By Ircel Harrison Today many will celebrate the life of Saint Patrick of Ireland with green shamrocks, green clothing, green beer and even green rivers. The day has become a time to celebrate the mythos of Eire, the Emerald…
Baptists should rethink stance against children’s rights
By Laura Rector In 2000, the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution against New Age Globalism that criticized the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The resolution made it and other human-rights documents sound like…
The unusual suspects
By Bill Leonard In the last few weeks religion has occupied headlines across the political and theological spectrum, with public attention focused on a variety of issues related to numerous religious groups. Among the most public perhaps were concerns about…
VITAL SIGNS: Disagreeing agreeably
After one particularly frustrating performance by his Green Bay Packers, legendary Coach Vince Lombardi called his team together. He was determined to get them refocused on the things that made for winning. As they knelt before the coach, he held…
A former Catholic returns to Ash Wednesday Mass
By David Gushee Last Wednesday, I attended my first Ash Wednesday Mass since…. Well, actually, though I grew up Catholic, I have no memory of ever having attended an Ash Wednesday service. While these days I feel more happily Baptist…
Digger’s forehead smudge
By David Wilkinson Digger Phelps, legendary coach and ESPN college basketball analyst, and I have never met. I doubt we ever will. But on Ash Wednesday I discovered Digger and I are related. We’re spiritual kin. I had attended a…
Opinion: Best tool to defeat hunger? Letters
Marv Knox (ABP) — Will you invest a quarter-hour to lift millions of people out of poverty and chronic hunger? That’s all the time you need to participate in Bread for the World’s 2011 Offering of Letters. The Christian hunger-fighting…
Predestination, free will and Matt Damon
By Amy Butler I wish I could say that deep theological reflection spurred my action, but I’ll go ahead and admit that Matt Damon probably had more to do with my inspiration to head to the movie theater to see…
Fasting a Lenten discipline to tame appetites
By Ken Sehested When we hear the word “fasting” — an historic Lenten emphasis — the initial image is associated with dieting. Fasting is a foreign and somewhat threatening notion, conjuring images of self-depreciation and ascetic mortification. In Scripture, fasting…
Lent a season of both sacrifice and joy
By R. Kevin Johnson On Ash Wednesday, Christians around the world seek out churches in order to have the ash from burned palm fronds (generally those used in the church on the previous Palm Sunday) pressed onto their foreheads in…
Heaven, hell and Rob Bell
By Christopher Robertson Rob Bell, pastor at Mars Hill Bible Church, is known by many for his NOOMA videos and progressive perspective, but recently some consider him a wolf in sheep’s clothing. His new book, Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, and…
Gunfight at the OK Sunday school class?
By Bill Leonard “It is no longer illegal to carry a gun to church.” Scott Lewis, a Texas community college student, made that point recently as a rationale for his support of pending legislation to allow college faculty, staff and…