By Bill Leonard In the year that Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, I worked for the War on Poverty in Dallas County, Texas. It was 1968, the summer after I graduated from Texas Wesleyan and took…
‘All my ex’s…’
By Bill Leonard As an “ex-SBCer” I’m hesitant to write about the situation among Baptists in the second decade of the 21st century. According to my friend David Gushee, as an ex-SBCer I should actually be retired, or, as one…
Millennials at hand
By Bill Leonard The Millennials are at hand! Millennials — that’s what sociologists call the generation of 18- to 33-year-olds now coming of age in America. A new study from the Pew Research Center details the nature of their unique…
Reserving the right
By Bill Leonard When I was a kid in Decatur, Texas, there was a hole-in-the-wall diner called Shorty’s Stop located just off State Highway 81 in that county seat town. Some guy named Shorty owned the place where I had…
Sor Juana and the sounds of silence
By Bill Leonard In a 1691 Respuesta (response) to the church’s critique of her writings, Sor Juana de la Cruz (1648?-1695), Mexican nun, playwright, poet and theologian, recalled that St. Paul, when “caught up into paradise,” learned secrets that he…
A new bivocationalism
By Bill Leonard A student friend of mine recently reported that when he graduates from divinity school he intends to go full time with a new company that he helped entrepreneur. This decision, he says, offers his family a stable…
Emergency rooms
By Bill Leonard Just when I think we have nothing in common with the people of the New Testament, I show up in an emergency room. I’ve been there several times recently, not for my own needs (yet), but with…
Emergency rooms
By Bill Leonard Just when I think we have nothing in common with the people of the New Testament I show up in an emergency room. I’ve been there several times recently, not for my own needs (yet), but with…
Emergency rooms
By Bill Leonard Just when I think we have nothing in common with the people of the New Testament I show up in an emergency room. I’ve been there several times recently, not for my own needs (yet), but with…
Numbering our days, applying our hearts
By Bill Leonard “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” Those words from Psalm 90:12 KJV challenge us at year’s end to contemplate what we’ve learned in 2013 and how we might…
Charting clergy trust
By Bill Leonard “Please tell me how you would rate the honesty and ethical standards of people in these different fields — very high, high, average, low, very low.” That’s the question asked in a Gallup poll regarding ethics and…
The first war on Christmas
By Bill Leonard The Blessed Virgin Mary scares me. It happens every Advent. She questions my ways and means, confronts me with mystery, gives me guilt and makes me think twice before driving to the mall. Listening to the Blessed…