Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
10 Ideas That Should Go Without Saying in Church
Have you learned that nothing "goes without saying" anymore? That sobering truth runs counter to our tendency to think there are some universally shared assumptions that all of us agree upon. We may think that everyone...
How Long Until Southern Baptists Stop Abusive Clergy?
Clergy abuse survivors have been asking Southern Baptists for several years to implement denominational safeguards against clergy child molesters. Southern Baptists have refused. The requests are nothing radical. We...
BP’s Oil Disaster: What Would Jesus Do?
The BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico already surpasses the Exxon Valdez disaster that unloaded 11 million gallons of oil into the Prince William Sound off the coast of Alaska in 1989. Watching the Gulf gusher spew oil...
A Sinner’s Gift
A sermon delivered by Joel Snider, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Rome, Ga. on June 6, 2010. Luke 7:36-50 Meditation Text: A figure such as Jesus is always a mystery. That is why the Pharisee thought: "If...
Not too high, not too low
A few months ago my good friends Betty and Raymond Hall gave me a copy of Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court. When the legendary basketball coach died on June 4, at age 99, I...
Safeguarding an Essential Freedom
A sermon delivered by David Stratton, pastor, Brunswick Islands Baptist Church, Holden Beach, N.C., on July 4, 2010. Matthew 4:8-10 "Church and state should be separate." That six-word sentence is found in all three...
Living On The Edge
A sermon delivered by Randy Hyde, Pastor, Pulaski Heights Baptist Church, Little Rock, Ark., on June 6, 2010. ...
A poor Facebook friend …
I can't keep up with Facebook. For one thing, I don't really try: it takes enough energy to keep up with the people I can see, without frequently checking to see who's online and what they've been up to.Facebook used...
BP Oil Disaster an Unnecessary Gamble
Most of the nation recognizes by now that the risks associated with offshore oil exploration are more real than the oil industry, lawmakers and government regulators have ever admitted. U.S. and state lawmakers and...
Moore Finishes 4th in GOP Primary for Governor
All the chatter in Alabama's gubernatorial primaries has revolved around U.S. Rep. Artur Davis' surprising loss in the Democratic primary and the deadlock in the Republican primary. Little assessment has focused on...
Radical Generosity: Normal for Christian Community
The book of Acts includes two summary passages that describe the character of the first century church (Acts 2:42-45 and 4:32-37). In both references, Luke, the author of Acts, narrates that the early believers...
Good point, Colleen
Truer words have not been spoken than those from Colleen Burroughs upon accepting the nomination as moderator-elect of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.“It's much easier to have an opinion about how someone else...
Synthetic Biological Advancement Poses Questions
On May 20, J. Craig Venter announced that he and his team have successfully created "the first self-replicating species we've had on the planet whose parent is a computer." The announcement was followed by a flurry of...
Why Do Churches Follow CEO Leadership Model?
Tony Hayward, BP's CEO, has placed the corporate executive squarely in public view these days. It's not an attractive image. We tend to associate these people with unbridled greed, hedonistic lifestyles, raw exercise...
Land Defends BP, Blames Obama for Gulf Catastrophe
The Southern Baptist Convention's leader on public policy issues claimed that environmentalists and President Obama are mostly to blame for oil devastation in the Gulf of Mexico. Richard Land, head of the SBC's Ethics...
A city in a box?
While economic gloom hangs over much of the world, electronics giant Cisco and other businesses are drooling over the business potential in a new wave of "instant cities" designed for up to a million people...
“Seminary in Crisis”: Two Contrasting Strategies
You won't see them, but I'm shedding tears as I write this review. Not because author William Hull's "Seminary in Crisis" is a bad book; far from it. It's a brilliant and engaging book, a "must" read for anyone who...
“Seminary in Crisis”: Beyond the Industrial Age
Bill Hull identifies the leadership styles of Duke McCall and Roy Honeycutt and their responses to the Southern Baptist Convention controversy in his recently published book "Seminary in Crisis: The Strategic Response...
Gulf Catastrophe Challenges Uneasy Evangelical Conscience
I've left my hometown lots of times. But never like this. I cried every day for almost a year in the aftermath of a hurricane that almost wiped my hometown off the map. But I've never left like this, wondering if I'll...
God Stories: My Brother’s Keeper
A sermon delivered by Howard Batson, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Amarillo, Tx., on June 6, 2010 Genesis 4:1-16 Cain and Abel were brothers. They played together as children. They built forts. They swam together. They...
Wisdom and Our Ways
A sermon delivered by Wendell Griffen, Pastor of New Millennium Church, Little Rock, Ark. on May 30, 2010. Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; John 16:12-15 Although Christians claim that we believe the Holy Spirit to be one with...