By Jeff Brumley For Christians who observed Epiphany on Sunday, Jan. 6, the holiday signified a formal end to the Christmas season and the world’s recognition of Jesus’ divinity. While it meant all of that to Baptist minister Don Flowers, for…
Three ways to spend Christmas book money
In 1500 Dutch humanist and theologian Desiderius Erasmus wrote to a friend, “When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.” Thanks to gift cards from Amazon or Barnes and…
Lessons From Stone Mountain
It all started with my teeth. A couple of years ago I was reclining in the chair of my dentist, Dr. Uetsuki, waiting for the nitrous oxide to kick in. “Are you doing anything special for New Year’s?” he asked…
My resolutions . . . more or less
The start of a new year is usually perceived as a season for clean slates and new beginnings. Depending on your perspective, you might consider New Year’s Day as a time to turn over a new leaf, a time to…
Legacy
As the president of the United States enters into his second term, there is much discussion among the “talking heads” about legacy. What will President Obama seek to do that will assure that he is remembered in the years to…
Making spiritual resolutions
By Jeff Brumley New Year’s resolutions usually involve vows of eating better, exercising more and maybe delving into the self-help section at the book store. But for others it also means renewing or reinventing efforts to get right with, or…
New Year’s resolutions
Are you a resolution maker? Spiritual formation ministers LOVE resolution makers. They keep us in business, really. There’s something powerful and inviting about the chance to be different; to be better somehow. Resolutions inspire the imagination with possibilities, like opening…
The illnesses of American Christianity
In his important new magnum opus, A Thicker Jesus, my friend Glen Stassen suggests that Christianity is ill in America, but in two very different ways. One form of Christianity is ill, according to Stassen, because it is essentially theologically and…
Baptist deaths in 2012
By Bob Allen Francis McBeth, an internationally acclaimed composer and conductor and longtime professor of music at Ouachita Baptist University, died Friday, Jan. 6, at age 78. Longtime Baptist journalist Jim Newton, 75, died Jan. 16 in Clinton, Miss., after a battle with…
The season of getting busy
By Amy Butler It could very well be just me, but I usually find the post-Christmas haze to be a little bit of a let-down. After all the excitement and anticipation of Christmas Day, I am never quite sure what…
When food oppresses
Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth…
How a Nativity re-kindled a mother’s hope
During the season of Christmas and Advent, a variety of nativity scenes are being displayed in home, churches, and communities around the world. At First Baptist Church of Pensacola, there is a small nativity scene in the window of the…