Along with warmer weather, budding leaves and blooming flowers, the advent of April 2006 brought with it another form of growth — this one within Virginia Baptists' opportunities for mobilizing volunteers for mission service. On April 3, the Venturer Program,…
EDITORIAL: Glad to be a Virginia Baptist
You would think after 25 years in the pastorate, I would have learned not to call the office while I'm on vacation. I'm a slow learner. In fact, I may fit into the “old dogs” category at this stage of…
ANOTHER VIEW: Judas, Dan Brown and Jesus
I'm not sure if I've ever seen such an explosion of public interest in Jesus — from a variety of angles old and new (some would say odd). Whether this fascination simply means that Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code…
The devil’s revival
William E. Hatcher, the popular preacher of the 19th century whose persona this columnist frequently assumes, told the following story in his autobiography. It is a fascinating revelation of a time that is no more. The only part of the…
ANOTHER VIEW: Outrageous and anti-semitic, Gnostics penned more than Gospel of Judas
From all the hullabaloo in the press over the Gospel of Judas, one might easily conclude that something like the plot of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code had suddenly been demonstrated as historical fact rather than fiction. Much of…
SIDEBAR: The Gospel of Judas: What is it?
The manuscript know as the Gospel of Judas is a series of tattered and fragmented sheets of papyrus in Coptic, an Egyptian script, and is contained in a 66-page, leather-bound “codex” that the National Geographic Society unveiled April 6. Terry…
Upton joins other North American Baptists at meeting to transcend differences
Virginia Baptist leader John Upton was among other leaders of Baptist conventions and organizations comprising more than 20 million adherents in North America who explored “additional opportunities for fellowship and cooperation” in Atlanta April 10. President Jimmy Carter, a lifelong…
IMB missionaries refuse to resign, will face forced termination in May
After receiving an April 15 ultimatum to resign or face termination, Wyman and Michelle Dobbs have refused to resign as International Mission Board missionaries in Guinea, West Africa. The couple was targeted for starting a church in Guinea that isn't…
As collaboration takes root worldwide, focus on exclusion isolates SBC missions
At a time when collaboration and cooperation characterize Christian missions, the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board appears to be moving toward isolation and exclusion, some veteran missionaries and missiologists insist. They point to new IMB policies — prohibiting private…