Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
Abusers Distort Bible to Justify Domestic Violence
As a Christian theologian, I take the Bible very seriously. This means that I follow certain rules for interpreting how I read the text. One of the most important rules is that I look at the parts, particular verses,...
What Does It Mean To Be a Progressive Christian?
Editor's note: This is the first part of a series in which Drew Smith, director of international programs at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Ark., examines what it means to be a progressive Christian. Labels...
Can Coaching Help Your Church Meet the Challenge?
Coaching churches and church leaders maximizes time and energy. It focuses around passion, calling and growth challenges in ways that seminars promise but often miss. Leaders – whether local, global, church or...
Warriors for Jesus?
I'm trying to be more charitable than critical, but I'm struggling with American evangelicalism's penchant for military metaphors. Even as a child, I never liked singing "Onward Christian Soldiers," for example -- the...
Can We Conclude the Baptist Ethos of Legalism?
Editor's note: This is the second part in a series in which Bruce Prescott, executive director of Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists, examines the future of Baptist identity. The third part will run Friday, Oct. 2. The...
Pastor’s Video Insinuates Obama is the Antichrist
What's harder than finding a needle in a haystack? Proving there isn't one. In 1997 Michael Drosnin created a sensation with "The Bible Code." The book claimed that evenly spaced letter sequences in the part of the...
Who’s Really Hurt by America’s Travel Ban to Cuba?
In the days just after the war of independence, Liborio (the personification of Cuba in the same way Uncle Sam personifies the United States) was alone in the cane field, still cutting as others ate their meager...
Merit-Based Health Care: The Shame of American Christianity
Health care has recently emerged to be one more system based on the myth of merit, joining education and business as American shibboleths of individuality. The myth of merit, in turn, creates self-perpetuating systems...
A Godless Tale of Deliverance
Sermon delivered by Keith Herron, pastor of Holmeswood Baptist Church in Kansas City, Mo., on September 27, 2009 Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22 How long has been since you heard a sermon from the most godless book of the...
Not A Statistic: A Young Life Taken Away Too Soon
I met Gaby Duffy in the summer of 2004 when she came to our annual weeklong family vacation party at Lake LBJ in central Texas. She came with her best friend, Maren Anderson, brought along her ever-present camera and...
Can We Help Jobless People Up Without Hand-Outs?
The poor you always have with you, Jesus said. But the mark of a civilized society is that it will set a limit to that poverty. France's Henri IV said that he would have no peasant in his kingdom too poor to have a...
Trivial Pursuits? Our American Desire for More
On any given day, airwaves and satellites are jammed with information regarding healthcare, poverty, crime, taxation and the environment. The lingering and occasionally vociferous debates over these issues reflect what...
Too much of a good thing
One resurfacing memory from my teen years was when some friends and I were offered three bucks each to eat. That's right, being paid to eat — a teenage boy's dream.The Krystal Company, the Chattanooga-based producers...
Importance of inter-generational interaction
A 5-year-old boy politely greeted the octogenarian couple at the door and escorted them to a table with Bingo cards. His peers came by to offer cake and other treats. Vineville Baptist Church in Macon, Ga., where I...
The Call and Challenges of the Church
This sermon was prepared by Wendell Griffen, pastor of the NewMillenniumChurch in Little Rock, Ark., on September 27, 2009. Genesis 12; Acts 1:1-14 Beginning today and for the next several weeks, I will preach a...
Greenest Christian Denominations in America: An Exclusive Ranking?
If Newsweek magazine can provide a ranking for the greenest big companies in America, can EthicsDaily.com provide a ranking for the greenest Christian denominations in America? Newsweek's Sept. 28 cover story is...
Revive Our Commitment to Liberty of Conscience
Editor's note: This is the first part in a series in which Bruce Prescott, executive director of Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists, examines the future of Baptist identity. At the CBF General Assembly last July, Bill...
Peace in Somalia Won’t Be Achieved with Weapons
My students are fascinated by Somalia. Any time I use it as an example, their hands shoot up with question after question after question. I haven't pinpointed the source of their interest, but it might have something...
Some Facts You May Not Know About Crucifixions
If you think you know everything you need to about crucifixion and the cross, think again. During a 13-week series on The Apostles' Creed, we arrived at this phrase about Jesus: "suffered under Pontius Pilate, was...
Old hands
This is my left hand. It's not the most nimble of hands, but it serves me well, and since I'm a fully committed southpaw, that's a good thing. I worked it hard this week, along with its partner, and a monstrous aerator...
Everybody’s a winner at BBQ
Never have I passed a BBQ joint (the AP Stylebook insists that "barbecue" is the proper journalistic spelling however) that did not claim to have been voted the best.One must wonder how this can be. Not one place...