When I read that Gene Nichol, president of the College of William and Mary, had ordered removed from the chapel the bronze cross that had stood there for a century or so, my first response was anger. Nichol decided that…
Pray for Sudan
The passage of the resolution on genocide in Sudan at the Baptist General Association of Virginia meeting was an extremely significant event. What has been happening in Darfur, West Sudan, the past two years has been happening in Southern Sudan…
Muslim threat?
I read with interest the lengthy ABP article by Robert Marus in the Nov. 9 issue of the Herald about the claim of David Clippard, executive director of the Missouri Baptist Convention, that “Islam has a strategic plan” to take…
Thanks to Virginia Baptists
We experienced a great tragedy in our community as a group of scouts returning from an outing crashed and burned on Nov. 5. One of the boys was a member of our church. The day before the funeral, I attended…
What do they think?
Southern Baptists were viewed favorably by 57 percent of adults interviewed as part of recent research conducted by the Southern Baptist Convention's North American Mission Board's Center for Missional Research through Zogby International. The positive outlook toward Southern Baptists, United…
Sunshine and seeds
Growing up on a farm in Southside Virginia, Cora Anne Davis learned that two things—sunshine and seeds—go together; and until her death on Nov. 9 at age 69, she spread plenty of both everywhere she went. The sunshine came from…
Former secretary of state says faith integral to foreign policy
WASHINGTON (ABP) — America's first female secretary of state said Nov. 20 the United States must begin educating its current and future diplomats on faith issues in order to have success in the foreign-policy arena. Echoing the thesis of her…
ABC General Board confirms decisions to sell headquarters, elect missions head
VALLEY FORGE, Pa. (ABP) — Leaders of the American Baptist Churches USA have approved selling the “Holy Doughnut” — the organization's Pennsylvania headquarters building — and confirmed the appointment of a new head for the denomination's international missions organization. The…
Opinion: Elections signal centrist turn
In the aftermath of the epochal power shift in Washington, the pundits are already attempting to interpret the deeper meaning of what happened. Inevitably, one's reading of the election tea leaves is filtered through one's own ideological perspective. Thus conservatives,…
Opinion: ‘The truth shall make you odd’
As we await the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group about what “to do” in Iraq, I can't help but be struck by the poverty of our imaginations. Just what, if anything, can we do to shore up the new…
SBC leader says Christians can be good lobbyists despite ‘seductions’
WASHINGTON (ABP) — Christians can be lobbyists and still maintain a clean conscience, as long as they generally believe in what they're peddling, said Southern Baptist professor Mark Coppenger. Coppenger, professor of apologetics at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville,…
Group cancels Thanksgiving boycott of Wal-Mart over gay support
BENTONVILLE, Ark. (ABP) — A group that had threatened a Thanksgiving-weekend boycott over gay-rights issues at the world's largest retailer has called it off. The American Family Association's website reported Nov. 22 that the group had canceled a boycott of…