Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
GCRTF criticism surprising?
Words have been flying hot and heavy in the land of Southern Baptists since an appointed "Great Commission Resurgence Task Force" (GCRTF) gave a list of recommendations to the SBC executive committee on Feb. 22. When I...
Baptists Condemn Nigeria’s Religious Violence
(BWA) – The Baptist World Alliance (BWA) continues to watch the situation in Nigeria where Baptist leaders are concerned about violence between Muslims and Christians. "Religion is being used as a veneer or as a front...
Temptations Lurk in Ministry Transitions
Having just been through a year of major political transition in the United States, one is used to hearing the language of dreams and aspirations as well as blaming the predecessor for all the ills of the present and...
Texas Adopts Controversial Education Standards
Conservatives on the Texas Board of Education pushed through controversial new education standards that will impact what school children across the nation learn about history and economics. Baptists and others have...
If and Everything
2 Corinthians 5:16-21 A sermon delivered by Wendell Griffen, Pastor of New Millennium Church, Little Rock, Ark., on March 14, 2010. Forgiveness and reconciliation are two issues that we encounter throughout the Bible....
The Company God Keeps
A sermon delivered by Randy Hyde, Pastor of Pulaski Heights Baptist Church, Little Rock, Ark., on March 14, 2010. Psalm 32:1-11; Luke 15:1-2, 11-32 Do you know what a hat trick is? It’s generally associated with...
Home Base
A sermon delivered by Robert Browning, Pastor of Smoke Rise Baptist Church, Stone Mountain, Ga on March 14, 2010. Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 It has been labeled The Greatest Short Story Ever Told. I’m not sure the...
An Embracing Love
A sermon delivered by Keith Herron, Pastor of Holmeswood Baptist Church, Kansas City, Mo on March 14, 2010. Luke 15:1-3; 11b-32 March 14, 2010 Most of us have heard this well-told story and known it as the story of the...
Bedtime behavior gets studied
Most Americans watch TV just before going to sleep. That is the unsurprising conclusion out of a recent survey by the National Sleep Foundation. The survey focused on differing bedtime behaviors according to...
“Hear No Evil: My Story of Innocence, Music and the Holy Ghost”
I picked up Matthew Paul Turner's memoir with trepidation, hoping it wouldn't be another offering by a clueless Christian musician who thinks he is God's answer to secular music or by yet another Christian musician who...
Does Family Metaphor Hurt Church Growth?
I was a bit surprised by a blog at Faith and Leadership, where author and consultant Tony Robinson suggested that churches would be healthier if they stopped thinking of themselves as a family. That ruffled my feathers...
A Lesson of Love Amid Racial Hatred
Just as my mom turned onto Main Street, an angry mob surrounded our car and began to violently rock it back and forth. I remember the shock and terror as my mother told me to stay calm and pray. I was only 12 and...
Gourley to lead Baptist History and Heritage Society
By John PierceBaptists TodayATLANTA — Bruce Gourley, a historian, Internet innovator and online editor for Baptists Today, will become executive director of the Baptist History and Heritage Society (BH&HS) on April 1....
Easter ignorance
I've known for some time that America is far from being a religiously devoted nation, but I didn't realize the population had become so religiously ignorant until I scanned a recent study made public by the Barna...
Beck’s Claim at Odds with Jesus’ Teaching
Jesus is a Nazi commie. Okay, Glenn Beck didn't exactly say that, but that is how he described the Jesus whom I call Lord and Savior. What Beck did say is that "social justice" and "economic justice" are code words for...
Will Bible Classes Work in Public Schools?
I'm not against the Bible. I'm an ordained Baptist minister, professor of biblical studies, academic dean of a theological seminary and a lifelong student of the Bible. I'm also enough of a skeptic to worry that...
Socialism? No, It’s Being Good Neighbors
In the closing chapters of Matthew's Gospel, Jesus offers a parable describing the criteria by which the human community will be evaluated on Judgment Day. I remember my surprise years ago when I read these words for...
Paring down the library
Amassing an impressive personal library was an outward mark of professional achievement and intellectual pursuit during the era when I left school for work. A book was considered a treasure; a room full of them was a...
Chilean Baptists helping, and needing help
When a massive earthquake struck the nation of Chile February 27, Chilean Baptists knew what to do. A network of Baptist churches involved in social ministries (Red de Testimonio Social Bautista) had studied earthquake...
Off The Hook on Health Care? Not So Fast
Off the hook, thank God! That's what Christians might be thinking when they read that famous passage from 2 Corinthians in which the Apostle Paul writes that from now on we regard no one, literally, "according to the...
“Alice in Wonderland”
"Alice in Wonderland," directed in 3-D by Tim Burton, is a wonderful story and Tim Burton is a great director, but something is missing here. Maybe it's that Alice appears not as a child, but as an adult. She now...