Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
Positive Views Up for All Religious Groups, Save One
Positive views among U.S. adults toward nearly all religious groups increased from 2014 to 2017, according to the Pew Research Center. There was an average 6 percent increase in positive views of all religions included...
February 16, 2017
Americans are Becoming More Tolerant of Many Religious Groups (Christian Science Monitor) Court Says Jackson County Christian-only Prayer is Illegal (ABC News) Group Objects to Idaho Gov. Otter's 'Preference' for...
The Good Samaritan: How Far Should Love Reach?
A young man I met in Chiapas, Mexico, voiced a brave request: "Can you help me get to 'el Norte' (the North)?" "El Norte" is what many in Mexico call the U.S. The dire poverty in his village was an obvious reason for...
Baptists Minister to Refugees Amid South Sudan Conflict
Baptists in South Sudan are ministering to refugees and internally displaced persons amid increasing violence in the African nation. The civil war, begun in 2013, has caused 1.5 million to flee to neighboring countries...
February 15, 2017
ACLUs Religious Freedom Suit Against Trump Order: 'Gerrymandered to Target Muslims' (Religion Dispatches) Most Americans 'Draw the Line' at Church Endorsements of Candidates (The Alabama Baptist) Pence Places...
Profiles in Goodwill: Barrett Owen
Barrett Owen is senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Waynesboro, Virginia, and a Baptist Center for Ethics board member. 1. Where did you grow up? Cross Plains, Tennessee, 30 miles north of Nashville. 2. What is...
Love Across Borders: Ministering to Immigrants in Poverty
A sharp border of fencing walls and police patrols separate El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico - sister cities located on opposite sides of the Rio Grande River. I have been serving in this area for the last six years...
U.S. Refugee Resettlement: How It Works, What It Costs
The U.S. refugee vetting and resettlement process is lengthy, complex and not widely understood. In most cases, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) first determines who is eligible for resettlement. That process...
North Carolina Church Adopts Two Refugee Families
Ministry to refugees has been a long-term commitment of Ardmore Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. In the 1970s, we adopted a Vietnamese family when thousands were streaming into the country seeking...
How Should Churches Respond to Trump’s Travel Ban?
How should the church respond to President Trump's travel ban? I began wrestling with this question when I read about two Christian families from Syria one recent Sunday morning. After working to attain permission to...
Why Today’s U.S. Conservative Christianity is Really Liberal
I find one of the greatest ironies of contemporary American Christianity here: What usually is called "conservative Christianity" is really a form of liberal Christianity. So, as usual, it is important to define our...
Diggin’ the art
Here's a Valentine's Day gift for art and history lovers everywhere: the Metropolitan Museum of Art has made high-resolution digital images of more than 375,000 of its artworks, sculptures, and historical objects...
Migrants Sacrifice, Risk Death for Chance at Better Life
My friend, Uziel, is one of the thousands of Central American youths who have migrated to the U.S. searching for a better life. Originally from Aldea Miramar - a Mayan, Mam-speaking community in San Martin...
Abolishing Johnson Amendment Would Diminish Gospel
I prayed for President Trump during a recent Sunday morning worship service. The prayer prompted one man to ask following the service, "So, did your man win the election?" His wife tried to rescue me by interjecting,...
February 13, 2017
BJC's Amanda Tyler: Politicize Our Charities and Churches? No, Thanks (RNS) Rome Pastor: Politics Could Sully Faith if Johnson Amendment Revoked (Northwest Georgia News) Hillary Scott Wins Best Contemporary Christian...
First Step to Ministry with Immigrants: Build Relationships
The jail bars symbolized the immigration detention centers. The tomb symbolized Jesus' crucifixion, burial and resurrection. In the parking lot of a church located in the heart of downtown where I live, I set up a tent...
Record Number of Calls to U.S. Trafficking Hotlines in 2016
The U.S. Human Trafficking Hotline (1-888-373-7888) and BeFree Textline (Text HELP to 233733) received a record number of contacts in 2016. Total calls and texts have more than doubled in the last four years - moving...
February 10, 2017
Federal Appeals Court Rules 3-0 Against Trump on Muslim Ban (Washington Post) How Russia Became the Leader of the Global Christian Right (Politico) Trump's Gift to His Fundamentalist Base (History News Network) Trump...
8 Reflections from Faith-and-Immigration Documentary
Our news - with regard to immigrants, migrants and refugees - has me thinking often about my direct experience with the U.S.-Mexico border. It was January 2011, and I was working on the EthicsDaily.com documentary...
Spreading the Faith: Mission, Migration and Movement
Religion and immigration have been much in the news of late. This actually gets to a lot of work I have been doing recently about how religions move and spread - in this case, mainly Christianity. We regularly hear...
Perceived Threat of Refugees to U.S. Security Declines
The number of U.S. adults who perceive refugees as a threat to U.S. security has declined over the past 10 months, according to the Pew Research Center. More than half (55 percent) of respondents in April 2016 labeled...