Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
Just Walk Across the Room- Expanding the Circle
Sermon delivered by David Hughes, pastor of First Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, N.C., on September 20 2009. Mark 3:1-6; 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 These days we’re talking about “just walking across the...
Of books and bullets
Two stories caught my eye on Thursday. One, a press release from LifeWay Christian Resources, announced publication of a book that puts Southern Baptists' official publisher squarely on the frenzied "we've got to...
When Calamity Strikes: Is God Our Punisher or Healer?
In August, the national convention of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America met in Minneapolis. On the first day of their meeting, a freak tornado struck the downtown area. The storm toppled the steeple on the...
Why Have Americans Been So Quick to Justify Torture?
Torture is not only cruel. It is also ineffective and unreliable, according to a leading neuroscientist studying the effects of the brain under conditions of extreme, repeated and prolonged stress. Writing in the...
Will Health-Care Debate Revive Parish Nursing?
With all of the health-care rhetoric, I am delighted to see a renewed interest in the parish nursing dialogue. Parish nursing programs are about health ministry and congregational care ministry. Parish nursing emerged...
Polygamy, pre-sex prayer and roof rot
Bruce Gourley, the Montana-based web editor for Baptists Today, commented to me yesterday that the stories posted at our web site "are among the most interesting ... I've seen in a while." Then he added: "Several of...
The Happiness Trap
Sermon delivered by Joel Snider, pastor of First Baptist Church in Rome, Ga., on September 20, 2009. 2 Samuel 13:7-20 Meditation Text: Half of the world is on the wrong scent in the pursuit of happiness. They...
Optical Illusions: Our “Racial Lenses” Distort Reality
My younger daughter, Jessica, was watching TV in the family room of our third-floor apartment more than 30 years ago. At one point she yelled, "Daddy, Daddy, Mrs. Brown is on the show." I looked carefully at the female...
“9”
The apocalypse is the flavor of the month in the movies coming out in the next few months. No less than five will feature the end of the world as a backdrop of their stories. "9" is the only one that uses animation...
Strategic Time Off Can Boost Your Productivity
I didn't blog for a week. This isn't something new. Usually when it happens, it's because I'm lazy. This time, it was strategic. Of course, I didn't know Matt Chevy was going to call me a Gen Y Rock Star. That meant a...
The Weird Notion of Jesus About Greatness
This sermon was prepared by Wendell Griffen, pastor of the New Millennium Church in Little Rock, Ark., on September 20, 2009. Psalm 1; Mark 9:30-37 I suppose humans in every age have pondered the issue of greatness,...
Do the earth a favor
Starting October 1, putting plastic bottles in a landfill will be verboten in North Carolina.It's about time. Earlier laws banned aluminum cans, tires, and large appliances. Now bottles join the forbidden list. An...
Jesus Would Tweet, and Warn of the Temptation of Technology
Jesus spoke in tweets before tweets became cool, if by tweets one means short messages. Think about his most memorable messages: Jesus' moral imperative translates into only 34 characters: "You shall love your...
At U.N., Gore Urges Senate to Pass Climate Change Bill
Former Vice President Al Gore joined about 100 world leaders at the U.N. building in New York on Sept. 22 for an unprecedented day of discussions regarding climate change. President Barack Obama also addressed the...
What Can “The Da Vinci Code” Author Teach the Church?
After four days and 509 pages, I finally finished Dan Brown's latest novel, "The Last Symbol," over the weekend. Without going into too much detail or critical review, suffice it to say that the formula that made "The...
A slow, but sure shift
The number of female pastors in the U.S. has doubled over the past 10 years according to research by the Barna Group. A Religion News Service story on the report is posted at Baptists Today. As expected, the growth has...
“Gran Torino” Is a Parable for the Age of Rage
"Gran Torino" is the best movie I have seen this year, maybe the best movie I've seen in a long time. It's about death and redemption, the loss of an American way of life and the purchase for immigrants of a new way of...
Face in the Crowd: One of the Uninsured Millions
For those of us who live in a world of accessible health care, the phrase "30 million uninsured Americans" does not really compute. It's fairly easy to assign that statistic to the same space in the brain that holds...
What Lies at the Heart of Jesus’ Message? Peacemaking
In 1981, the General Assembly of the United Nations declared that the opening day of its annual session would be recognized as International Peace Day. Twenty years later, in 2001, the assembly determined that Sept. 21...
Campaigning from the presidency
I don’t recall ever seeing a sitting president work so hard to pursue the agenda that got him elected: last week Barack Obama made several campaign-style stops to promote the health care reform he believes to be...
Golden Egg of Limitless Expansion Comes with Price
"In one sense the opulence of American life has served to perpetuate Jeffersonian illusions about human nature. For we have thus far sought to solve all our problems by the expansion of our economy. This expansion...