Church, Houston, Texas

What is the most dangerous thing happening in American Christianity right now? You might point to declining attendance, the exodus of younger generations, or the slow institutional decay of historic denominations. All of these deserve serious attention. But I wan…

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]]><![CDATA[The Church Is Not a Restaurant]]>https://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/the-church-is-not-a-restauranthttps://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/the-church-is-not-a-restaurantMon, 11 May 2026 18:04:24 GMT

What if the greatest crisis facing the American church is not persecution from without, but preference from within?

Something has shifted in the way a generation comes to church. They arrive with the posture of a customer, evaluating, comparing, and calculating. The music is auditioned. The sermon is rated. The parking situation is factored in. If the co…

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]]><![CDATA[Love That Demands More]]>https://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/love-that-demands-morehttps://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/love-that-demands-moreThu, 07 May 2026 19:11:21 GMT

There is a version of God circulating in the American cultural mainstream right now that is, if I am being precise about it, not the God of the Bible. He is a God of pure affirmation, a cosmic mirror who reflects back to us whatever we have already decided about ourselves and the world we envision. He blesses our appetites and validates our identities a…

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]]><![CDATA[The Power We’re Missing: Re-imagining Baptist Cooperation]]>https://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/the-power-were-missing-re-imagininghttps://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/the-power-were-missing-re-imaginingThu, 30 Apr 2026 23:12:37 GMT

Walk into almost any Black Baptist church on a Sunday morning and you will encounter something that has no real parallel in American religious life. The music reaches into something ancient. The preaching still carries the weight of a tradition that sustained a people through centuries of unspeakable suffering. The fellowship is genuine, and the theolog…

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]]><![CDATA[The MisEducation of the Church ]]>https://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/the-miseducation-of-the-churchhttps://www.zionmcgregor.com/p/the-miseducation-of-the-churchTue, 21 Apr 2026 03:32:34 GMT

Every generation eventually turns to look at the church and finds something to be disappointed about. The ancient Romans thought it subversive. The medieval critics thought it corrupt. The Enlightenment intellectuals thought it irrational. And today, particularly within African American communities, a new version of the old complaint has taken hold, one…

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