Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
Michael Jackson Gave Millions Joy That He Couldn’t Find
It is a safe bet to state that Thomas Mann and Franz Kafka are perhaps the world's foremost writers to have expounded on and to have initiated a fictional genre that deals with art and the artist. Each of these writers...
Words Have Power: They Can Create Good or Cause Destruction
One of the greatest blessings that God gave to humankind was the ability to create. The Creator shared some of Godself in placing a spark in each of us that allows us to examine, mold and fashion our environment. ...
CBF Houston in review
My earlier posts from the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship's General Assembly in Houston were mostly news oriented. Here are a few personal reflections on the meeting ...(1) Attendance was down, as expected, but not as...
Bits and bytes from Houston (updated)…
July 3 -- Moderator Jack Glasgow, pastor of Zebulon Baptist Church in Zebulon, North Carolina, presided over a smooth business meeting Friday morning. The budget report, nominating committee report, and strategic goals...
Baptist Luncheon Highlights Racism DVD, Panel
HOUSTON, Texas -- A panel attempted to unravel several tangled strands from “Beneath the Skin: Baptists and Racism” during a screening of the award-winning documentary at the Baptist Center for Ethics luncheon at the...
Independence Day: When Poverty Loosened Grip on Family
We observe Independence Day this weekend. Grills will be smoking and fireworks popping as we celebrate our freedom. For some reason I have found myself remembering a July 4th from a few years back. A group from the...
Before the Fireworks: A Quiet Prayer to Reflect on Liberty
O God, who brings us into perfect relation with ourselves and our world through your loving presence. We pause at this midsummer's moment to reflect upon the joy and responsibility of living in this land of freedom and...
BWA Gathering to Deliberate on Baptists’ 400th Anniversary
(BWA) – Commissions and workgroups of the Baptist World Alliance will focus largely on the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Baptist movement during the BWA Annual Gathering to be held in Ede, Netherlands, from...
Newsblog: Missions entering a new age
HOUSTON – Advocates of Christian missions must recognize that doing missions in the 21st century is a far different enterprise than it was even a few decades ago, Rob Nash told participants in a commissioning service...
Newsblog: Getting Engaged — in Church
HOUSTON – Church leaders don’t need to develop new ways of doing church, Albert Winseman told participants in a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship-sponsored Leadership Institute July 1: their challenge is in learning how...
How we work today
With widespread Internet access and hand-held communication devices, the good news is many of can work just about anytime and anyplace. The bad news, of course, is that we can work just about anytime and anyplace. One...
House Reps Pass Historic Climate Legislation by Slim Margin
On June 26, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed unprecedented climate legislation endorsed by more than 140 Baptist leaders. One week before the 219-212 vote passing the "American Clean Energy and...
Down on Today’s Youth? Try Spending a Week with 500 of Them
People who believe that young people are hopeless should have been with me June 20-26 at the 55th annual Lott Carey Youth Seminar on the campus of Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C. Nearly 500 youth and their advisors...
“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”
In a skit on the Second City Television sketch-comedy show from the late '70s and early '80s, two farmers do movie reviews. Their favorites included one aspect: explosions. They would say, "It blowed up good! It blowed...
Who’s Who?
Most people respond, I suspect, to ego strokes. With few exceptions, everybody wants to be somebody. We like the idea of being known and appreciated for our accomplishments in life.Fear not, fame fans, opportunities...
Biblical Literalism, Free-Market Ideology and Anti-Science Are Political Trinity
Trinitarian politics is the best predictor of an individual's votes — not the belief in Christianity's doctrine of the Trinity but adherence to the holy alliance of biblical literalism, free-market ideology and...
Guidelines Provide Roadmap for Christian-Muslim Relations
Encounters between Christianity and Islam are increasingly common and complex, as members of both faiths increasingly live side by side. When any faiths have to occupy the same geographical space, there is bound to...
Baptists Sign Letter to Obama Urging Middle East Peace
(BWA) – Several Baptist leaders in the United States signed a letter sent to President Barack Obama calling for a just and lasting resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and for the establishment of "two...
What does “M Night” mean to you?
Suppose you have made it to "Final Jeopardy" and the answer is "M Night." What would you scribble down as your question?Alex Trebek would nod approvingly if you offered: "Who is the Indian-American writer and director...
Good Christians Don’t Eat Beef in Their Solar-Powered Hybrids
It's easy to get lost in the whirlwind of never-ending new life-instructions for Jesus-followers these days. Every day there seems to be a new social justice battle cry: Eat no beef. Too much grain consumption. Buy...
Zacchaeus Can Identify with Society’s Contempt for Madoff
We were just coming out of Advent and starting a new cycle of Sunday School material in our youth department back in January. I asked our high school teacher what he thought about the day's lesson. With genuine...