Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
Does Government Investment Trump Privatization?
President Barack Obama’s first address to a joint session of Congress stood light-years apart from President George Bush’s 2005 State of the Union address. Flushed with confidence from his re-election, Bush...
Buy degrees …
We occasionally run across an expression such as "growing by degrees" or even "learning by degrees." Lately, I've been getting e-mails from a scam outfit that urge me to "buy degrees." I suspect I'm not alone.The email...
Doing Theology in an Economic Downturn
The economy is in the tank, or at least that is what we have heard most every day for the last several months. However, the reality of economic hard times is not something we need the newspaper or television to tell...
Explaining Lent to Non-Liturgical Christians
Signs of spring are here. Pollen actually started falling in January in Moultrie, Ga. Robins are beginning to arrive. It will not be long before hummingbirds make their long migration back to South Georgia. Soon...
Navigating the New EthicsDaily.com: Part One
EthicsDaily.com launched a new version of its Web site Feb. 4. Those of us on staff are enjoying the upgrades, and we hope you are, too. Refining the site’s design and interface is a process, not a destination, but as...
Orgs Must Refocus as CBF Reduces Partner Funding
News from the past week puts in written form what most of us know either instinctively or from personal experience: The nation's economic malaise is directly impacting both church budgets and the ministries those...
Burleson Details Ethical Shortcomings at IMB
The forthcoming book by a former trustee of the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board exposes several ethical shortcomings in the management approach of IMB trustee leaders. Wade...
Environmentalists Must Understand Thanksgiving
We ought to give contemporary environmentalists a little slack for misreading Psalm 50. After all, the Psalmist does give the strong impression that she is a member of the court, summoning the wicked ”those who misuse...
Jimmy Carter Said What?
With only a few minutes left in his address at the New Baptist Covenant gathering Jan. 31, former president Jimmy Carter asked the 1,200 congregants at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., How many...
Ark. Pastor Denounces Guns in God’s House
Sunday, March 1 is the first Sunday in Lent. In keeping with our church’s theme of the season, The Covenant, I will be largely focusing on the Hebrew lectionary texts. The reading for the first Sunday in Lent is...
Develop “Muscle Memory” for Compassion
My husband and I took a private dance lesson Saturday. We've been married since “I Love Lucy” was in reruns, and we've never danced. It seemed like something we should try. The instructor was kind and patient and...
Belt-tightening time
News from the past week puts in written form what most of us know either instinctively or from personal experience -- the nation's economic malaise is directly impacting both church budgets and the ministries those...
Al Mohler Stokes Division with Comments on Evolution
This past week marked the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin. All across the country there were celebrations and denunciations ”not by the same people, of course. Celebrating Darwin's life were scientists, biologists,...
Black, White Congregations Renew Relationships
I’m pastor of the First Baptist Church of Columbia, a predominantly white, middle-class congregation in a college town in Missouri. We haven’t always been so white throughout our 185 years of continual ministry. We had...
Stimulus Package Has “Green” Hue
The symbolism was obvious: President Obama went to the rooftop ”the roof of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science in Colorado, with its solar panels for heat ”before he signed the $787 billion economic stimulus...
Westboro Baptist: Fires Prove God Hates Australians
The National Director of the Baptist Union of Australia, the Rev. Brian Winslade, has denounced the latest hate speech from Westboro Baptist Church, which yesterday claimed that God hated Australians and was directly...
Everybody Was Somebody to Studs Terkel
Studs Terkel died last Halloween. The author-host-actor-activist and symbol of Chicago was asked once what his epitaph would be. His reply: “Curiosity did not kill this cat.” At a recent memorial to Studs Terkel,...
CBF Couple Fights Poverty in Rural Alabama
ATLANTA -- Last summer Matt and Melanie Storie moved to rural Perry County, Ala. Statistics say it’s one of the nation’s poorest counties, but these Cooperative Baptist Fellowship field personnel believe it is a place...
When Can Donors Trust a Charity?
Charities have gotten a bad reputation thanks to the scandals at some of the larger charitable institutions. So what qualities of a charity can inspire your trust? The definition of trust in Merriam-Webster online is...
‘Jesus on Death Row: The Trial of Jesus and American Capital Punishment’
The narrative inspiring Mark Osler's book, Jesus on Death Row: The Trial of Jesus and American Capital Punishment, is compelling. In 2001, while teaching at a conservative Christian law school, this former prosecutor...
Burleson late to the game
A review of Hardball Religion: Feeling the Fury of Fundamentalism by Wade Burleson (2009, Smyth & Helwys Publishing)By John PierceExecutive EditorBaptists TodayConservative Southern Baptist pastor and popular blogger...