Browse Archives
Check out news and opinion posts across the years
Holocaust Denial: What It Is and Why Evangelical Scholars Must Reject It
The Holocaust, the effort of the German Nazis to wipe out the entire Jewish population of Europe, is the greatest tragedy that the Jewish people every faced. It is also a Christian problem because most of the...
British Leader Wants a More Influential Baptist Voice in Europe
BEIRUT, Lebanon--A newly elected European Baptist leader plans to move Baptists to the center of Europe—both geographically and influentially. "So often European Baptist church buildings, for understandable historical...
‘The Forgotten’
The TV series "The Twilight Zone" is a classic show that never ages. Its shocks, jolts and twist endings still reverberate in this age of special-effect-driven entertainment. Rod Serling's influence has reached beyond...
Baptist Leader Says Some View Bible Reading as Hate Speech
A Southern Baptist Convention leader is quoted as calling it a stretch to claim that Democrats are trying to ban the Bible, while saying that some people would like for quoting the Bible against homosexuality to be...
Baptists Hold Rare Meetings with Lebanon’s Prime Minister and President
BEIRUT, Lebanon--A European Baptist Federation delegation held rare meetings with two of Lebanon's most powerful political leaders. The delegation met with Emile Lahoud, the president of Lebanon and a Maronite...
Vote on Female Clergy Set in Georgia Association
A Georgia Baptist association votes today on a faith statement that some view as a referendum on a member church with a female co-pastor. Floyd County Baptist Association in Rome, Ga., is scheduled to vote this...
Radio’s Bygone Days Are Back—On the Internet
For many people, the likes of Abbott & Costello, Buck Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy are voices of yesteryear, never to be heard again. Whether these entertainment icons ever existed in comics or on television, it's...
Former Baylor Regents Call for President’s Ouster
Twenty-two former Baylor University trustees signed a petition Tuesday calling on the current board of regents to replace President Robert Sloan this week with interim leadership and begin a national search for a new...
Know Love, No Fear
Many years ago on one of my trips home to visit my parents, we went to see a new hangar built for my father to use in storing his small Cessna aircraft. The airport and hangars were located beside a lake where our...
Lebanese Baptist Church Rebuilds, Hopes to Reopen School
AIN DARA, Lebanon--Ain Dara Baptist Church sits atop a mountain on a winding two-lane road from Beirut to Damascus, across the street from a Syrian army post. Across the valley are the "real" cedars of Lebanon, from...
Baylor Regents Decline Vote on President
Baylor University's board of regents did not vote on Robert Sloan's status as president and unanimously declined a request by the faculty senate to conduct a faculty referendum on Sloan's leadership, according to a...
Two Lebanese Seminaries Offer Contrasting Baptist Witness
Religion divides the Middle East, including the minority Baptist community in Lebanon. Some Baptists pursue engagement with the broader Christian community, while others separate themselves with narrow doctrinal...
Professor Demands Apology from SBC/BWA Study Group
A German Baptist theologian has demanded, but apparently won't receive, a public apology from Southern Baptist Convention leaders for "un-Christian behavior" in persuading Southern Baptists this summer to withdraw from...
Swaggart Says He Regrets Making Anti-Gay Statement
Television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart apologized for saying that he would kill a gay man who looked at him romantically, after the comment prompted a viewer complaint in Canada and reaction from gay-rights groups. "I...
Despite Leaving BWA, Southern Baptists Maintain Presence in European Body
BEIRUT, Lebanon--Despite the Southern Baptist Convention's recent withdrawal from the Baptist World Alliance--partly on charges of European liberalism--three representatives of the SBC's International Mission Board...
Lebanon Pursues Religious Freedom in Land of Religious Diversity
BEIRUT, Lebanon--Lebanon is a country of religious freedom with some restrictions, despite a relatively fresh heritage of a 15-year civil war fought along religious lines, which took some 100,000 lives. The "generally...
Election Fallout
An enormous pastoral task awaits the religious community on Nov. 3, the day after this year's presidential elections, no matter the outcome. Now is the time for religious leaders to anticipate this challenge and to...
Miss America Member of CBF Church
The new Miss America is a former tomboy who played college volleyball, a Rhodes Scholar finalist who began entering pageants to earn scholarship money for school, an aspiring doctor who plans to use her platform to...
Sorting Through Competing Calamities
Hurricanes, famine, earthquakes, tornadoes, volcanoes: Every time we pick up the newspaper or turn on the television or radio, it seems there is yet another calamity somewhere in the world. The presence of Hurricane...
Ethics for Associate Ministers
When the senior pastors gather around the water cooler, it's a favorite topic. "Have you heard what my associate (music, education, youth, you-name-it) has done now?" Unfortunately, that question is often followed by a...
What’s Really Behind the ‘Left Behind’ Novels
A fellow browser in a bookstore a few months ago asked me about the "Left Behind" novels that have set record sales in religious and secular bookstores the past few years. I don't know where the fellow was coming from,...