Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
Demagogues Keep Alabama at the Back of the Line
"Demagogue: a person who stirs up the people by appeals to emotion and prejudice in order to become a leader and achieve selfish ends." That's the Webster's New World Dictionary definition of demagogue. It is a strange...
The Offending Nature of John the Baptist
It's the season of Advent, a time when Christians prepare for the coming of Christmas, the birth of Jesus. I thought about inviting John the Baptist to preach at my church during Advent. Several of my pastor friends...
Faith vs. Fossils: Christians Debate Origins of Life
Otis Kline hopes to build Montana's second-largest dinosaur and fossil museum, complete with 13 full-size dinosaur replicas, but it won't be an ordinary museum. Kline, a Southern Baptist, wants to use fossils to teach...
Moral Values and Torture
We, as a country, are attempting to make history without God. And although we've been flaunting the previous election as the triumph of "moral values," in reality we have exchanged the biblical mandate for justice for...
War on Global Hunger Losing Ground, U.N. Report Says
The number of malnourished people continues to grow, despite an 8-year-old pledge by world leaders to cut chronic hunger by half by the year 2015. A report released Wednesday by the United Nations' Food and...
Student Claims Dismissal from FCA Prompted by Vote for Kerry
A student at Carson-Newman College says he was removed from leadership in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes after telling a chapter president he was voting for John Kerry. That contradicts official reports from FCA...
Deep Gladness
Attend a Baptist church during December and you'll likely hear a compelling story from someone God has called to a specific ministry somewhere else in the world. Missionaries add special meaning to Advent and...
Expectations
It is a festive season in rural America. During the week of Thanksgiving many communities held ecumenical worship services. Families gathered to express their gratitude to God for his abundant blessings. Now most...
Useless Beauty: Ecclesiastes through the Lens of Contemporary Film
More and more books about film and faith are hitting the market, but they will all have a tough time outdoing Robert K. Johnston's Useless Beauty: Ecclesiastes through the Lens of Contemporary Film. Just released by...
Shooting Outsiders: An Interview With Paul Feig
Paul Feig—actor, writer, director—woke up on a late summer morning several years ago to begin work adapting a children's novel for the big screen. The novel was the 1963 classic North to Freedom by Anne Holm. The day...
Clergy No. 7 in Ranking of Honesty and Ethics
Clergy ranked seventh in an annual survey on honesty and ethical standards of certain professions, ahead of judges, day-care providers and bankers but behind police, doctors and military officers. This year's Gallup...
‘Tis The Season, For What?
This Christmas we may need to re-write one of our most familiar holiday songs. Instead of, "'Tis the season to be jolly," it may be necessary to sing "'Tis the season to be silly." The silliness in question comes at...
Former SBC Leaders Advocate Support for BWA
A group of retired state and national Southern Baptist Convention leaders issued a statement declaring themselves advocates of the Baptist World Alliance. The group, convened by former BWA President Duke McCall,...
American Baptist Leaders Call for Halt to Gay Ordination, Marriages
American Baptist regional executive directors have called on member churches to put a halt to ordaining homosexuals and blessing same-sex unions in a plea aimed at bridging differences that many fear could split the...
Scalia Blames Church-State Separation for Holocaust
Jews are safer with Christians in charge than in a country that observes the separation of church and state, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said recently at a New York synagogue, according to a headline on the...
Baptist Women’s Group Adopts Strong Stance
"We have long been convinced that our churches have failed to employ usefully their female members. They occupied a sphere of activity and usefulness in the apostolic churches, it seems to us, which has not been...
Baylor Faculty Votes Against President in Disputed Referendum
Both sides claimed vindication in results announced Tuesday of a faculty referendum on Baylor University's embattled president. Eighty-five percent of voters chose "no" in response to the single ballot question: "Do...
Southern Baptist Leader Expects Gradual Exodus From Public Schools
While the Southern Baptist Convention is not yet ready to endorse a mass exodus from public schools, the day will come when most Southern Baptist children are educated at home or in church-run schools, says a Christian...
Professors Defend Teaching of Evolution
While many people view faith and science as competing, they can co-exist and even flourish in a Christian college, say professors at two liberal-arts schools with teaching under investigation by the Tennessee Baptist...
‘Tangled Up in the Bible’
Because I am in the process of producing a manuscript about the use of the Old Testament in popular music, Michael J. Gilmour's Tangled Up in the Bible: Bob Dylan & Scripture caught my eye when I saw it in a...
‘I Am David’
About 40 million people are currently refugees—unable to return to their homeland on account of persecution stemming from social and political reasons. A new movie from Walden Media, "I Am David," tells a fictional but...