When I told my mother I was getting married, she smiled and gave me a big hug. About five seconds later, she asked me when we were going to have kids. I told her I wasn’t sure we were going…
Netanyahu’s got to go but so do other obstacles to Mideast peace
Baptist News Global Editor (and my friend) Mark Wingfield wrote a pointed condemnation of Israel’s brutal conduct of its war against Hamas in Gaza, led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. If you haven’t read it, please do so. Mark…
Jai Shri Ram, or else: Hindu nationalism strangles India’s democracy
The world’s largest exercise in democracy begins April 19 in India — an enterprise so vast as to boggle the mind. Encompassing a million separate polling stations, employing 15 million election workers, spread over six weeks, the national parliamentary elections…
Navalny died for freedom. Will we live for it?
Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent voice for freedom, is dead at 47 — murdered outright or worn down by the police state that relentlessly arrested him, jailed him, poisoned him, tormented him and finally sent him to the brutal Arctic…
God of the specific
Do you make New Year’s resolutions? Already broken them? Join the club. Odds are you’re vowing to lose weight, get more exercise, get a handle on your finances, etc. If those haven’t worked in the past, here’s a better resolution,…
Things fall apart. Is democracy one of them?
It feels like 1971. That was a bad year for libraries. Bad year for America. Hippies burning library cards. Abbie Hoffman telling everybody to steal books. And smirking funny boy Jerry Seinfeld checking out a book from the New York…
Letter to the Editor: A rebuttal on ‘useful idiots’
December 6, 2023 Dear Editor: On November 28, 2023, Erich Bridges wrote an opinion piece in Baptist News Global arguing one should not participate in any demonstration calling for a cease-fire or an end to the Hamas-Israel war because, in…
Now comes the darkness. Perhaps new hope lies beyond
A week ago, I sat with a Palestinian shopkeeper in a country bordering Israel, drinking tea and watching nonstop Arab TV coverage of Israel’s retaliatory pounding of Gaza. Gazans ran in panic. Rescue workers screamed for ambulances and pulled dust-covered…
The Jesus Room
The Jesus Room lies in the bowels of Richmond’s cavernous First Baptist Church, one of those stately old churches that takes up most of a city block. It’s a part of the basement floor of the church, comprising a community…