Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
Why It Hurts When Starbucks, Churches Forget You
It's been at least a year now. I've been going to the same Starbucks several times a week, seeing the same baristas, ordering the same drink exactly every morning: Tall. Skinny. Peppermint mocha. Stirred. No whip. I've...
Peter’s Second Conversion
A sermon delivered by Joel Snider, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Rome, Ga., on August 5, 2012. Acts 10:1-23 Morning Prayer: O Lord, through your son, Jesus, you did open your arms to welcome and to bless children. At...
Good News for the Dark Side of Life
A sermon delivered by Wendell Griffen, Pastor, New Millennium Church, Little Rock, Ark., on August 12, 2012. 1 Kings 19:1-15 19Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the...
Drones – The Nuclear Weapon for This Generation?
Cricket may not be a real sport as far as the Olympics are concerned - and, seriously, how do they decide that stuff? Shooting, walking and about 25,000 iterations of cycling make the cut, but rugby, cricket and darts...
New Source of Mayhem and Death Stalks Illinois
Plenty of gory stories about injury, mayhem and death in America this summer, highlighted by mass violence in suburban Denver and Milwaukee. Illinois has escaped those incidents, we think. Oh, but then there's Chicago,...
When A Prophet Fails
A sermon delivered by Randy Hyde, Pastor, Pulaski Heights Baptist Church, Little Rock, Ark., on August 12, 2012. 1 Kings 19:4-8; Matthew 11:25-30 The preacher is never better than his last sermon. Forget the years and...
Will Postmoderns Support the Church?
People who love the church -- in some semblance of the way we have come to know it in the past 100 years -- have cause for concern about how long that model will be sustainable. Attendance is generally down, for one...
Blessing of the Students
A sermon delivered by Robert Browning, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Frankfort, Ky., on August 12, 2012. Lamentations 2:19 Over twenty years ago, I began a tradition at the First Baptist Church of Somerset at the...
Myth of Self-Made Man Back with a Vengeance
Once upon a time, Americans believed in the myth of the "self-made man," and then the stock market crashed and people turned to each other and the government for help. During the Great Depression, it became clear that...
Global Women Working With Human Trafficking Victims
Editor's note: This column has been updated to reflect that the Beginning of Life camp ministers not only to victims of human trafficking but also to those at risk of such predation. While the Olympics gave us a...
Right Balance: When to Confront, When to Be Patient
Nikos Kazantzakis, author of "Zorba the Greek" and other works, once wrote about a time when he came upon a cocoon resting in an olive tree. The infant butterfly was just starting to break through. The young...
Reminder to self: Be
By John Pierce Throughout my many years of moving among college students, I was intrigued by their approaches to decision making. I even went back to school to explore this subject. Specifically, I sought to understand...
Scary thoughts
People who love the church -- in some semblance of the way we have come to know it in the past 100 years -- have cause for concern about how long that model will be sustainable. Attendance is generally down, for one...
Are Our Minds Merely Creations of Our Brains?
Perhaps the most intellectually stimulating book I have read in recent months is Raymond Tallis' "Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis and the Misrepresentation of Humanity" (2011). Tallis is one of those rare...
Christians, Atheists Will Wrangle Over Religion at Democratic National Convention
Atheists and Christians will offer competing agendas about the role of religion in the public square when the Democratic National Convention meets in Charlotte, N.C., in early September. "Religion is silly and religion...
Conservatives Push Back Against David Barton
The radio broadcast began with the highest of praise. "David Barton. An honorable, honorable man. A true American historian. And really honestly, I think the man who has singlehandedly saved this country from...
Would Jesus Attend Your Inwardly Focused Church?
Tom Ehrich, one of my favorite thinkers about church in the 21st century, recently told me he is down to one pivotal question for the congregations he works with. That question is: "Is your primary orientation inward...
Will Your Church Expose, Confront Real Voter Fraud?
The U.S. national anthem ends by questioning whether the "star spangled banner yet waves o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave." In 2012, deliberate measures to suppress voting and voter registration of...
How Africa Will Lift Itself Out of Poverty
Africa has been hit hard by the Euro crisis, but will only lift itself out of poverty when the continent begins to live God's way. This was the message in the keynote address to the African Biblical Leadership...
Well, that’s a switch …
When archaeologists discover cylindrical objects made of stone or clay in the remains of ancient dwellings, they often identify them, when no practical use seems apparent, as phallic symbols used in some sort of...
Prisoner’s Long Journey from Bondage to Liberation
If all goes according to schedule today, Michael Santos will walk out of a federal prison in California after serving more than 25 years of a 45-year sentence for distributing and selling cocaine. A column a year ago...