By Tom Ogburn The moment started innocently enough. I was walking with my wife through an exhibition hall at the Oklahoma State Fair. We were on a date just enjoying our time together. Then a stranger raised his voice from…
2012 a turning point for faith in politics
David Gushee President Obama’s narrow re-election came despite fierce lobbying against him and on behalf of Mitt Romney by an array of conservative Catholic and evangelical leaders and groups. Those groups went “all in,” and they lost. Now they are…
Tea Party cost GOP
By Miguel De La Torre Even before all the votes are fully counted, there is one undeniable conclusion about the 2012 election: We live in a divided nation. If we nuance that division, however, we discover that who is divided…
Four more years of Obama
By William Thornton Barack Obama has been reelected, and it was not as close as many predicted. I am not much of a political prophet, but I had already pondered this outcome and have decided how I will handle four…
A zeal he does not own
By Bob Burroughs There is a wonderful, thought-provoking text by the hymn writer Frederick W. Faber (1814-1863) titled “There’s A Wideness In God’s Mercy. It speaks to this generation perhaps even more powerfully than to his own. It is not…
What Election Day won’t fix
By Miguel De La Torre This Tuesday, we as a nation vote. For some reason, the presidential cycle this year seemed nastier than usual. Emotional rhetoric replaced civil discourse. Rather than assessing the positives and negatives of the respective candidates,…
When should we say retard?
By Darrell Gwaltney Following the last presidential debate and referring to President Obama, conservative commenter Ann Coulter tweeted: “I highly approve of Romney’s decision to be kind and gentle to the retard.” Reaction to her poor choice of words was…
Pitfalls of worship
By Bob Burroughs There are some pitfalls in worship. Sometimes, things go wrong at the right time. We try hard to overcome these obstacles as they appear and try to patch them as best we can with temporary solutions, but…
Choosing faith and freedom
By Henry Green In Mark 10, James and John ask Jesus for the positions of authority when he establishes his kingdom. The others learn of this and “became indignant” toward James and John for making such a request. In the…