Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
UPDATE: Black Baptist Leader Criticizes Government Response to Hurricane Katrina
The president of the largest African-American Baptist organization called on church members to hold national leaders accountable for "preventable consequences" of the Hurricane Katrina disaster. William J. Shaw,...
Barbara Bush Says Things Working Out ‘Very Well’ for Poor Evacuees
Already facing criticism over the response to Hurricane Katrina, President Bush suffered another public-relations setback when his mother on Monday suggested that people living in emergency shelters might be better off...
‘Emily Rose’ Debates Demon Possession
More than 20 years ago, "The Exorcist" scared the daylights out of moviegoers and stirred interest in demon possession and exorcism. In 1973, however, demon possession wasn't playing just on screen. It was playing out...
Brokaw Hosts NBC Special on Evangelical Christians
Evangelical Christians are getting primetime exposure with a new special from former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw. "Tom Brokaw Reports: In God They Trust," which airs on NBC Friday, Sept. 9 at 8 p.m. ET, examines the role of...
Maybe All is Not Gone With the Wind
These are perilous times. As I write this article on Friday, New Orleans continues to fill up with water as if it were a large bowl tipped over to take on a strange mixture of soup. The city's a soup of debris, toxic...
Global Baptists Offer Support for Hurricane Victims
Baptists from around the world pledged prayer and financial support for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Baptist World Aid released $75,000 to offer immediate help to displaced persons, to be divided evenly among Baptist...
Tennessee Baptist Church Opens Doors to Hurricane Victims
Murfreesboro, Tenn., is more than 500 miles from New Orleans, but it's where about 50 of the city's residents wound up after being displaced by Hurricane Katrina. "I'm going to miss my home," Eddie Hawkins, a citizen...
‘Blues and Lamentations’
On the insert of Kate Campbell's new album, Blues and Lamentations, the lyrics and other written information are arranged in a pattern that reminds me of a labyrinth, or at least half of one. Labyrinths became tools...
Dude! Where Do You Like to Surf?
Today, surfing is something all of us do, even if we don't look good in a swim suit. No sandy blond hair, no surfboard, no sand, no coral to dodge as the wave throws us like a rag doll ... we're surfing the Net!...
Theologians for Hitler: Could It Happen Again?
Two notes were sounded about Christianity in Nazi Germany at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, when I attended the school in the late 1970s. One note was played softly, easily missed. A passing reference was made...
Recipe for a Perfect Storm
The recipe for a perfect storm is when an economic policy that is devastating to the poor is mixed together by an administrative kitchen of incompetency. If our response to New Orleans is another demonstration of...
Fellowship Churches Respond to Hurricane Evacuees’ Housing Needs
Distance from the disaster region isn't stopping some Cooperative Baptist Fellowship partner churches from providing temporary housing for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. With Houston's Astrodome filling to capacity...
After Crises: Things Your Church Can Do
Churches and faith-based organizations are usually among the first and most generous to respond to communities and individuals who are in crisis. After storms, earthquakes and even tsunamis churches have responded by...
Join Me in the Labor Movement
This is one Labor Day article that isn't going to start by moaning about what lousy shape the American labor movement is in. You'll read that in the mainstream press on Monday, mark my words. They'll drone on about "...
NBC to Grant ‘Three Wishes’ This Fall
When NBC premieres "Three Wishes" in late September, it will let its genie out of the bottle. Each installment of the one-hour reality show finds its hosts in a new town somewhere in America for one week, listening to...
Where is God in the Storm?
Somewhere a preacher is preaching. He shakes his fist at the ceiling as he describes the wrath of God. That wrath has come, he tells his attentive congregation, on the crest of a terrible storm named Katrina. God has...
Acting In Shanghai TV: Don’t Quit Your Day Job
It was 1988. I was in Shanghai talking with university presidents about placing American English teachers in their schools. This was new then and I had already placed teachers in schools in Beijing, Yantai, Shanghai...
SBC Leader Denounces Protests at Military Funerals
Southern Baptist Convention president Bobby Welch denounced a Baptist congregation picketing funerals of U.S. troops killed in Iraq, pointing out it is not an SBC church and accusing it of "hate-filled activities."...
BCE Sponsoring Screening of ‘Theologians Under Hitler’
The Baptist Center for Ethics is sponsoring middle Tennessee's first public screening of a new documentary describing Christian complicity in the Holocaust. "Theologians Under Hitler," produced and directed by...
American Baptist Ministers Group Rejects Anti-Gay Bylaw Amendment
The senate of the American Baptist Churches, U.S.A., Ministers Council has rejected a bylaw amendment designed to refuse seating to homosexuals. Cynthia Maybeck, pastor of Trinity Church of Northborough, Mass., a...
More Americans View Democrats As Unfriendly Toward Religion
Americans increasingly view the Democratic Party as unfriendly toward religion, according to a poll released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press and Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Public...