Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
Too many Saturdays
My wife and I have been remarking that there seem to have been too many Saturdays lately. It's not that we think there's a calendar conspiracy -- the days of the week roll around like always. But, with both me and...
Don’t forget
While Americans celebrate Independence Day with flags and fireworks, cookouts and complaints about the price of gas, we should take a moment to remember how many people in the world still remain without religious...
A Prayer for Independence Day
Good and gracious God, you have given us the privilege and the responsibility of living in the most resourceful land in the world. From sea to shining sea most of us enjoy unparalleled freedom, comfortable homes,...
The 232nd Fourth of July
The American Independence Day did not have much going for it when we lived in Hong Kong. In those days it was a Crown Colony of the British Empire and had been since 1842. Groundhog Day meant more to the British than...
Struggling With Religious Liberty Sunday
We're observing Religious Liberty Sunday on July 6. I struggle every year with how to handle it, and I am struggling more than usual this year. I'm not sure why. It may be because this is a presidential election year,...
Strange behavior
Our puppy, a trial to my soul about which I've previously written, is rapidly turning into a genuine dog. He gains about a pound every week, though I won't be keeping up with his weight now that he's finished his last...
Ice, Ice, Maybe
Alongside the summer pursuits of outdoor projects, backyard barbecues and a really good book to read while sitting by a stream, lake or ocean--I have wondered about the fragility and tenuous nature of life. I know it...
Do You Love the Church?
During the Friday evening worship service at the CBF annual meeting in Memphis, the CBF director of missional church ministries began his presentation by saying, "I love church." He then invited the participants to...
Arab Baptist Theological Seminary Promotes Understanding Between Muslims, Christians
People from 13 different countries in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia took part in a June 16-20 Middle East Conference at Arab Baptist Theological Seminary in Beirut, Lebanon, just weeks after the worst violence...
Ministry as “meaningful work”
The online Chronicle of Higher Education reports that a growing number of students are responding to a perceived call to ministry, reversing a two-decade trend. The shift seems to reflect changing cultural values as...
The Strange Sexual Obsessions at Southern Seminary
I don't think there's anything weirder than religious sexual obsession. Sex is tough enough without layering our obsession about it with some bizarre religious viewpoint. Jim Jones was obsessed with sex. David Koresh...
Study Says Church-Going Men Have Stronger Families
Fathers who regularly attend church have happier and more stable marriages and are more involved with and affectionate toward their children than non-religious or nominally religious males, according to a new study. A...
SBC President Gives Blessing to Ties With Tennessee Temple
Southern Baptist leaders including the convention's new president Johnny Hunt are involved in a quiet move to bring the Tennessee Temple University into the fold of Southern Baptist schools. Last fall Highland Park...
Unexpected inspiration
I was driving home from a day in the office, enjoying some quiet time and listening to public radio. For more than a year, National Public Radio has been broadcasting an occasional series of first-person pieces called...
Death Lessons
For someone who has never had a life-threatening illness or injury, I feel like I am well acquainted with death. My first experience with death was, as is the case with many children, the loss of a beloved pet. Ruff, a...
Beware of Deceptive Credit-Card Fees
"Sum tyms bitin, sum tyms bit." On my desk there is a paperweight containing this bit of philosophy from the novel Riddley Walker. In pidgin English that author Russell Hoban imagines would devolve in the millennia...
Vitter, Craig Unlikely Sponsors of Marriage Amendment
The latest attempt to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage is under scrutiny not for its content but for two of its sponsors viewed as unlikely champions of family values. Sens. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and...
Federal Sentencing May Turn Up Heat on Fraudulent Seminary Degrees
Maintaining muteness this week about the Southern Baptist Convention president's honorary degrees from two diploma mills will become much more difficult for denominational officials, given the federal sentencing on...
James Dobson Preaches a False Gospel
For the past eight years, James Dobson's brand of Christianity has been normative in the land. Dobson has preached a Christ acceptable to the present Bush administration. When George W. Bush and company get down on...
The Dream Hospital
Hospitals might be the only place where life is seen in its extremes. Happiness and sadness coexist in hospitals. Deaths and births happen simultaneously. Helena, Ark., is also a place where death and birth happen on...
Being mad makes me mad
I hate being mad, so it's a good thing that I don't have a short fuse and don't get my feelings hurt easily. In general, I'm more laid-back than high-strung, so while I'm in touch with angry feelings when they arise, I...