I was making omelets in the kitchen when I heard the familiar voice of Foster Hewitt coming from the living room. I grew up listening to hockey games on the radio, and Hewitt’s “He shoots, HE SCORESS!!!” is imbedded in…
Choose you this day whom you will serve, Truth or Trump
We’ve now reached the apex of America’s deconstruction of the meaning of truth. The nation’s most notorious pathological liar just launched a new social media platform called Truth Social — because he got kicked off mainstream social media platforms for…
Change is good — except when it isn’t
My son and firstborn — the crying bundle I held in my arms in the delivery room, the little kid who seldom won at hide-and-seek because he couldn’t stop giggling, the boy who couldn’t beat me at wrestling because I…
‘Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over’
Can activism be an expression of faith? Can the practice of my faith, as an activist against violence and all the evils related to it, fulfill the Great Commandment? What might happen if people of faith intentionally examined the nature…
Of pronouns and postures among Baptists and Catholics
On Feb. 15, reports of an Arizona Roman Catholic priest’s assumed liturgical blunder — using “we” rather than “I” in baptisms over a decade — flooded news feeds across a wide spectrum. I was not surprised that Religion News Service…
Health care crises reveal our nation’s character flaws
This is a column about crises and injustices in the health care system in America. I interpret these crises and injustices as an indictment on the character and the governance of this country. What follows is inspired by hard personal…
Beyond heedlessness: Finding the sacrament of an ‘us’ without a ‘them’
Evangelicals have made it clear: Don’t call us racists. We are not racists. Rather than debate the issue, I volunteer to take the word “racist” off the debate table. Instead of calling evangelicals “racists,” I will use the word “heedless.”…
A dose of clinical grief from Stumpy at Bubba-Doo’s
I had a day off, so I went up the highway a bit. You may remember previous visits I took to Bubba-Doo’s in this column. It’s an old mom-pop gas station with a store that boasts the world’s best hamburger….
Letter to the Editor: Responses to the livestream worship debate
Letter to the Editor: February 17, 2022 Dear Editor: I am grateful to the many people who responded to my opinion piece, “A Cautious Case Against Livestreaming Worship.” The readership for this less than 800-word piece far exceeds any of…
The meaning of Jesus in these odd times, part two
In his fascinating study, American Jesus: How the Son of God became a National Icon, Boston University professor Stephen Prothero wrote: It is highly unlikely that Americans will ever come to any consensus about who Jesus really is, but they…
Whatever happened to Southern Baptists and church autonomy?
Neither one of us had a clue what we were doing 12 years ago, but a friend and I started a church. We didn’t know anything about starting a church, but we knew a great deal about church. Between us,…
Blessed are both new wineskins and new wine
Expressing the words of the Bible in contemporary language has a long history, as an internet search demonstrates by noting that “the earliest translation into a vernacular European language other than Latin or Greek was the Gothic Bible, by Ulfilas,…