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Check out news and opinion posts across the years
Minister Accused of Sex Abuse Commits Suicide
A bi-vocational Southern Baptist pastor charged last week with molesting an 11-year-old girl in Alabama died Tuesday in an apparent suicide. Authorities in Gainesville, Ga., meanwhile, said they had arrested a former...
Resurrection in the Present Tense
The first time I met Carl he was dying of cancer. At least, that's what everyone told me. I went to the hospital expecting to find an emaciated, worn out, 73-year old man. That was not the case. Carl was propped up in...
What Has Easter To Do With Ethics?
The premier annual Christian feast is upon us again. I picked up a bright, shiny Christian leaflet the other day. The banner immediately caught my attention. "We are at a moral crossroad; it's time to demonstrate the...
Poverty and Power: Some Halftime Analysis
We have reached the halfway point of the program to halve global poverty by 2015. Members of the United Nations, including Australia, agreed to this target at the Millennium Summit in 2000. The halftime score is not...
Study: Africa’s Displaced Children Vulnerable to Sexual Abuse
Children displaced by armed conflicts in Africa's Great Lakes Region--the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda--are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse, according to a recent study....
SBC President Says Sexual Abuse by Clergy not ‘Systemic’
Despite several recent reports of sexual abuse by clergy, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention says he does not believe it is a "large and systemic" problem in the nation's second-largest faith group. The...
God is Dead?
Friedrich Nietzsche's statement God is dead (German: "Gott ist tot"), has had many interpretations and offshoots in the century since first suggested. From the theologian and academic evolved all sorts of theories from...
‘Charlotte’s Web’
New to DVD today is "Charlotte's Web," the Dakota Fanning-starrer from 2006 based on the best-selling book by E.B. White about the friendship between a pig and a spider. The live-action picture grossed more than $80...
Supreme Court Orders EPA to Study Climate Change
The United States Supreme Court ruled Monday the Environmental Protection Agency cannot use the 1970 Clean Air Act as an excuse for refusing to regulate automobile emissions that produce greenhouse gases. The 5-4...
Shell Games and Secrecy
When The Kansas City Star published an investigative story a few weeks ago about the secretive financial oversight of one of the Baptist mega-churches in the area, it was as if a bomb went off in the community. The...
Jimmy Carter Sunday School Lessons Out in Audio Book
The world's most famous Sunday school class has come to a bookstore near you. Most weekends several hundred visitors visit Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Ga., to attend former President Jimmy Carter's Sunday...
The Sermon on the Mount, American Style
The Sermon on the Mount is regarded by most Christians as the heart of Jesus' teaching. Unfortunately, what Jesus has to say there has not been overwhelmingly embraced by much of the Christian community in America....
‘Homeland: The Illustrated History of the State of Israel’
"Homeland: The Illustrated History of the State of Israel" begins with Abraham and takes the reader through a tremendous graphic representation of what is called "Israel's world view." Using the storytelling device of...
‘Blades of Glory’
Will Ferrell goes from racecar driver Ricky Bobby to figure skater Chazz Michael Michaels in "Blades of Glory," a slapstick comedy about the first male-male figure skating pair. Joining Ferrell is Jon Heder ("Napoleon...
What Explains SBC Attacks on National Association of Evangelicals?
The Southern Baptist Convention has stepped up its criticism of the National Association of Evangelicals, perhaps a surprising action given the fact that for the longest time they were conjoint cultural twins, not...
A Path Toward Transformation
Discipleship is about more than following a leader, even if that leader is Jesus as he enters the wilderness or sets his face toward Jerusalem. Walking through Lent is about more than a ritual stroll in springtime,...
Southern Baptist Minister Charged With Sexual Abuse
An Alabama man, the bi-vocational pastor of a church across the state line in the Florida Panhandle, is the latest in a spate of Southern Baptist ministers arrested on charges of sexual abuse of a minor. Police in...
Belmont Invites Tennessee Colleges to ‘Go Green’
Presidents of six Tennessee colleges and universities joined Wednesday at Baptist-affiliated Belmont University in Nashville pledging to lead their campuses to "go green" in teaching, research and operations. Belmont...
Pat Robertson Warns of Rising Political Clout by Muslims
Christian Coalition founder and former presidential candidate Pat Robertson the election of Muslims like Rep. Keith Ellison and local officials in Houston pose a threat to America. "The curse of God is to bring in...
Gonzales Accused of Ignoring Texas Juvenile Prison Abuse Scandal
As embattled U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales traveled city to city to talk about keeping children safe from sexual predators, a conservative Web site accused the Justice Department of ignoring for two years...
What Do the Fall and the Flood Say Theologically about Global Warming?
Global-warming deniers argue that science is unsettled about whether human beings are the driving cause of climate change. Some say human begins are too insignificant to change climate patterns; that climate change...