By Rodney Kennedy Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, argues that same-sex marriage is a religious freedom issue. Last year, Mohler told an audience at Brigham Young University that Mormons and Southern Baptists face numerous threats to religious…
Rethinking the atonement
By Chuck Queen Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) was the first to expound the theory that Jesus’ death was necessary for the satisfaction of God’s honor. This evolved into the theory of penal substitutionary atonement, perhaps most elaborately developed by Princeton…
Worship: Taking God’s name in vain?
By Naomi King Walker Most parents go through several phases of correcting inappropriate language their children have picked up somewhere — never from home, of course. A former pastor of mine, trying to reframe his 4-year old daughter’s undesirable vocabulary,…
A deeper distress at Ole Miss
By Alan Bean The University of Mississippi just can’t outrun its association with bigotry. In 2012, a crowd of angry white students expressed their displeasure in the wake of Barack Obama’s re-election. And just last month, a small group of…
‘Son of God’ fails as movie
By Michael Parnell Movie-going is a subjective experience. A movie plays on different levels with different people. Each viewer has an experience unlike others who also see it. My church took a group to see Son of God this past…
The beauty of Ash Wednesday (and Lent)
By Jeff Harris Ash Wednesday is one of my favorite days of the year. I realize this may sound odd, as I usually prefer feast days to fast days (feel free to insert joke about Baptist preachers and fried chicken…
Taking aim at the bull’s-eye of religious experience
By Joseph Phelps There is something so obviously amiss with the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s gun-giveaway evangelism that it may not require commentary. But ecclesial silence might be confused with complicity. Someone needs to state the obvious. What most offends some…
A sacred moment in a hair salon
By Gary Cook Thai Le Nugyen is my first really good friend who is Vietnamese, and she is my first really good friend who is Catholic in her faith. I had an uncle who married a young Pennsylvania Dutch woman….
What Norman Rockwell and Blanche DuBois have in common
By Mark Wingfield Say the name “Norman Rockwell,” and immediately iconic images of vintage Americana spring to mind. His paintings of Boy Scouts of America and for the covers of the Saturday Evening Post all portray a vision of American…