During the most recent Earth Day April 22, Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection ran high-profile TV ads in which Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi, and then Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson, sat together on couches telling the world of…
SECOND OPINION: The utilitarian temptation
A few weeks ago, I was reminded in a news article that Judge Paul Pressler had actually said, at the beginning of the Southern Baptist controversy, that his side must “go for the jugular.” This is an image of slaying…
SECOND OPINION: Can we at least talk about it?
I'm one of the few leaders in Baptist life with the freedom to talk openly and honestly about the complex theological, moral, pastoral, and public policy issues raised by homosexuality without destroying myself professionally. Because I hold a tenured professorship…
Wellsprings of centrist evangelicalism
Discussion of the concept of an emerging evangelical center (or some other label for an alternative to the Christian Right) has taken off in recent months — indeed, in recent weeks. Hardly a day goes by without some news article…
SECOND OPINION: Torture is the bone caught in America’s throat
It is clear to me that the problem of torture is like a bone caught in our national throat. We can't swallow it, but we can't quite spit it out. And so we are choking on it. The sound of…
SECOND OPINION: Race, sex, class and presidential politics
It was not until I got to Union Theological Seminary in New York as a doctoral student in Christian ethics that I received my first serious dose of race/class/sex talk. Sometimes it seemed like every course, even every class session,…
SECOND OPINION: Getting past reaction
One of the enduring tendencies in human life is reaction. Unhappy with the prevailing tendencies of a person or group we oppose, especially in situations of sharp conflict, we swing sharply in the other direction. Oftentimes when we do so…
SECOND OPINION: A truly evangelical Baptist future
In moving this summer from Union University to Mercer University I transitioned from a school that moves in the orbit of the Southern Baptist Convention to an institution that moves in the orbit of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. And so…
Keeping true to Scripture
My professional pilgrimage has been marked by a sometimes painful series of movements between Christian academic institutions falling on opposite sides of the gender issue, or what has come to be called the complementarian/egalitarian divide. This has given me opportunity…