Bruce Springsteen confesses: “I made it all up. … I’ve never held an honest job in my entire life. I’ve never done any hard labor. I’ve never worked nine to five. … I come from a boardwalk town that is…
Alliance of Baptists moves ahead with plans to meet in N.C. to ‘model’ justice
Though some businesses are reducing or ending activity in North Carolina to protest the state’s new controversial LBGT law, the Alliance of Baptists says it will move forward with plans to hold its gathering next year in Raleigh in order to register its…
Springsteen and Easter: ‘The Rising’
Many fans of Bruce Springsteen will not be surprised that this series of writings on the intersection between Lent and the minstrel from Freehold Borough, N. J., should come to a conclusion with “The Rising” on Easter Sunday. The song…
Springsteen and Lent: Born in the USA
I always thought Palm Sunday was such a fun day as a child. Each year, the choir or children would enter into the sanctuary waving palm branches to a celebratory hymn of some sort. And each year, someone would awkwardly…
Springsteen and Lent, part 3: Fear and love
I was reminded a few months ago when I visited Ginter Park Baptist Church in Richmond, Va., of the numerous scriptures in which the phrase “Fear not” appears. Some counts suggest that phrase and similar phrases appear 365 times — one…
Springsteen and Lent, Part 2: The First Sunday in Lent
When I think of this week’s lectionary text from the book of Romans, I am always reminded of the now infamous comments of former Southern Baptist Convention president Bailey Smith. The year was 1987, and Smith was at a conference…
Springsteen and Lent: Part I, Ash Wednesday
In graduate school, it can often seem as if all of the good ideas have already been taken. Someone smarter and older has already written on whatever idea you may have. To remedy this seemingly unending problem, one begins to…