By Stan Hastey The Alliance of Baptists’ partner organization on Capitol Hill, the Latin America Working Group, has sent a carefully drafted letter to President-elect Barack Obama on changes it wishes to see implemented by the incoming administration throughout Central…
Spending God’s money
By Christina Brown The secrecy of Southern Baptist Convention officials about a financial scandal at their International Mission Board wasn’t anything unusual. It’s the sort of thing we’ve seen over and over again. Southern Baptists need to begin seeing the…
Lessons learned from the Iraq war
By David Gushee For President-elect Barack Obama, the agreement reached between the Bush Administration and the Iraqi government that sets a December 2011 exit date for American combat troops is a great Christmas gift. Indeed, the fact that this deal…
The Caboose of Christianity
By John Pierce We all have our blind spots. Clarity often comes only from the perspective of hindsight. That’s what leaders of Bob Jones University confessed in apologizing for the independent, fundamentalist Christian school’s past racist policies. A statement on…
Public ban on Christmas symbols may be great faith gift
By Norman Jameson No trees adorned with twinkling lights will bless — or aggravate — visitors to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s two main libraries this year, according to a Dec. 5 story in the Raleigh News…
Guest opinion: The caboose of Christianity
(ABP) — We all have our blind spots. Clarity often comes only from the perspective of hindsight. That’s what leaders of Bob Jones University confessed in apologizing for the independent, fundamentalist Christian school’s past racist policies. A statement on the…
A doomed, reactionary church?
By David Gushee The act of reflecting this week, in class, on the development of Catholic social ethics resonated in an unexpected way with the situation facing Christians today. It became clearer than ever to me that when Christians become…
Ethiopian eununchs and reading the text from the margins
By Miguel De La Torre As a man of color, I always read the story of the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8 with an emphasis on Africa. When we think of the gospel message moving beyond the Jews, we usually…
Discipline as a form of care
By Beth Newman Not too long ago, someone shared with me an instance of attempted church discipline. A pastor, on his own initiative, had approached a church member who had left her family to pursue a relationship with her “soulmate.”…