Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
May 6, 2017
Inside Evangelicals' Private White House Dinner (TIME) Freedom from Religion Foundation Sues Trump Over Church Order (ABC News) BJC: New Executive Order Shows Trump Wants to Politicize Churches (Baptist Joint...
Reaching Your Hispanic Neighbors During Cinco de Mayo
Have you considered how a celebration like Cinco de Mayo could help you connect with this country's largest ethnic minority? If you haven't, you should. With its population reaching more than 56.6 million, the Hispanic...
‘Colossal’
We all want to think of ourselves as being independent and free. We want to believe we are only responsible for ourselves and no one else. But what if your life and your actions brought consequences in the lives of...
Religious Liberty Exec Order Draws Divergent Responses
U.S. Christian leaders offered divergent responses to President Trump's May 4 executive order, "Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty." Several U.S. Catholic leaders voiced support for the president's action,...
May 5, 2017
Trump Signs Order Allowing Churches to Engage in Discrimination, More Political Activity (Washington Post) Trump Administration to Back Off Contraception Mandate (Patch) Military Perplexed After Trump Says Soldiers...
How Christians Overcome 500 Years of Misunderstanding
The heart has its reasons, says Pascal, and sometimes those reasons have a long history. Recently I signed a card for a friend, a devout Baptist, who was raised to have a suspicion of Roman Catholics. It's something he...
Prayer – A Marvelous Opportunity to Collaborate
Collaboration is the order of the day for the National Baptist Convention of America International (NBCA) Inc. I serve as NBCA's president, and we have prayerfully and strategically sought to serve affiliated...
Neal Morse Band Takes Listeners on Pilgrimage
For many in the packed audience for the Neal Morse Band's April 6 concert in Birmingham, England, the fact that Neal's one of the leaders of the nonconformist City on a Hill Church in Nashville will be almost...
May 4, 2017
Trump Set to Relax Rules on Political Activity by Religious Groups (KNPR) Muslim and Christian Leaders Recruiting 30,000 Volunteers to Fight Somalia Famine (Fox9) Kentucky Governor Appoints Southern Baptist Professor...
Profiles In Goodwill: Sam Tolbert
Sam Tolbert is pastor of Greater St. Mary Missionary Baptist Church of Lake Charles, Louisiana, president of the National Baptist Convention of America International Inc. and current president of the North American...
Why People Trust Strangers Over Your Church – Part 2
People are increasingly more trusting of strangers than they are of institutions. This is evidenced by the popularity of ridesharing (Uber), crowdfunding (GoFundMe) and renting extra bedrooms or houses (Airbnb). What...
More Education Equals Less Religious Engagement, Save for Christianity
Christianity is an exception to the rule that religious engagement of U.S. adults declines as education level increases, a Pew Research Center analysis finds. The percentages of all adults who say religion is very...
May 3, 2017
How Christianity Accidentally Turbo-Charged Chicken Evolution (Vocativ) Could Making Climate Change a 'Pro-life' Issue Bring Conservatives on Board (Christian Science Monitor) Kansas City Archdiocese Parts Ways with...
Why People Trust Strangers Over Your Church – Part 1
Have you ever used Kijiji, Uber, Airbnb, Tinder, online dating or GoFundMe? Billions of people have taken a leap and used these systems to trust strangers. How trust flows through our society is changing dramatically....
When We Lack Empathy for Large-Scale Violence
President Trump complained earlier this year about the media's failure to pay due attention to Islamist terrorist attacks, and the administration offered a specific list of such events. In some cases, his complaint was...
Report: Religious Freedom ‘Worsening’ Globally
Religious freedom globally "is worsening in both the depth and breadth of violations," according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)'s annual religious freedom report. "Many violations of...
May 2, 2017
State-Licensed Ministers Can't 'Pray Away the Gay,' U.S. Supreme Court Says (Religion Dispatches) Alliance of Baptists Protest 'Fake' N.C. Bathroom Bill (BNG) West Virginia School Board Seeks to Dismiss First Amended...
Symbols of Hope: 4 Ways You Can Shine Your Light
Every weekday morning I walked through the same neighborhood. I watched and listened, trying to see as God sees in that place. As I walked, I became aware of a place where it appeared the odds were stacked against you....
Combatting Hostile Rhetoric with Civil Speech
Peter Gomes, the former minister of Memorial Church, said in a 2004 convocation address to the Harvard Divinity School, "Silence is death, and we with our skills and talents have never been more needed than now." His...
Survey: Most U.S. Adults Own a Bible; Few Read It
Few U.S. adults read their Bibles regularly, even though 87 percent have at least one copy in their homes, LifeWay Research found. Fifty-three percent of respondents said they had read little to none of the Bible:...
May 1, 2017
Jerry Falwell Jr.: Evangelicals Have Found 'Dream President' in Donald Trump (Christian Post) 'Folks Don't Feel Safe' in This North Carolina City (CNN) NAACP, Alliance of Baptists Team up for Protests (WLOS) How a...