Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
That Awkward Talk
Do you remember having that talk with your parents, that uncomfortable talk about our shared biology? Have you had that awkward talk with your own child, that halting communication that acknowledges a coming of age?...
Rick Scarborough Re-visited.
The May 16, 2005, issue of Time magazine reported that Rick Scarborough "has been the kind of dedicated activist the GOP has to thank for much of its current dominance." For the last dozen years this former student of...
Anti-Gay Protestors Picket Military Hospital
With at least 27 states considering laws to ban or restrict picketing at soldiers' funerals, Fred Phelps' notorious Westboro Baptist Church has found a new target, protesting at military hospitals treating troops...
Bananas
They come here to take away our jobs and use up our social services. They come in search of the American Dream hoping to find a better life for themselves and their families. These are the two most common answers given...
Budgets and Taxes as Moral Issues
In his best-selling book "God's Politics," Jim Wallis argues that governmental budgets and tax policies are moral issues. The reason why? Because the way communities raise revenue, normally in the form of taxes, and...
Kentucky CBF Church Models Ministry
With searing pain and blood draining from a rotten tooth, a teenager in Owensboro, Ky., was taken home by his school nurse. The tooth had to come out, but the youth had no insurance. The local dentist would not take...
A Baptist Parochial School System?
Not many decisions coming out of the Southern Baptist Convention these days occasion much shock anymore, but what looks like a proposal for a Southern Baptist parochial school system to replace public education causes...
BCE Director Urges Support for Public Schools
With a growing movement in the Southern Baptist Convention encouraging parents to homeschool their children or put them in Christian schools, the time has come for Baptists who are friends of public education to also...
Open Doors and Open Minds
Congregation Beth Shalom in Columbia, Mo., were renting space for their synagogue from the Hillel Center, the Jewish student ministry organization at the University of Missouri. The synagogue had grown in number, along...
Intelligent Design Professor Switching Seminaries
A year after coming to lead a highly touted center for science and theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, intelligent design advocate William Dembski is reportedly leaving to accept a teaching post at...
Toward A Biblically Informed Debate on U.S. Immigration Reform
What will be the leading civil rights issue of the 21st century? According to Dr. Javier Elizondo, vice president of academic affairs at Baptist University of the Americas, "the mistreatment of undocumented immigrants...
Reflections from a Loose Cannon on the Edge of Being Baptist
In February, EthicsDaily.com ran a news story describing an article in forthcoming book, where the former head of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship says he wishes the group had long ago formed a new denomination. What...
SBC Membership Numbers Don’t Add Up With NCC
The Southern Baptist Convention says it misreported membership statistics in 2002 and 2003, creating confusion in a new ranking of the 25 largest denominations in the United States showing a 1 percent membership...
Tom DeLay is Not Jesus
Tom DeLay is not Jesus. That may not seem like a shocking statement, but it may be for some Christians who gathered last week in Washington, D.C., for the "War on Christians and the Value Voters" conference. The...
Funeral Directors Respond to ‘Body Snatching’ Scandal
Recent headlines in tabloid and mainstream media outlets refer to "ghoulish" and "macabre" activities allegedly occurring over several years in the Eastern United States. (See Safety, ethics questioned in tissue...
Immigration Reform in the U.S. Senate
Right now, in the United States Senate serious debate over U.S. immigration is taking place. A massive overhaul in our immigration policy is being considered. This debate and the bills by various Congressmen have vital...
The Thanks We Get for Spreading Freedom in Afghanistan
Something was reported the last couple of weeks that I have been expecting ever since the war in Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq began. A Muslim who converted to Christianity faced the death penalty in...
The Politics Of Jesus
Nearly every week I hear from readers with the complaint that I am writing politics under the guise of religious commentary. It's a fair observation though I am almost tempted to say, "Yeah, but the other guy started...
Public Education a Cornerstone of American Democracy
America's noble experiment--universal education for all citizens--is a cornerstone of our democracy. The idea of a system of universal education is as old as our republic. No lesser lights than Thomas Jefferson, George...
Federal Tax Policy Falls Short of Biblical Teaching, Article Claims
The Bush administration tax policy falls short of justice standards taught by Judaism and Christianity by benefiting the wealthy, shifting the share of the tax burden to the middle and lower classes and forcing budget...
Is Racism at Heart of the Disdain for Public Schools?
As slavery was at the heart of the founding of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845, racism was at the heart of the beginnings of the anti-public school movement and the founding of the Christian academies in the...