Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
‘Beneath the Skin’ DVD Examines Baptists and Race
Aidsand Wright-Riggins expected some sort of emotional response years ago as a religious-studies major in college when he illustrated a presentation on race and religion by tearing up an Ebony magazine portrayal of...
Science and Faith
The pastor of my church asked me to speak about naturalism and theism at our Wednesday night supper, in part to lay some groundwork for his discussion of creationism and evolution the following week. These kinds of...
Little problems … and big ones
This past weekend was something of a vacation for my family, if you count attending two meetings and making four presentations as vacation. Jan and I both had the opportunity to speak at the Three Forks Baptist...
Jesus for President
What would happen if Jesus came to 21st century America, performed a couple of low-key miracles just to get folks talking, then announced he was running for president of the United States? That is the story line in...
Russian Baptists Deliver Aid to South Ossetia
Valentin Vasilizhenko, a pastor in the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists, was among recent visitors, helping to distribute backpacks filled with school supplies for children in late August. Vasilizhenko...
Forgiving Bin Laden … and the Governor of Illinois
It's pretty tempting, after the commemoration of the 9/11 attacks on the United States in 2001, to make the case--based on Jesus' teaching about forgiving an offender 70-multiplied-by-seven times--that serious...
Of pig lips and dog marks
I continue to be amazed at the gall of the Palin-McCain political strategists as they try to get more mileage out of Barack Obama's remark about putting lipstick on a pig.That expression is probably as old as lipstick...
State’s Congressional Delegation Turns Down Dialogue With Muslims
I got an e-mail Wednesday morning from a Muslim friend who was distraught to discover that every member of Oklahoma's congressional delegation declined to accept his invitation to a dinner and dialogue with moderate...
Claim of Evangelical Voter Shift Is More Prayer Request than Answered Prayer
Claiming evangelicals are converting from Republican sin to Democratic salvation doesn't make it so no matter how many times that chorus is sung, and it has been sung over and over by progressive community organizers,...
Palin Pick Prompts Debate About Wives Working Outside the Home
Sarah Palin's nomination as vice president has sparked debate in conservative religious circles about whether a mother with young children ought to work outside the home. Voddie Baucham, a Baptist pastor and author...
A lesson in self-focus
The school parking lot has adequate spaces for parents and grandparents who pick up students in the afternoon. When I was there one day this week, it was obvious that not everyone wants the inconvenience of pulling...
9/11: A Day That Lives in Infamy
Not to sound trite, but 9/11 is indeed a day that will live in infamy. On this day a sovereign democracy was savagely attacked by a terrorist organization. Unsatisfied with the choice people made in electing their...
New Zealand Church Leaders Urge Leaders to Fight Poverty
Church leaders in New Zealand have issued an open letter calling on all politicians to make reducing poverty a high priority during an election year. Leaders from Anglican, Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian...
I Like Ike
"I like Ike" might have been a spiffy sounding campaign slogan during the U.S. presidential elections of the 1950s. But mention the name "Ike" today and you're more likely to invoke images of Haitian peasants carrying...
Pastors urged to violate ban
If my last post suggested a belief that there are too many lawyers putting their noses where they don't belong, a Sept. 8 article in the Washington Post trumps my traffic court issue in spades.The right wing Alliance...
Missouri Baptist Editor Says Southern Baptists Shouldn’t Rejoin Baptist World Alliance
A Baptist state newspaper editor hopes leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention won't take steps to rejoin the Baptist World Alliance. A motion at last summer's SBC annual meeting asked the SBC Executive Committee to...
Fellow Church Members, Deacons, Vie for Alabama Congressional Seat
Tip O'Neill's famous quote that "all politics is local" is nowhere truer this year than in Alabama's second congressional district, where both the Democratic and Republican candidates are deacons at the same Southern...
With a Bang or a Whimper?
For nine years now, far underground land spanning Switzerland and France, the largest and most powerful particle accelerator ever built has been under construction. According to the Web site of CERN (the European...
Are pew-sitters responsible for what preachers say?
By all accounts, this is an odd political season. Since the rise of the Religious Right it has not been uncommon for preachers (Robertson, Falwell et al) to grab a little more spotlight during this time. But this is...
City Councilman Faults ‘Sorry Churches’ for Not Fighting Social Ills
Taxpayers are forced to foot the bill for social programs because there are too many "sorry churches" that aren't doing what they're supposed to do, according to a city official in Jacksonville, Fla. During a recent...
Politician Palin Forces Theological Revisionism
The nomination of Sarah Palin changed Southern Baptist fundamentalism quicker than Eve tempted Adam to eat the apple in the Garden of Eden, metaphorically speaking. The Republican Party's first woman caused Republican...