Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
October 2, 2017
Roy Moore is a Threat to Religious Liberty (Huffington Post) The Redneck Shop and the Preacher: A Long Saga of Racial Conflict Continues (Charleston Post and Courier) In Virginia, Bible Verse on Bench Must Be Removed...
‘Mother!’
A slogan for a popular bathroom cleaner says, "We work hard so you don't have to." That applies to what I do as a movie reviewer. I go to movies so you don't have to. "Mother!" is one of those movies. It's weird,...
Church Has Long History of Women Preachers – Part 2
I recently stumbled across a fabulously ordinary story in my own hometown of a Baptist church with a long history of supporting female leadership. It helps counter the negative portrayal of female ministers espoused by...
Does Everything Really Happen for a Reason?
Among some Christians you will often hear the aphorism: "Everything happens for a reason." Really? How in the wake of hurricanes, internally displaced persons, floods, earthquakes and shattered infrastructures does one...
September 29, 2017
The Trump Voter Paradox (New York Times) This Video is the Best Five Minutes You Will See on the NFL Protests (Vox) Pensacola Cross Sparks Legal Battle (Baptist Press) Mississippi Restaurant Sued After Christian...
Got a bell? Give a bell?
By John D. Pierce The Christian community at Koinonia Farm in southwest Georgia could use a bell at their chapel. The chapel has been renovated and a bell tower was donated — but no bell. The demonstration plot for...
Church Has Long History of Women Preachers – Part 1
Wayne Grudem argued in a 2006 interview that female leaders in the church (especially pastors) are disobeying God's Word and thus open to "the withdrawal of God's hand of protection and blessing." As Grudem explains,...
Do You Lack Discernment Amid Abundance of Information?
Education is more than information. The late Jean Hendricks, a wise dean in one of Mercer University's academic units, reminded our teaching team of this frequently. She meant, of course, that while information is...
One DACA Student’s Dream for Her Life in the U.S.
It was never their intention to be undocumented immigrants. Yerendi Roblero, 22, was only 6 months old when her parents brought her to the U.S. She is a DREAMer and a DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals)...
September 28, 2017
Roy Moore’s Beliefs: Things the Christian Extremist, Republican Has Said (BBC) A Short History of Roy Moore’s Controversial Interpretations of the Bible (Washington Post) CBF Completes Retooling to Support Church...
Humor and hope: Life with the Kings
By John D. Pierce ATLANTA— “It was the church that made us who we were,” said Albert Paul Brinson, standing in the historic sanctuary of Ebenezer Baptist Church, that he attended as a youth and later served as...
Awakened but confused?
By John D. Pierce One Saturday afternoon a few years ago I dropped into Rembrandt’s Coffee House in the lovely Bluff View Arts District of Chattanooga. Few others were there at the time. But just moments later the soft...
Profiles in Goodwill: Jay Kieve
Jay Kieve is coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of South Carolina (CBFSC). 1. Where did you grow up? Riverdale, Georgia (a southern Atlanta suburb). 2. What is your favorite verse, book or story in the...
Church Transition to Minority Status Can Be Exciting
Post-modern, post-Christendom, post-industrial, post-colonial, post-secular - commentators on transitions impacting Western societies often resort to "post" words to describe these. Observers of church life identify...
Four Out of Five DACA Recipients Born in Mexico
A majority (79.4 percent) of the 689,800 current Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients were born in Mexico, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) data. DACA recipients from...
September 27, 2017
Robert Jeffress, Trump Pastor: NFL Players are Lucky to Not be ‘Shot in the Head’ for Protest (Salon) Colorado Christian University Orders Student Athletes to Stand for National Anthem (Denver Post) Roy Moore,...
Bent or Beautiful
By: Ginger Hughes Recently, my children came bounding in from school with their dad following a few steps behind. Little hands clutched book bags, rain jackets (that we prefer to hold rather than wear), and a few...
The changing face of sin
By John D. Pierce During my formative years, sin was pretty easy to identify if not avoid. Sin was playing poker, drinking beer, missing a church service (without going to another on vacation and bringing a bulletin...
A Butterfly’s Lesson About the Resilient Human Spirit
I was playing outside with Mia, my 18-month-old granddaughter, a few weeks ago when a butterfly decided to join the party. At first, it just circled, to Mia's delight. Then, it decided to land, not more than a foot...
Respond to Violent Rhetoric with Redemptive Words
We live in a time when people seem to have a lot to say and say it with great conviction. This is good; we need to care about things. We sometimes, however, confuse having a reaction to something with really caring...
Which Guides Your Life? Scripture’s Truth or Fake News
John Berger, the radical art critic who taught us all how to look at our representations of the world in the 1970s, wrote in 2006, "Misinformation is developing its techniques." The followers of Jesus have been onto...