By Corey Fields It has been interesting to watch the buzz over the recent Pew study looking at religious affiliation between 2007 and 2014. Although I’m very thankful to Pew for their incredible work in pulling together the hard data,…
On LGBT: What I have learned since ‘Changing Our Mind’
By David Gushee Follow David: @dpgushee About a year ago I began my 16-week series on LGBT issues in what was then ABPNews/Herald. In October 2014 a version of these essays plus further material was published as the book Changing…
How the Pope teaches
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…
Welcome to the church of the Shark Tank
Have you ever watched the television program Shark Tank? It is a reality show on ABC television with re-runs on CNBC. I recently started watching it. Typically I do not watch reality television, but one night while channel surfing I…
Betty’s Place
By Jason Coker Being the good little Baptist that I am, I was going to the annual meeting of the Baptist Fellowship of the Northeast a couple of weeks ago in Ballston Spa, N.Y., when I had a revelation —…
8 topics that ought to be on every youth minister’s agenda
One of the hardest jobs in a church these days is that of youth minister. Not just because the schedule of activities can be grueling or the work can be physically demanding. The reason, instead, is ever-increasing demands placed on…
What does a progressive Christian statement of faith look like?
The Phoenix Affirmations is a set of twelve principles originally composed by a community of clergy and laypeople from Phoenix, Arizona. As word spread a number of Christian scholars and progressive Christian leaders from around the country added their input…
Jason’s upside-down world
By Bill Wilson If asked to identify a favorite New Testament character, most of us go with the predictable and obvious: Barnabas, Mary, Nathaniel, Peter, Lydia, Timothy, Phoebe. You know the list. Let me remind you of an obscure character…
It’s slow, but ‘ Tomorrowland’ offers antidote to doom and gloom
There was a time when the world believed the future would be better. That view held to the promise of better days within reach. But when that future arrived we found not a promise but what many saw as a…
Adventures in missing the point
It’s once again graduation season. And what does graduation season mean? No more school! No more books! No more teachers’ dirty looks … well, scratch that last part. As Alice Cooper sang in his 1972 single, “School’s out for the…
Learning to pray — again
By Bill Leonard “Abba Macarius was asked, ‘How should one pray?’ The old man said, ‘There is no need at all to make long discourses; it is enough to stretch out one’s hands and say, ‘Lord, as you will, and…
Christians must cry for justice when lives are taken unjustly
José Antonio Elena Rodríguez was only 16 when he was killed, walking home from a basketball game in October 2012. According to what news reports have pieced together, the unarmed child was shot 10 times, 8 in the back, by…