Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
Untaken identity
I find it interesting that there have been several recent cases of a well-known person being unknown by police or other officials.It started a few weeks ago with Henry Louis Gates, one of the country's foremost...
Talk of Post-Racial America Ends with Health Care Rallies, Better Way Needed
Covering a health-care rally on Aug. 13 in Nashville, the Tennessean reported, "Anti-reformers at the rally argued against government control of health-care delivery, particularly the use of translators for patients...
Who’s Persecuted? American Christians Have It Easy
Reports from North Korea are a startling reminder of the true gift that religious liberty is for those who enjoy it. In North Korea, citizens are expected to worship the emperor. Persecution, arrest, imprisonment or...
School Provides Safe Haven for Roma Teenagers
A handful of Roma teenagers were just beginning to believe they could dream big dreams for their lives. But those dreams – of overcoming the stereotypes and expectations of being born a "Hungarian Gypsy" – are now at...
Weariness and Witness
This sermon was delivered by Wendell Griffen, pastor of the New Millennium Church in Little Rock, Ark., on August 16, 2009. Ephesians 5: 15-20. King David died. King Solomon ascended to power. Those words summarize the...
Set Free by Teaching?
Sermon delivered by Joel Snider, pastor of First Baptist Church in Rome, Ga., on August 16, 2009. Mark 1:21-28 Meditation Text: Learning may reduce the prejudices of ignorance, set our bones, build our...
Wisdom
Sermon delivered by Randy Hyde, pastor of Pulaski Heights Baptist Church in Little Rock, A.R., on August 16 2009. Proverbs 9:1-6; Ephesians 5:15-20 Everywhere you go, someone is more than willing to...
Loving the Unlovely
Sermon delivered by Howard Batson, pastor of First Baptist Church in Amarillo, T.X., on August 16 2009. 1 John 2:10-12 Perhaps you’ve seen the photograph. It won a Pulitzer Prize for the photographer, Huynh Cong Ut...
How we see Jesus
Much of the wide diversity in church life comes from the ways we see Jesus. There are different lenses through which we view the central figure of our faith.In his new novel, South of Broad, Pat Conroy has his...
Class Act: CBF, Church Provide School Supplies
Something interesting and delightful happened out of a chaotic situation in Helena, Ark. Ben Newell, a field worker in the Together for Hope Project of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, had a stack of school uniforms...
‘Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South’
Steven P. Miller has given us a political biography of Billy Graham that will help us remember the last half of the 20th century in America and will open our eyes to the interplay of religion and politics that has...
Locked Out? Voice of People of Faith Marginalized
Philip Sampson, author of Jubilee Center's report "Sustaining Democracy," argues that secularism has become religious, arrogating to itself the privilege of judging what are acceptable beliefs and seeking to...
The Palestinian “problem”
I've been reading a book about the history of Israel and the Palestinians that could have an incredible impact for world peace if American Christians would read it. Sadly, I don't expect that to happen: most Americans...
Asking for the Right Things
Sermon delivered by Keith Herron, pastor of Holmeswood Baptist Church in Kansas City, Mo., on August 16, 2009. I Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14 King David’s obituary is oh-so-brief and there is little pause in the story because...
Confession
Sermon delivered by Howard Baston, pastor of First Baptist Church in Amarillo, T.X., on August 9 2009. 1 John 1: 9-10 Let’s play “Name That Staff Member.” One of your staff members was sitting in the bathtub as a...
Immigration Reform Slides to Obama’s Backburner
What is the difference between President Obama and President Bush when it comes to how we, as a nation, deal with the plight of undocumented immigrants? Unfortunately, there really is no difference. If anything, an...
Today’s Generation Jettisons Relics of Ministries Past
My 19-year-old daughter, Leslie, and 17 of her friends from Baylor recently boarded a jet bound for Uganda to minister alongside a group called Favour of God in remote villages outside of Gulu. This experienced mission...
Pulling the Plug: Distorting Health-Care Reform
Fear over end-of-life counseling and refusal of care for persons with physical or mental disabilities have become major issues in the current health-care debate. These fears arise from misrepresentation of a paragraph...
Mind over matter
During one of her physical therapy visits in this sticky-hot summer weather of central Georgia, my wife entered a home without air conditioning. The patient, an older woman, was relaxing on the sofa as Christmas music...
Clergy Letter Project: Science, Bible Can Co-Exist
The Clergy Letter Project began in 2004 when Michael Zimmerman, a biologist, along with several clergy in Wisconsin, became alarmed about a series of anti-evolution policies passed by the school board in Grantsburg....
Steeple Chase: Sparrow’s Lesson in Beating the Odds
Early on a Sunday morning, while the sun was new in the sky and shadows were fast disappearing, I noticed a mysterious shape on the far side of the cross atop our church's steeple. As I exited my car and began walking...