Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
August 3, 2015
Sunday Morning Explosions at 2. N.M. Churches Stun Congregants (USA Today) Accused Charleston Church Gunman Pleads Not Guilty But Plans to Plead Guilty to Federal Hate Crime Charges (Washington Post) Religious...
Remembering Rudy Hayes
By John Pierce Rudy Hayes died on Thursday, and he was part of a dying breed: small-town newspaper editors who built trust and wielded influence. He was editor of the Americus Times-Recorder in southwest Georgia for 40...
Car key comfort
Travel can be a wonderful thing, especially opportunities to go overseas and experience different cultures, taste new foods, and see new sights. Downsides are part of the deal, of course. Sometimes the new foods don't...
Report: Despite Progress, Millions Still Enslaved Worldwide
Progress has been made to address human trafficking in the 15 years since adopting the Palermo Protocol - a U.N. agreement focused on preventing, suppressing and punishing trafficking in persons - yet trafficking is...
How Christian Apologetics Works Against Missions
I grew up in a time when evidentiary apologetics was big in youth groups. It was not uncommon to use Josh McDowell's "Evidence that Demands a Verdict" as a youth group curriculum. Then came Lee Strobel's "The Case for...
Microfinance’s Mystical Lure All But Evaporated
Our fascination with microfinance began last century; the love affair in the mid-2000s. The United Nations declared 2005 as the year of microcredit. Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize the...
July 31, 2015
Confederate Flags Found at MLK's Church (CNN) Confederate Flags Left at MLK's Home Church (Baptist News Global) Faith Builds Bridges Between Cuba and Western North Carolina (Asheville Citizen-Times) Obamacare...
EthicsDaily.com Videos Introduce Global Baptists
From the United States to South Korea and central Europe to South Africa, video interviews introduced readers to global Baptists. As part of its extensive coverage of the Baptist World Alliance's 2015 World Congress,...
Blunt Political Rhetoric Entertains But Does it Help?
As our current political theater continues its descent into the realm of the absurd, questions naturally arise about the health and well-being of that dimension of our collective life. Key players in a process that is...
Greece’s Economic Woes Will Hurt Many People
Some call it a modern-day Greek tragedy; others refer to it as the new normal for the country of Greece. Because my wife, Janice, and I moved to Athens, Greece, in 2005 and lived there for more than nine years and have...
July 30, 2015
Agreement Reached in Fremont School District Religion Lawsuit (KRDO, Colorado) Dallas-Area Church Event Center Draws Concern from Neighbors (NBC-DFW) Mormon Church Considers Creating its Own Version of the Boy Scouts...
Franklin Graham and the Politics of Fear
There is no shortage of fear in this world, and of course no shortage of things to be fearful of. Given recent comments by a well-known U.S. evangelical Christian leader, Franklin Graham, concerning his views on Islam...
Your Church’s Choice: Common Ground or Conflict
Barbara Brown Taylor recounts in her book, "Leaving Church," her time as a parish minister serving in rural Georgia. "In a big city they might have found homes in five markedly different parishes, but in a county with...
West African Baptists Teach Congress about Ebola
Baptists from around the world, meeting in Africa for the Baptist World Congress, heard updates from those in nations impacted by last year's Ebola epidemic. Baptists from Liberia and Nigeria spoke, as did a Baptist...
July 29, 2015
Southern Baptists Might Cut Ties with Boy Scouts Over Gay Policy (Times Picayune) Mainline Presbyterian Members Win Lawsuit Over Control of Overland Park Church (Kansas City Star) Man Dies of Snake Bite During Church...
Prophets See World for What It Could Be
The defining characteristic of the biblical prophets was not the ability to predict the future, especially not in the Nostradamus-type way that we tend to think of it in modern times. Neither was their role primarily...
The 3 Balancing Acts of Leadership
Leadership, as I've come to understand it, is a balancing act. When you're the person in charge, every day there could be 100 forces pulling you in different directions. And this is not to mention all the things that...
Baptists from Nazareth Appeal to Global Baptists at Congress
"Can anything good from Nazareth?" During the Baptist World Congress in Durban, South Africa, former Baptist World Alliance President David Coffey of the United Kingdom borrowed the famous question of the disciple...
July 28, 2015
Boy Scouts Change Policy on Gay Leaders (CNN) Mormon Church 'Deeply Troubled' by Boy Scouts' Gay Leaders (TIME) Federal Prisons Agree to Recognize Humanism as Religion (ABC News) For Southern Baptists and GOP, Breaking...
South Africans Teach Global Baptists about Truth, Reconciliation
South African leaders spoke during the Baptist World Congress about the nation's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that helped the nation's transition from racial apartheid. With the Congress meeting in Durban,...
The Danger When You Live for Others’ Approval
A group of preschoolers arrived as my friend, Bob, and I were sitting on the bleachers just outside the racquetball court and trying to catch our breath between games. Race-running, soccer-ball-kicking, tricycle-riding...