Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
Jabbering, generous Durwood
My friend Ed Grisamore — a columnist for The Macon Telegraph and an active member of Macon's First Baptist Church — and I got together earlier this week to talk about our common passions for writing and baseball.After...
God As Athletic Director
We have all seen it. A football player makes a big play, scores the winning touchdown, drops to one knee and points a finger toward the heavens. What does it mean when in a moment of success a player acknowledges God...
Obama Resets Nation’s Moral Compass in First Week
President Barack Obama has reset the nation’s moral compass in his first week in office. Granted much of what he did was rhetorical. He made statements, issued directives and gave interviews. Nonetheless, he...
New Baptist Covenant regional meetings under way
Birmingham, Alabama will play host this weekend to the first of several regional meetings inspired by the 2008 New Baptist Covenant celebration, a multi-racial and multi-cultural effort to celebrate Baptist ideals and...
‘Do you like Funyuns?’
Before picking up my daughter from drama practice last evening, there was just enough time for a quick stop at Kroger. Bananas, mixed nuts and dried fruit formed my small mission.In the produce section, however, a...
Catholic Actress Hogan Likes Roles, Pace of Her Career
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- You probably would not recognize Siobhan Fallon Hogan by name, although you might have spotted her in a few landmark screen hits. She had a recurring role three times on TV's "Seinfeld" and a role...
Baptist Monitoring Group Cites Problems in Azerbaijan
Representatives from the European Baptist Federation (EBF) and the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) recently issued a report citing human rights and religious liberty shortcomings in Azerbaijan. The report, addressed to...
“Doubt”
An earlier column at EthicsDaily.com spoke of this movie from a Catholic point of view. Phyllis Zagano believes this movie paints a caricature of the Catholic Church and that it speaks doubtfully about religion, the...
Starving on Plenty
Thumbing through the new Eat This, Not That: Supermarket Survival Guide, I was stopped cold by this statistic: The average piece of chicken has 266 percent more fat than it did in 1971, while its protein content has...
The missing piece(s)
I like puzzles. Working out a crossword or Sudoku puzzle offers a chance to kick back for a while, change gears, and do some brain stretching. I like puzzles best when I can complete them, and get a bit frustrated when...
Who We Are: Our Covenant
Sermon delivered by David Hughes, pastor of First Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, N.C., on Jan. 4, 2009. Matthew 22:37-40; 10:37-39; Hebrews 10:24-25 As we begin a new year, we may be making our usual New Year’s...
Don’t Fritter Away Opportunity for New Creation
Too cryptic. That’s the sense I often have when reading the Gospel of Mark. By the time the reader starts the 16th verse, Jesus has already been baptized by John in the Jordan River, survived 40 days of temptation by...
The Ethics of Working on Sunday
I promise I am not making this up ... My daughter, taking a break from her pursuit of a graduate degree, is a server at the Chili's a few miles down from our house. Like many others her age she is already pretty...
News: Decatur church warned of future GBC action
NEWSGa. Baptist leaders warn of further action against church with female pastor By John PierceBaptists TodayDECATUR, Ga. — In her church newsletter column dated Jan. 23, pastor Julie Pennington-Russell of the First...
A passion for equality
Shirley Taylor of Conroe, Texas, has a passion. It surfaced in the Open Letter she sent out recently urging Baptists to rethink the idea of women in church leadership.Not knowing Shirley, I emailed her some questions....
A Ministry of Coaching
Very often we use words interchangeably that have very distinctive meanings. As I have started doing clergy coaching with Pinnacle Leadership Associates, I have found that friends tend to confuse three terms...
Sweep Away Palestinian Stereotypes: Part Two
In January 2008 I received an e-mail from a distraught former student informing me that Jimmy Carter’s book, Palestine: Peace, not Apartheid, a Christmas gift she had given her grandfather, was dismissed as a...
American Theological Education Is in Financial Trouble
American seminaries and divinity schools across the theological spectrum are in financial trouble, according to news reports, open letters and blogs about budget cuts and staff layoffs. Just as troubling is the silence...
Religion Still Has the Right Words for Peace
It is not at all surprising that as The Baptist Times goes to press, the eyes of the world are fixed on Washington. It would be churlish - and foolish - to wish to deny Barack Obama his triumph, or to refuse to...
Sweep Away Palestinian Stereotypes: Part One
While taking a walk on Dec. 24, 2007, just before we were to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace and Love, the unprovoked verbal assault There goes a terrorist was hurled. We belonged to the same Sunday school...
Stop the Export of Terror
Terrorism, as a political tool, is abhorrent to all people of good will. Civilized nations have a moral obligation to eliminate the use of terror. We as a nation, due to our rhetoric of expounding the virtues of...