Word is out that Pope Francis’ long-awaited encyclical on the environment will be published later this month with the title Laudato Sii—“Praised Be You”—words from the Latin text of St. Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Sun. (Baptist News Global…
Savoring the ‘sacrament of the present moment,’ with a little help from The Decemberists
Christian thinking about the world we live in and God’s goals for it wrestles with a tension. What God envisions for the world is already being made manifest in the Easter reality of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and in…
Songs for pilgrims on the way
I’d told myself I wouldn’t do it this time. Writing a theological review of the latest U2 album has been de rigueur for me since offering my $0.02 on How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. With increasingly credible rumors pointing to…
On first take, the latest U2 album still offers grace
By Steven Harmon I’d told myself I wouldn’t do it this time. Writing a theological review of the latest U2 album has been de rigueur for me since offering my two cents on How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. With increasingly…
Don Draper’s progress
“I keep wondering: have I broken the vessel?” Don Draper’s mid-flirtation confession to his airline seatmate in the April 13 premiere of the seventh (and final) season of the AMC drama Mad Men may prove to be the single most…
‘Mad Men’ as an exploration of human fallenness
By Steven Harmon “I keep wondering: have I broken the vessel?” Don Draper’s mid-flirtation confession to his airline seatmate in the April 13 premiere of the seventh (and final) season of the AMC drama Mad Men may prove to be…
Baptists and Catholics together–Twitter edition
What do Baptists and Catholics have in common? That sounds like the set-up for a joke of some sort–or at least for a very brief response, given the anti-Catholicism that has marked much of the Baptist tradition (even when we…
Funding the formation of the called
Robert Dilday’s article on the educational indebtedness of the church’s future ministers published last Friday by Associated Baptist Press, along with the Auburn Center for the Study of Theological Education paper “The Gathering Storm: The Educational Debt of Theological Students”…
Enthusiastic about our Fellowship
On the night of June 28, I posted to Facebook this status update from my hotel room in Greensboro, North Carolina: From Wednesday’s pre-assembly Baptist Women in Ministry celebration to the closing General Assembly communion service tonight, I’ve never felt…
Pope Francis and the Baptists
I don’t think a day has passed since March 13 without a student, colleague, fellow church member, family member, or friend asking what my perspective is on the election of Pope Francis, especially since they know that I was a…
Prayers for the pope are prayers for unity
The Pope has prayed for me, and following the announcement of his retirement at the end of the month I’m returning the favor by praying for him and the future of his office. Don’t get the wrong idea: Pope Benedict…
Prayer for the papacy
By Steve Harmon The pope has prayed for me, and following the announcement of his retirement at the end of the month, I’m returning the favor by praying for him and the future of his office. Don’t get the wrong…
Are Baptists still nonconformists?
Not long after our move to work at Gardner-Webb University School of Divinity my wife Kheresa read Monique Truong’s Bitter in the Mouth (Random House, 2010), a novel rooted in Truong’s childhood experiences as an “outsider” Vietnamese-American in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, where…
Remembering our ‘rememberable’ baptisms
Many churches celebrate the feast of the Baptism of the Lord on the Sunday following Epiphany (January 6). Since Epiphany falls on Sunday in 2013, this year the Baptism of the Lord is celebrated on January 13. This feast is…