Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
Baptist Minister, Volunteer Track Coach, Charged with Rape
A former volunteer track coach and Southern Baptist minister was scheduled to be arraigned Friday in East Tennessee on charges he raped a 14-year-old girl, but the hearing was rescheduled after his lawyer asked for...
Adjusting Our ‘Mind-Set’ Can Change Our World
The story of one man's fight for human rights and the abolition of slavery is a compelling saga. Eric Metaxas's book "Amazing Grace," recently made into a movie, recounts the remarkable life of the British statesman...
Learn Just War Rules, Don’t Assume Nation Is Always Just
Just war rules and claims of a just war share a common word with completely different meanings. Placing the word "just" before the word "war" doesn't make war morally just, contrary to the feelings of pro-war American...
SNAP Cries Foul Over Baptist Press Reporting
A self-help group for victims of clergy sex abuse on Friday accused leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention of mischaracterizing their apology for saying they had not received a response letter later found to have...
Lack of Racial Diversity Harms White Students
Until the 1950s, racial segregation in public schools was the norm throughout the United States. In Topeka, Kan., a black third-grader named Linda Brown had to walk one mile to get to her black elementary school, even...
North Carolina Colleges Cutting Baptist Ties
Five North Carolina Baptist colleges and universities are moving toward loosening ties with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. A convention committee earlier this month signed off on a proposal from the...
Southern Baptist Leader Terms Premature Troop Withdrawal Immoral
A Southern Baptist ethicist and ardent supporter of the war in Iraq said on public television it would be immoral for the United States to withdraw troops too soon. "Just war has as one its important principles...
Four Stumbling Blocks to Action on Global Warming
Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once defined ethics as "knowing the difference between what you have the right to do and what is the right thing to do." Ethics is about knowing, about discernment. Ethics is about...
A Cause for Extravagance
Lent rarely evokes images of extravagance. Lent conjures up images of austerity. The challenge of Lent is to make an arduous journey of the spirit in hopes that the journey will change the mundane parts of our lives,...
Politicians and Private Morality
A personal policy prevents me from identifying my choices in an election. It would be detrimental to my work as a pastor to choose sides publicly in an election contest. I will talk issues. Prophetic preaching demands...
Obeying Authorities Like Peter and Paul
"Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God," says the beginning of Romans Chapter 13. "Therefore...
Al Gore Calls for Bipartisan Effort to Fight Global Warming
Former Vice President turned documentary filmmaker Al Gore returned to Washington Wednesday as a star witness in congressional hearings about global warming. "America is the natural leader of the world, and our world...
The Values Of The Values Voter
A new Associated Press-Ipsos poll is yielding important information that will likely have great significance for the so-called "values voter," and those organizations that promote values voting. The term "values voter"...
Georgia State Senate Considering Confederate Heritage Month
After being asked by black leaders to apologize for Georgia's role in slavery, the state Senate instead moved forward with a bill designating April as Confederate Heritage and History Month. The bill's sponsor, Sen....
Mohler Denies Saying Babies Born Gay
A Southern Baptist leader assailed from both the left and right for suggesting there may be some biological cause for homosexual orientation and supporting the use of prenatal treatment to reverse it if any medical...
Faith-Based Groups Lobby Congress on Behalf of Children
Fifty faith-based and policy-advocacy organizations lobbied Congress March 12, urging support for issues vital the world's poorest children. The lobbying effort came on the heels of a weekend international conference...
Tortured Theology
Psychologist Carl Jung once argued, "The healthy man does not torture others--generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers." After the National Association of Evangelicals recently endorsed a statement by...
Bowie Kuhn Showed Leadership is Tough
Bowie Kuhn, the commissioner of major league baseball from 1969 to 1984, died last Thursday at age 80. Kuhn served as commissioner during the years that I really started paying attention to baseball. Indeed, he is the...
Evangelical Schools In Lebanon Are The Key
Often coffee breaks in our offices in Beirut allow time for reflection. Lately, I've been asking myself, "Why in the world did the Baptist missionaries found the Beirut Baptist School 60 years ago? Why did the...
Let’s End the War By Easter
Since the off-year elections of last November there is divided opinion on what the vote was all about. Some think the people were saying with their votes that they had had enough of the Iraqi war. Others saw it as...
Southern Baptist Leader Takes Pro-Torture Stance Against NAE Anti-Torture Statement
A Southern Baptist ethicist accused the National Association of Evangelicals of using tortured logic in a recent statement denouncing cruelty toward detainees in the U.S.-led war on terror. Daniel Heimbach, professor...