By Alice Horner Dancing is a longstanding part of culture. Through every decade, new styles of dancing emerge. Yet more often than not, the church watches from afar. We Christians reserve dancing for the privacy of our own homes, or…
Discernment
By Jerrod Hugenot It’s not the easiest sell in a fast-moving, “decision now” type world, yet I would hazard God speaks most clearly to us when we allow ourselves to ponder and more importantly listen attentively. Over the past few…
Confessions of a conflicted feminist
By Aimee Yeager Be independent. Go after your career. Don’t get married before 30. If you do marry, don’t let him think you want to be pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen. Fight for non-sexist language to describe humanity and…
Who owns the land?
By Miguel De La Torre Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata coined the slogan, “la tierra es de quien la trabaja” — the land belongs to those who work it. The Bible seems to agree. The story of King Ahab, Queen Jezebel and…
Stuck in the messy middle
By Alan Bean In the 1950s and 1960s, the unofficial public theology of America was dominated by theologians associated with what we now call “the Protestant Mainline.” A public theology makes biblical teaching relevant to the pressing political, economic and…
Ministry as tug-of-war
By Terry Maples Did you play tug-of-war as a child? I did. It was lots of fun, except when the rope burned my hands. The game was even more exciting if a mud pit or some other unpleasant obstacle separated…
The pastoral prophetic edge
By Mahan Siler Prophetic is such a vigorous word. It brings to mind the courageous actions of an Amos, Shiphrah and Puah, Ghandi, Day or King. Prophets stand up, stick out with their actions for justice in the face of…
What churches need to know about the Affordable Care Act
By Gary Skeen With the Health Insurance Marketplace now open, what do church leaders, pastors and administrators need to do to comply with the Affordable Care Act? In planning and evaluating health insurance coverage for the 2014 calendar year, there…
Worn-out strategies in sexuality debate
By Cody J. Sanders It matters which questions we choose to ask, and for a long time now, churches have been asking a very limited set of questions about sexuality. Nearly every denomination in the United States — from the…
Primum non nocere
By Miguel De La Torre We expect that our medical professionals would, first, do no harm. Race and ethnic identity were a major component in the Tuskegee and Guatemalan medical experiments. Yet, ironically, they were conducted at the time that…
Churches must face depression
By Dwight Duhon One of the most compelling issues facing the church today is depression. Christians are not immune to the economic, social and countless other factors that can lead to depression, but depression among believers is not a recent…
Chaplains respond to Albert Mohler
By Paul Dodd and Herman Keizer Jr. We would be the first to defend the right of Southern Baptist and all evangelical military chaplains to serve our country’s patriotic and heroic warriors. In fact, the military chaplaincy as it has…