By Bob Allen A Baptist church-state scholar says religious liberty concerns about new coverage mandates come with the territory in America’s employer-based health insurance system. Melissa Rogers Melissa Rogers, director of the Center for Religion and Public Affairs at Wake…
Expert: Insurance system causes church-state tangle
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (ABP) — A Baptist church-state scholar says religious liberty concerns about new coverage mandates come with the territory in America’s employer-based health insurance system. Melissa Rogers, director of the Center for Religion and Public Affairs at Wake Forest…
Task force proposes new CBF funding plan
By Bob Allen A task force studying the future of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is recommending a new funding plan that moves decisions about how money is spent closer to the local church. Wrapping up a two-year process that included…
Finding Christ in popular culture
By Robert Dilday When the Academy Award ceremony airs Feb. 26, an unusual film that has bemused some, exhilarated others and drawn wide-ranging comments tops the list of nominees. Brad Pitt and Laramie Eppler star in Terrence Malick’s film, Tree…
Looking for Christian themes in movies? Here are critics’ choices
By Robert Dilday Hollywood’s century-old repertoire of films offers a rich lode of Christian themes, say some observers who see value in mining for them. While the Oscar-nominated Tree of Life may be opaque, it’s “one of the most powerful…
Viewed through the lens of the gospel, films can be profoundly theological
When the Academy Award ceremony airs Feb. 26, at the top of the list of nominees is an unusual film that has bemused some, exhilarated others and drawn wide-ranging comments. Tree of Life lends itself to a variety of interpretations,…
Looking for Christian themes in movies? Here are a few critics’ choices
Hollywood’s century-old repertoire of films offers a rich lode of Christian themes, say some observers who see value in mining for them. While the Oscar-nominated Tree of Life may be opaque, it’s “one of the most powerful treatments of explicitly…
BTSR near $1 million campaign goal
By Robert Dilday Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond is only $100,000 shy of reaching its $1 million matching gifts goal, seminary administrators announced Feb. 14, adding they expected the campaign to be successfully concluded. BTSR president Ron Crawford (left) and…
Colson, George compare Obama health-care mandate to Nazis
By Bob Allen Two Baptist thinkers describe President Obama’s requirement that religious organizations include contraception in their employees’ health-care coverage as what some term a “Niemoeller moment” reminiscent of the slippery-slope devaluation of human rights that occurred in Nazi Germany….
Pastor’s killer still unfit to stand trial
By Bob Allen An Illinois judge ruled Feb. 10 that a man accused of murdering a Southern Baptist preacher in his pulpit nearly three years ago is mentally unfit to stand trial. Madison County Circuit Judge Richard Tognarelli said there…
TRENDING: The elderly become elders
Between the end of World War II in 1945 (returning scores of men to America) and the advent of the birth control pill in 1964 came the largest population boost in history, the famed Baby Boom. Sociologists call this the…
OUT LOUD
“When you are so prohibitively in debt to one particular lobbying group, that is a great concern. And it will be a great concern to many Southern Baptists because we believe gambling is a scourge. … And we certainly don’t…