According to a recent Associated Press report, for many years Egypt’s Christian minority refused to become involved in politics for fear of reprisals. They relied, instead, on their church to make their case to those in power. When Hosni Mubarak…
OPINION: Relegation or responsibility?
What is another word for “thesaurus”? Roget has given every writer a treasure book for alternative ways of saying the same thing. The usage of words rises and falls in the marketplace of ideas and culture much like the tides…
HeraldBeat: Tracking Baptists across the Mid-Atlantic
Accepted a new call? Been ordained? Church celebrating an anniversary? Mission trip or project that you would like highlighted on the HeraldBeat page? Send info to HeraldBeat editor Barbara Francis at [email protected]. Transitions ON THE MOVE Mark Mofield, to Temple…
TRENDING: SEKAP
Here’s a no-brainer trend: blogs, Twitter and Facebook pronouncements by public religious leaders going viral with all kinds of unintended negative consequences. Besides making me shake my bald head, it raises the question of what the “best practices” trend will…
WINN RECOMMENDS: Books that matter
Moving Miss Peggy, Robert Benson (Abingdon) Robert Benson is one of our finest writers. If you have not read him, I suggest you do so now. Miss Peggy is Robert’s mom, and this masterful story narrates Peggy’s diagnosis of dementia…
VITAL SIGNS: Third pig thinking
You remember the story of the Three Little Pigs, don’t you? Sent out by their mother to make their way in the world, they live in fear of the Big Bad Wolf. Their first order of business is to build…
Lottie Moon’s church led by a woman
What would Lottie do? Last year, Southern Baptists gave $149.3 million to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for international missions, hailed as the third-highest amount in the offering’s 124-year history. With less fanfare, meanwhile, the iconic missionary’s childhood church quietly…
Mission trip provides religious liberty lesson
Less than a month after police in the former Soviet state of Georgia intervened to rescue peaceful gay-rights protestors from a religious mob, Baptist young adults from the United States stood alongside Georgian Baptists to speak up for Muslims denied…
OPINION: What now?
The news has finally broken. The most anticipated Supreme Court decisions in a long time were finally released last week. A sharply divided court has ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional as far as its implications for…
OPINION: Piggies matter: A perspective on Baptist meetings
Within the short span of eight days, I attended the General Assembly of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship as well as the biennial meeting of the American Baptist Churches USA. Somewhere in the midst of meetings and reunions and worship services,…
REVIEW: In ‘World War Z,’ humanity is on its own
Zombies are hot. They are the new “in” storytelling device. World War Z, loosely based on Max Brooks’s novel of the same name, is the latest to make use of the walking dead as a metaphor. The story focuses on…
REFLECTIONS FROM NEW YORK: Prayers for all peoples
Imagine you’ve invited your Jewish neighbors over to your house for dinner. Immediately after serving your guests, you question whether or not you should offer a prayer. You think to yourself that both Christians and Jews believe in God, so…