Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
The good kind of God talk
A Phoenix taxi driver is planning to give one of his kidneys to Rita Van Loenen, a patient he has been taking to dialysis appointments recently according to news reports.Thomas Chappell told CNN that he heard God...
Baptist Congressman Considers Suing President Obama Over Birth Certificate
Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) told a packed town-hall meeting in Kingman, Ariz., that he is considering a lawsuit against President Obama over his birth certificate. For over a year, right-wing conspiracy theorists and...
Lost and Found: Stolen Cell Phone Unites Volunteers
The woman thought she came to serve, but a thief made her realize she also could be served. It happened this summer during the All Church Challenge, when churches from five states sent mission teams to Helena, Ark., to...
Commodity or Right? Going On Offensive for Health Care
Reading the pep talk at the end of Ephesians, one could get the impression that the Christian game plan is all defense. The writer (or writers) of this epistle, penned in the name of the Apostle Paul, tells members of...
Not Getting Any Easier
Sermon delivered by Randy Hyde, pastor of Pulaski Heights Baptist Church in Little Rock, A.R., on August 23 2009. Joshua 24:14-18; John 6:56-69 One of our church members was asked recently to offer a prayer...
Principles of the Prayerful Life
This sermon was delivered by Wendell Griffen, pastor of the New Millennium Church in Little Rock, Ark., on August 23, 2009. Psalm 84, Ephesians 6: 10-20. Prayer is a subject that religious people hear and read about...
Heaven Touching Earth
Sermon delivered by Keith Herron, pastor of Holmeswood Baptist Church in Kansas City, Mo., on August 23, 2009. I Kings 8:1-6, 10-11, 22-30, 41-43 In September 1877 at a meeting held under the flag of truce at Fort...
Two demisemiseptcentennial days
So, do you know the word "demisemiseptcentennial"? It's derived from Latin, of course, and literally means "half of a half of a 700 year period" (the word "quartoseptcentennial" serves the same purpose). Most of us...
Southern Baptist Leaders Split on Abortion Reduction Bill
As many pro-life and pro-choice advocates work together to push legislation designed to reduce abortions, Southern Baptist leaders are divided over whether to support such an initiative. The "Preventing Unintended...
Will You Take a Stand During Your Normal Routine?
One normal yellow bus with green-and-white trim, all scrubbed and sparkling, sits parked in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich. Nearby are a collection of more than 125 notable vehicles of the 20th century in...
American Christian Missions: Tour Guides or Conquerors?
My friend and I were driving when we saw a field covered in kudzu – "the vine that ate the South." Without warning he said suddenly, "Kudzu! It's amazing the power of the non-native species." Taken aback by his highly...
‘Real time-travel info’
When not reporting an accident or construction slowdown, the overhead interstate signs in Georgia often give this message in yellow-lighted block letters:REAL-TIME TRAVEL INFOCALL 511ANYWHERE IN GEORGIAMy witty 11-year...
“I Won’t Let You Pray for Me”
A deacon from a prominent Baptist church in the Nashville area entered my hospital room one evening in March 2005. Wearing a mask, gloves and a gown, he said he wanted to pray for me. I had acute leukemia. I had had...
Death-Panel Claim Traces to Christian-Right Group
It was Sarah Palin who got the most attention for the false assertion that the health-care reform bill being debated in Congress would create "death panels" to encourage euthanasia of the elderly and infirm, but it...
What’s Really Motivating Angry Town-Hall Mobs?
We seem to have arrived at the end of sanity. Fear, anger and raw political manipulation have become the new world disorder – at least in America. Members of Congress trying to hold town hall meetings on health care...
And they’re serious!
I took note of two public statements in recent days that must have been calculated to draw attention because both were -- in my humble opinion -- preposterous.Former (and probably future) presidential candidate Mike...
Who you gonna call?
When Typhoon Morakot dealt a devastating blow to Taiwan earlier this month, Baptist leaders knew where to turn for help. Baptist World Aid (BWAid) sent an initial gift of $10,000 to the Chinese Baptist Convention to...
Making a Splash: CBF Camp Helps Young Swimmers
The achievement wasn't of Olympic proportions. But the joy was. To explain all the whooping, hollering and hand-slapping by those youngsters from Helena, Ark., on a recent Saturday afternoon in Memphis, you must go...
What Drives Your Church? ‘Come and See’ or ‘Go and Tell’
Imagine that your church received an unexpected gift of $3,000 this month. The donor does not have a specific purpose for the gift but does not want it to go into the general budget. Church staff and lay leadership...
Out Of Reach: Too Many Can’t Buy Health Insurance
It took me a year of searching to find a medical neurologist in Tom Green County that would agree to see my uninsured 45-year-old daughter. She had her first epileptic seizure while working in the kitchen of a public...
Baptists Aid Typhoon Victims in Taiwan
(BWA) – Baptists in Taiwan and around the world are assisting victims of Typhoon Morakot, which made landfall in the southern part of the island just before midnight on Aug. 7. By Aug. 18, 126 people have been...