Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
Workers at Religious Institutions Fear Future of Pensions
By the time she left for another job in 1999, she was vested in the hospital's federally insured pension program -- confident her earned pension of $20,000 or more a year would be there for her when she eventually...
An Accurate Choice for Renamed Southern Baptists
As an unreconstructed "Northern" Baptist now living in the South, I find rather curious the endeavor of the Southern Baptist Convention to find a new name for itself. After all, it is the church that was born in the...
No Simple Answer to What Divides America
Next week Crown Forum will publish "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010." The weekend Wall Street Journal gave a generous two-pagepreview. The foretaste in the Journal presented no surprises, since the...
Will New Southern Baptist Name Change Perception?
Doing and being church in today's world is unlike ever before. Nor does it seem to get any easier, to be sure. After I posted complaints on Facebook about the way I felt my Arkansas Razorback football team was being...
Bodily Desecration Is Disturbing ”but Why?
(RNS) The recent outrage over a video allegedly showing U.S. Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters provided Americans with a disturbing reminder that war can reduce men to revenge-seeking brutality that defies...
Muslim Men Convicted of Advocating Death for Gays
LONDON (RNS) In the first case of its kind, a British court has convicted three Muslim men -- who claimed they were acting under teachings of their religion -- of openly advocating the execution of gays. Jurors in...
Poll: Preachy Politicians Turn Off Many Voters
(RNS) If there's one thing the fractious Republican field agrees on, it's that personal religious devotion is central to their campaign message. Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and even Ron Paul stress their...
King’s Words of Truth Continue to Set Us Free
I grew up in Atlanta - Martin Luther King Jr.'s hometown - during the most intense days of the civil rights movement. The center of the movement was in Atlanta's "Sweet Auburn" district, a vibrant African-American...
Kansas Politician’s Apology: Sorry You Were Offended
According to an AssociatedPressstory, Kansas House Speaker Mike O'Neal has apologized for an email he sent earlier this month in which he quoted Psalm 109:8 in reference to President Obama: "May his days be few; may...
2012 Is About Leadership
Leadership is the pole to which many issues are tethered in 2012. As the Arab Spring unfolds in a new year, the struggle is over leadership. American electoral politics is about leadership. Clashing Republicans seek to...
Opportunity makes a difference
If you want to see a movie that will clench your viscera, lift your spirits, and remind you of something very important, check out Red Tails, George Lucas' movie about the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II. Samuel...
Catholics warn Gingrich, Santorum on race baiting
(RNS) More than 40 Catholic leaders and theologians have issued an open letter to Catholic candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, warning them “to stop perpetuating ugly racial stereotypes on the campaign trail.”...
Conservative Presbyterians Launch New Denomination
(RNS) Conservative Presbyterians launched a new denomination on Thursday (Jan. 19), saying that the Presbyterian Church (USA) is too consumed by internal conflicts and bureaucracy to nurture healthy congregations....
Obama Holds Firm on Contraception Coverage
(RNS) The Obama administration said Friday (Jan. 20) that it will not broaden the religious exemption in new rules that require employers to provide contraception coverage to employees, a move that angered religious...
Gingrich Uses Racial Politics in South Carolina Win
Upending the Republican presidential race, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich easily won Saturday's South Carolina primary. His double-digit victory capped off a dramatic rise in the polls after he trailed...
Why Presidential Hopefuls Must Feign Religious Piety
The 2012 presidential race is shaping up to be as much an old-time religious revival as it is a political contest. Informed by consultants that more than 60 percent of American voters prefer candidates with strong...
When They Want War, Christians Often Ignore Jesus
The common Western image of Islam as one large religion that spreads itself through warfare is primarily the result of the actions of Muslim leaders who, across the centuries, used Islam to gain power and territory,...
So, how do you define “evangelical”?
I've been grousing for some time that the word "evangelical" has been hijacked, misunderstood, or otherwise transmogrified into a synonym for "Christian fundamentalist," which has led to all sorts of confusion in...
Rabbis Step In as Matchmakers on New Jewish Dating Sites
(RNS) Before you meet your match, you’ve got to meet your matchmaker. That’s the new strategy of a group of rabbis who are launching a different kind of Jewish dating website called the “J sites”—JMontreal, JMiami,...
Are Mormons Christian? It’s Complicated
(RNS) Ask Mormons if they are Christian, and their answer often starts with a sigh. Look at our name, they’ll say, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Read The Book of Mormon’s subtitle, “Another Testament...
Pope Warns U.S. Bishops of ˜Radical Secularism’
(RNS) “Radical secularism” is gaining ground in American society and poses a “grave threat” to the Catholic Church’s freedom of expression in the public square, Pope Benedict XVI told a group of U.S. bishops on...