Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
With Anne Rice’s Help, Will Angels be the New Vampires?
Are angels the new vampires? Anne Rice, the author who made vampires trendy in herVampire Chronicles series, came back to the Christian faith in 1998. Upon returning to the Roman Catholic Church, Rice published two...
Lottie Moon’s rooms
In a story that's been largely overlooked (who reads Baptist news during the holidays?), Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary unveiled several shipping crates purported to contain remnants of Lottie Moon's rented...
Documentary Airs on ABC-TV Stations with Glowing Reviews, Airs Again Sunday
Every call and every email received has been exceedingly positive in response to our hour-long documentary, "Different Books, Common Word," that began airing Sunday on ABC-TV stations across the country. An older...
Correcting an Out-Of-Balance Tax System in Arkansas
"Taxes are good," is not a statement that we hear very often. Most of the time we hear just the opposite. If there has ever been one subject so hotly debated and much hated, it would be taxes. The fact of the matter is...
Lessons from Niebuhr Put Obama at Odds with Poor
In April 2007, New York Times columnist David Brooks interviewed a presidential hopeful named Barack Obama. At one point, Brooks asked if Obama ever read the writings of Reinhold Niebuhr. "I love him. He's one of my...
‘Dust to dust’ gaining popularity
My friend, Kyle Matthews, was showing me around the beautiful facilities of the First Baptist Church of Greenville, S.C., just before Christmas. When we came up on this columbarium, I snapped a quick photo.Driving away...
The Time is Now
Sermon delivered by Randy Hyde, pastor of Pulaski Heights Baptist Church in Little Rock, A.R., on January 3 2010. Jeremiah 31:7-14; Ephesians 1:3-14 Jeremiah’s ministry took place seven...
In the Temple
Sermon delivered by Randy Hyde, pastor of Pulaski Heights Baptist Church in Little Rock, A.R., on December 27 2009. 1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26; Luke 2:41-52 Admit it now,...
A Passion for the Possible
Sermon delivered by Keith Herron, pastor of HolmeswoodBaptistChurch in Kansas City, Mo., on January 3, 2010. John 1: 1-18 For those of you with small children, we’ve passed through the season notorious for...
Beyond Copenhagen: Keep Pressure On For Fair Deal
While we celebrated Christmas in our churches, those returning from the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen might rightly conclude that self is king, mammon is god, and nature weeps. There was a...
Military Pregnancy Ban Includes Married Couples
The Stars and Stripes recently reported that seven soldiers – three men and four women – were being reprimanded for violating the pregnancy ban in northern Iraq. In early November, the ban was added to General Order...
Top Good-News Stories That You Never Heard About the Muslim World
10. Saudi Arabia opened its first coeducational college campus, the King Abdullah Science and Technology University. In a country where the sexes have been so separated in public that some have spoken of 'gender...
Will “goodwill ambassador” bring good will?
The current issue of the Christian Index, the public relations journal of the Georgia Baptist Convention, features an article praising former Southern Baptist Convention president Bobby Welch, now employed by the SBC...
Circumstances Looking Bleak? Don’t “Awfulize” It
Awfulize. That's the word to which my therapist friend, Paula Batts, introduced me. We were talking about how the economic crisis was rippling through the people of our congregation. We began to count the ways:...
A Christmas Past to Reflect on the Year Ahead
On Christmas Eve, we marked the 95th anniversary of an event that has passed into national legend: the Christmas truce of 1914. In a few places along the Western Front, a temporary peace broke out during World War I....
What Are the Top Trends to Watch in 2010?
The end of a year brings out the list-maker in all of us. Not to disappoint you, here are the 10 trends that I'm going to be watching in 2010: 1. Mobile everything. As the mobile phone morphs into the mobile...
On being a team player
During this bowl season I have enjoyed the steady diet of college football sandwiched in between commercials. However, the media timeouts have allowed me to read about one sport while watching another.Two friends gave...
Seasonal Charity: A Doorway to Biblical Justice
The holiday season from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day is the most intensely charitable time of the whole year. Church and civic groups gather clothes, food and toys for needy families. Volunteers make their way to...
“Up in the Air”
In the classic "To Kill a Mockingbird," Miss Maudie looks down at Jem and says: "Some men in this world are born to do our unpleasant jobs for us ... your father is one of them." She was referring to Atticus Finch, but...
“Avatar”
The blockbuster film of the holiday season is James Cameron's "Avatar." I saw it in 3-D and wish that I could have seen it in the IMAX format. This is a beautiful, exhilarating film that invites the viewer to suspend...
The year of … what?
With my mind in neutral this morning it is hard to be analytical. Yet this is the time to reflect on the past year — and, in this case, the closing decade.Having watched more TV and read more news than usual during the...