Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
CBFNC listens for God’s call
Celebration, worship, and fellowship topped the agenda as 1,175 registered participants packed Forest Hills Baptist Church in Raleigh April 11-12 for the 14th annual gathering of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of...
A minority at home
My minority status in our home is something I generally embrace. However, the three-to-one female-to-male ratio can have its challenges.Over dinner last Thursday, I was feeling a little left out. The extended...
BWIM NC celebrates 25 years
Baptist Women in Ministry of North Carolina (BWIM NC) celebrated its 25th anniversary April 11, unveiling a "Cloud of Witnesses" quilt and honoring those who support women in ministry.The quilt contained names of...
Scholarships make a difference
The heart of theological education is found in the interplay between teachers and students and administrators engaged in the education process itself. That process, however, is has to be paid for. Somebody has to foot...
‘The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo’
Tuesday night's premiere of the HBO documentary, "The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo," was hard to watch. Basing herself in Bukavu, filmmaker Lisa Jackson traveled through South Kivu last year to make a movie...
The Cost of War
There have been a lot of numbers thrown about recently regarding the cost of the war in Iraq. The estimates now suggest the war will run through trillions of dollars. It's difficult for me to think about the war in...
Resource Questions Candidates About No Child Left Behind
Add one to the list of moral values at stake in the next federal election: where does your candidate stand on reauthorization of No Child Left Behind? "As we seek to participate in expanding the reach of God's love and...
Joys and burdens of analytical thinking
Over the past nearly 15 years as a second-career journalist, I've wondered how I ended up in this particular vocation. I did not study journalism or chart a course for myself that including this kind of work.I have now...
‘Leatherheads’
What makes a hero? Are heroic deeds more than actions? Can heroism be seen in a commitment to truth? "Leatherheads," which sets a love triangle against the emerging pro football league of the 1920s, is a story about...
Seven Who Fought
It was a costly battle for many whose family, profession, prestige “ even life itself were laid on the line. During the 1950s and 1960s the fight for dignity and human rights against bigotry, hate and apathy changed...
Beating on Baptists
Baptists in America are often the brunt of jokes (generally aimed at the more fundamentalist branches of the family tree), leading us to occasionally complain that people are unfairly beating up on Baptists. We should...
Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond Announces Layoffs
Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond will eliminate four of its 13 full-time faculty positions in a downsizing plan to be presented to trustees April 28. President Ron Crawford said the school is not yet ready to...
Will Prosperity Theology Bring Peace between Christianity and Islam?
The "Atlantic" magazine has a cover title of "Which Religion Will Win" with an artistic question mark designed out of a crescent moon intersecting with a crucifix atop a globe. One of the issue's major articles...
Who Commands the Commandments?
The Ten Commandments belong in communities of faith, not in public places.So it was affirmed again last week, this time by U.S. District Judge Joseph McKinley Jr. in an ongoing attempt by the religious right to place...
Pastor, Rabbi Team Up for Book Written in Blogosphere
A rabbi and Baptist pastor are collaborating on a book-in-progress exploring the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount being written in front of God and everybody. Mike Smith, pastor of First Baptist Church in...
Avoiding the ‘digital-era sweatshop’
"Religion is part of the explosion of online communications," said Douglas Gould, president of the New York-based communications firm Douglas Gould and Company. He notes that 20 percent of the country's 8 million blogs...
Faith and Doubt
The Alabama Shakespeare Festival is currently offering an exceptional production of Tom Dudzick's humorous play, "Over the Tavern." The story line is about a Catholic family in the 1950s that literally lives over a...
American Baptist Officials Say Pew Survey Paints False Picture of Denomination’s Ethnic Diversity
Leaders of the American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A. said a recent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life survey plotting America's religious landscape used flawed methodology in reporting the denomination as 81...
Clintons Provide Moral Example with Charitable Giving
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband, former President Clinton, reported late Friday afternoon that they made since 2000 more than $109 million and gave $10.25 million to charity. They averaged over this period...
‘Under the Same Moon’
"Under the Same Moon" tells a most engaging story about the power of love between a mother and son in 21st-century North America. "La Misma Luna" (its Spanish title) doesn't try to explore the complexities of politics...
Dobson Is Troubled by McCain’s Opposition to Torture and Global Warming
How did Sen. John McCain's commitment to addressing global warming and advancing human rights become sources of opposition from Christian Right leader James Dobson? In an exclusive statement last Wednesday to the Wall...