By Marv Knox Baptists lost one of our true giants when Cecil Sherman died April 17. Cecil Sherman will go down in history as the first coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. At the time, it was a fledgling group…
I am what I think you think I am
By Jim Denison Are you a candidate for the Supreme Court? Don’t answer too quickly; the list of potential nominees is growing daily. Justice John Paul Stevens will retire this summer. President Obama will then submit his second pick for…
Apollo 13 and the gospel
By David Wilkinson April 17 marks the 40th anniversary of the splashdown of Apollo 13. It was a happy ending to a nearly disastrous and tragic mission. It was also a tribute to the bravery of the three-member crew and…
Everything you say about China is true somewhere in China
By David Coffey It was a privilege to visit China recently and follow in the steps of each Baptist World Alliance president since the early 1980s, who has made an official visit. Our gracious hosts, the China Christian Council, have…
Baptist battles and Christian graces
By David Gushee In late January 2006 my 18-year-old daughter Holly was in a terrible car accident. The most serious consequence was a traumatic brain injury that left her unconscious for three days and unable to speak for two weeks….
Top reasons to put a Baptist on the Supreme Court
By Michael Ruffin I confess that until I read this article I had no idea what the religious makeup of the Supreme Court of the United States was. But now I find that we are faced, given the retirement of…
Fair pay for ministry staff — right or wrong?
(Editor’s note: This is one in an occasional series of commentaries involving experts responding to ethical questions. The “Right or Wrong?” column is carried regularly by the Texas Baptist Standard.) By Cynthia Holmes Q: Many Christian institutions provide comparatively low…
Catholic sex-abuse cases share window in Baptist house
By Norman Jameson It’s easy for non-Catholic Christians to observe from a distance the clergy sex-abuse controversies that torment the Catholic Church. We take comfort that the deviant behavior of sick “celibate” priests did not occur within the confines of…
Are we Rome?
By Jim Denison Is America in decline? Yale historian Paul Kennedy argued in The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers that nations ascend due to the supremacy of their material resources. When they inevitably spend their wealth on military…