By Bill Leonard In 1645, Anglican clergyman Daniel Featley wrote of the “Dippers” (Baptists) rampant in England: “They preach, and print, and practice their Heretical impieties openly; they hold their Conventicles weekly in our chief Cities, and Suburbs thereof, and…
At Lent: Sin, evil and us
By Bill Leonard On Feb. 10, 2015, three Muslim students at UNC-Chapel Hill — a married couple and her sister — were shot by one of the “neighbors” in their apartment complex. The New York Times reported: “The victims’ families…
Secularism rising: How should Christians respond?
By Bill Leonard “Secularization is the historical process whereby religious faith, religious involvement, religious identification, and religious institutions weaken, fade or become less significant in society. And while secularization is in no way inevitable or irreversible … when we look…
Uncoerced faith remains a burning question
By Bill Leonard On Sunday, Feb. 15, 2015, the terrorists who call themselves an Islamic State released a lurid video showing the decapitation of 21 Egyptian laborers working in Libya. Taken hostage in January, largely because they were Coptic Christians,…
Salvation and shape notes
By Bill Leonard Recent conversations about hymnody and history sent me back to a century-old family photo I discovered after my mother’s death two years ago. It shows a group of some 70 men, women and children standing in front…
Critiquing Islam — and ourselves
By Bill Leonard In a syndicated column written after the Charlie Hebdo assassinations in Paris, commentator Cal Thomas wrote: “This is the difference between radical Islam and other faiths. Jews and Christians have been targets of persecution, but with rare…
Tasting the Kingdom
By Bill Leonard Each January for the last three years I’ve joined a group of students in visiting the Haywood Street Congregation in Asheville, N.C., and each time we’ve gotten a taste of God’s New Community (aka the Kingdom of…
Epiphanic moments
By Bill Leonard “When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were 2 years old and under, according to the…
A nation confronted by conscience
By Bill Leonard “Our enemies act without conscience. We must not. This executive summary of the [Senate Intelligence] Committee’s report makes clear that acting without conscience isn’t necessary, it isn’t even helpful, in winning this strange and long war we’re…