Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
Is Your Church Asking the Right Questions?
Questions are keys to growth. A leader always thinks about whether he or she is asking good questions. Good questions energize and encourage; poor questions lead to lack of focus and uncertainty. As another new year...
U.S. Homelessness Declines; Emergency Food Requests Up
Emergency food requests increased in 2016, even as overall homelessness rates continued to decline, according to The U.S. Conference of Mayors' Report on Hunger and Homelessness. "Forty-one percent of survey cities...
December 27, 2016
Falwell: Trump Supreme Court Picks Helped Him Surpass Bush, Romney with White Evangelicals (Washington Times) Muslims in a Bible Belt Town in Tennessee Hold Their Breath (Washington Post) In Churches and on Front...
3 Reasons Why Readers Give Donations to EthicsDaily.com
Seven columnists have shared why they support financially EthicsDaily.com. They are pastors, professors, denominational leaders and a layperson. While each explained their support on different grounds, three themes...
‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’
I was there when it all began. It was 1977, and there was a buzz about a movie that was a science fiction story about a young man named Luke Skywalker. He ends up with a robot that carries the plans for a huge battle...
Education ‘an Essential Lifeline’ for Children in Conflict Zones
An estimated 75 million of displaced children are "in desperate need of educational support," according to UNICEF. "For children fleeing from the horrors of war and struggling with the disorientation and...
December 24, 2016
Evangelicals Side With Israel. That's Hurting Palestinian Christians (Washington Post) Palestinians: The Nightmare of Christmas (Gatestone Institute) What Was Christmas Like 100 Years Ago? He Remembers (USA Today)...
Questions as You Travel the Road to Bethlehem
I want to compare between the trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem in the first and 21st centuries. I am a Palestinian Israeli citizen. I live in Nazareth and continually commute to Bethlehem. In fact, this Christmas I am...
A Reminder to March to Beat of Different Drummer
A unique item sits in First Baptist Pensacola's sanctuary amid all of the Christmas decorations. The poinsettias are ablaze with holiday red, and the crèche is in the window for all to see. The Advent wreath is in...
A Baptist Who Embodied the Spirit of Lottie Moon
If you grew up in a Southern Baptist church, you know Lottie Moon. She was a missionary to China for 40 years and has come to personify the missionary spirit of Southern Baptists. My friend, Mike Lee, pastored a church...
Here’s What Really Made Those Wise Men Wise
It's funny that they have come to be known as the wise men. In the biblical accounts, they were referred to as "magi," and for the Jewish audience of the first century this was not, by any stretch of the imagination,...
December 23, 2016
Is Christmas Still a Religious Holiday? (WRAL) You Fix This Mess: Post-Election Evangelicals of Color Disappointed in White Evangelicals (Religion Dispatches) CNN Pundit Likens O'Reilly's Race Comments to Apartheid...
Why You Must Do More Than Wish for ‘Peace’ on Earth
I switched on the news Tuesday morning to hear of the "presumed terrorist" attack at the Berlin Christmas market. My immediate thoughts were as follows: The Christmas market is so much a traditional part of German...
Are You Willing to Stand Up for Creation Care?
Philip Newell offers a series of morning and evening prayers for each day of the week in his book, "Celtic Prayers from Iona." In true Celtic fashion, many of the prayers focus on creation. I recently came across two...
December 22, 2016
Karen Refugees Find Religious Home (Minneapolis Star-Tribune) Will Data Brokers Build a Muslim Registry? (CNN) With Utah Legislature's Mormon Supermajority, is it Representative of the People? (Salt Lake Tribune) Texas...
Why I Support BCE/EthicsDaily.com with My Gifts
My wife and I are blessed beyond measure to be able to give to worthy causes, especially during the Christmas season. We give our tithe and offerings throughout the year to our church, and that is our first priority in...
Lowly Tomato Inspires Grandpa’s Lesson of Love
We set out first thing one morning to check on the ripening fruit. It was early summer when more and more tomatoes were changing from shades of green to shades of red. When you are a farmer, there is thankfulness deep...
Angst-Filled First Christmas Rings True to Immigrants
Easily obscured by the contemporary, somewhat artificial, expressions of a cultural Christmas is the reality that the original Bethlehem story occurred against a backdrop of pain and dislocation for its primary...
December 21, 2016
Russell Moore Responds to Southern Baptist Detractors (Colorado Springs Gazette) President Obama Signs International Religious Freedom Act into Law (BJC) Time to Face Facts: White Evangelicalism Has Always Been Right...
The gift you always wanted
Need a last minute gift idea for someone dear, or even for yourself? Time's a wastin' (as Snuffy Smif likes to say) for you to register for the gift of a lifetime -- a trip to Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan....
Why I Support BCE / EthicsDaily.com with My Gifts
When Jesus needed to define for his disciples how to know who is a member of God's reign, he said, "You will know them by their fruits." Comparing people to trees, he asked, "Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs...