Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
Childhood Heroes Inspire Us to Make a Positive Impact
Very few, if any, of my boyhood heroes were of the religious variety. Everybody I knew held tremendous affection for Billy Graham. But what I noticed about the famed evangelist was his story of the time when, as a boy,...
Education under fire?
North Carolina's new governer has raised the ire of educators in the state's university system by suggesting that the only purpose of higher education worth funding is training that will lead directly to jobs. I...
4 Ways Your Church Can Become Whole-Hearted
Recently, our staff was talking about things our parents would tell us that we find ourselves repeating to our children or ourselves. We had to admit that we increasingly sound like those voices we vowed never to...
Who Tells You Who You Are?
In his book "Letters to a Young Doubter," William Sloan Coffin says that when he was chaplain at Yale, he would get requests from seniors to write a letter of recommendation to some "highfalutin" school like Harvard...
Skype Interview: Lauren Colwell Discusses Lent
"To me, having Easter without Lent is almost like giving birth to a child without the preceding nine months of pregnancy," a Georgia minister says. "It's still miraculous and it's still wonderful, but if you don't have...
‘Signs of the times’
By John Pierce Those who subscribe to Baptists Today news journal will read in the February edition that more than one-third (36 percent) of Americans believe that weird weather — such as that occurring in many...
How to Keep Your Words from Doing Harm
Everyone has played a variation of the childhood exercise designed to teach us the damaging power of the "rumor mill." Whether you have five or 25 people sitting in a circle, by the time a whispered secret makes it all...
How a Warm Building Helps to Share the Gospel
Although Athens, Greece, is ordinarily the epitome of mild, Mediterranean weather, January and February are our cold months. Surrounded as we are by mountains, recent weather has been at the freezing point, with snow...
Reforming Immigration Rhetoric and Immigration Law
President Obama wants to change the federal immigration law more than he seemingly wants to change the national ethos related to the undocumented. Changing the former without changing the latter leaves the nation...
Buzzards and Baptists
Having spent 40 years on the "professional" side of the Baptist world -- as pastor, journalist, and professor -- I've seen my share of "Buzzard Baptists" -- the sort of folks who seem to enjoy dragging up things that...
“Zero Dark Thirty”
A movie that deals with the hunt for Osama bin Laden has a great big elephant sitting in the narrative room. That elephant is torture. We all know it was there in the real world, so what do you do with it in the movie...
Churches in Arab Spring: Political or Prophetic Voice?
A question has been on my mind a lot lately. What should the role of the church be in the context of our troubled region? How should the church respond to its changing realities as the Arab Spring is unfolding? We can...
Nat’l Christian Group To Screen Faith and Immigration Documentary
Denominational executives and Christian leaders at the annual 2013 meeting of Christian Churches Together (CCT) will view an ecumenical documentary on faith and immigration produced by EthicsDaily.com. Founded in 2006,...
Kaylie’s dad and the rest of us poor slobs
By John Pierce There is a cute TV commercial in which kids in a classroom are unimpressed by Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ visit. He just plays football. “That’s not a job,” one kid says....
Heads up
I'm not crazy about walking the dog under any circumstances -- I can think of so many other things I'd rather be doing -- but the fun factor declines even more when it's cold. Just before daylight this morning, with...
Embracing Diversity Vital to Churches’ Future
"Embracing diversity" seemed to be a main theme running through the European Baptist Federation's (EBF) Youth and Children's Workers' Conference, which ended in Prague recently. I always enjoy attending this conference...
Ambitious Study Weighs Divorce’s Toll on Kids
The Chicago Tribune recently alerted readers to the release that day of an ambitious set of findings about the effects of divorce on children. Reporter Manya A. Brachear called the project "unprecedented." I crossed...
Our Children “ Simple and Complex Gifts
I received a "galimoto" for Christmas. In case you didn't know, a "galimoto" is a toy vehicle created out of sticks, cornstalks, wire or anything children can take into their hands and make into a thing with wheels....
Singing in Perfect Harmony
A sermon delivered by Keith Herron, Pastor, Holmeswood Baptist Church, Kansas City, Mo., on January 20, 2013. The Second Sunday after the Epiphany I Corinthians 12:1-11 Congregational singing in years past likely...
Signs and Wonders
A sermon delivered by Jim Somerville, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Richmond, Va., on January 20, 2013. The Second Sunday after the Epiphany John 2:1-11 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the...
Peace Child
A sermon delivered by Michael Cheuk, Pastor, University Baptist Church, Charlottesville, Va., on January 20, 2013. Isaiah 62:1-5 When I immigrated to the United States, one of the first things I had to consider was...