By Jeff Brumley Mary Cate Jones never doubted her congregation would help when it learned she faced a foreclosure crisis last month. But raising $35,000 in the last two weeks of May and finding a donor to match the rest?…
HERITAGE: A bold friend to truth
Julian Howell Pentecost felt called to the ministry as a young boy. He once confided his feelings to his mother who prayed for God’s guidance. He was affirmed by his home church, Lawrenceville Baptist Church. In 1942 he entered the…
EDITORIAL: And now in conclusion …
Editor’s note: When Julian Pentecost penned his final editorial upon his retirement after 22 years as editor, I doubt that he imagined it would also serve as a kind of eulogy. But as I read through many of his editorials…
Measured by ministry to ‘the least of these,’ how do Christians fare?
When it comes to judging livestock, some Baptists have a beef with sheep and goats. In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus describes Judgment Day, with all the nations gathered around God’s throne and people separated into two groups—sheep on one side, goats…
LETTER: Sex conference missed the mark
From all that I have read, the Baptist Conference on Sexuality and Covenant [Herald, April 30] went just as I feared it would. Many speakers used fanciful and complex, but misguided, theological arguments to persuade participants that some homosexual and…
LETTER: Creationism vs. evolution
When God presented the account of how he created the world and universe in Genesis, he gave an explanation that was straight forward and easy to understand. We, of course, have no idea of what processes took place when he…
OPINION: Reading Scripture is like rock climbing
In a recent interview with the New Voice Media Group [which includes the Religious Herald, see May 28], I used rock climbing as an analogy for interpreting Bible passages about the role of women. Whether climbing a steep rock or…
OPINION: ‘Melancholia’ and the Good War
Death. Final, epic, Wagnerian death in a colossal collision between a rogue planet off-course and Earth. Somehow Melancholia makes it beautiful, poetic and completely and peacefully final. The film by director Lars von Trier is a sumptuous exploration of the…
WINN RECOMMENDS
Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind, Mark Noll (Eerdmans) More than 15 years ago, Noll fired a shot across the bow of the evangelical ship with his book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. In those pages, he…
OPINION: Signs of the spirit
Rolling out with those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer is the longest and perhaps most difficult season of the church calendar. From May 27 until Nov. 23—24 Sundays in all—the Church is in a season simply known as “after…
VITAL SIGNS: Jesus on strategic planning
Building a congregation’s life around a clear vision and purpose is an easy thing to believe in. Aligning that purpose with biblical teaching and witness is an agreeable notion. I seldom encounter a leader or leadership group who resists the…
OUT LOUD
“Mormonism isn’t a denomination. It’s a different religion but calling it a ‘cult’ is not helpful.” Ed Stetzer The president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s LifeWay Research, in a tweet. (RNS) “Praise the Lord and pass the rattlesnakes, brother.” Mack…