By Thomas Kidd When Thomas Jefferson won the presidency in 1800, Baptists represented one of his most reliable constituencies. Jefferson’s Baptist supporters knew that the president did not share their evangelical faith, yet they saw him as a great friend…
It’s just war
By Bill Leonard “It’s just war.” That phrase often describes our society’s implicit response to the war in Afghanistan, begun in 2001, the longest combat conflict in American military history. The “other war” in Iraq, begun in 2003, continues with…
When you pastor the Titanic
By Bill Wilson What if you knew that your congregation was on a collision course with its demise? What would you do? Who would you tell? How would it change the way you lead? Would it affect your sense of…
Was Jesus an object of childhood bullying?
By Steven Harmon Reflecting on Scripture, the fourth-century church father Gregory of Nyssa insists that in the Incarnation the Son of God embraced fully the human condition, including “the advance from infancy to adulthood,” and experienced from others the alienation…
About the Baptist sexuality conference
By David Gushee Next April the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University are organizing and hosting a conference on sexuality and covenant. Naturally, people are already talking about what they think the…
A pastor’s prayer for parishioners
By Barry Howard Good and gracious God, I come to you praying for those who are members, formally or informally, in the congregation I serve. I pray for the young and the elderly, the sick and healthy, the employed and…
Too much stuff
By Amy Butler I have too many things. I realized this just the other day. Standing in front of an empty closet I thought off-hand, “I could never fit all my stuff in here!” Just one day back from a…
Cancer awareness and hell-wishing
By Christa Brown The American Cancer Society estimates that the year 2011 will bring 230,480 new cases of invasive breast cancer among women in the United States. I’m one of those cases. For me, what was even worse than learning…
What Twitter can teach the church
By Elizabeth Evans Hagan “You should try Twitter, Elizabeth; it would be a good networking tool for the church.” For months those words uttered by a communications specialist friend of mine fell on deaf ears. My distant impression of Twitter…
Are we Greece?
By Jim Denison There is a transportation strike going on here as I write from a hotel room in Athens. I come to Greece often and have never seen such gridlock. Today’s traffic is a metaphor for the politics of…
No tweet time
By Natalie Aho People say the wrong thing on social networking sites all the time. After an interview at Cisco Systems, Connor Riley (aka @theconnor) confessed in a tweet: “Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh…
Green as a cabbage patch
By Bill Leonard Forty years ago this fall I became pastor of First Community Church in Southborough, Mass. I actually started as their interim pastor and wound up staying four years. It was a great place for one who had…