The Sunday sermon is a beast that is difficult to handle. It comes every week and it comes fast. Each week we are expected to be our best and to preach a sermon that will leave folks moved and challenged. …
The sin of conspicuous consumption
Is it appropriate for a Christian to buy a $200,000 motor home in a world where children in Haiti and other places are dying due to lack of clean water, life saving medicines and even food? The other evening my…
Perspectives on immigration: safety and security concerns
The issue of immigration is a subject of discussion and debate within the Christian community. Followers of Jesus have diverse perspectives on how to address economic, security, and cultural concerns. Having shared in previous posts the primary points of diversity…
Dear Boy Scouts of America
Dear Boy Scouts of America: I hope this finds you well, though all the conversation in the media seems to say otherwise. You’re apparently between a rock and a hard place, at least politically speaking. You don’t want to alienate your base,…
Did I care enough?
By Ken Camp During the five years she served as his caregiver, Sue Strother and her husband, Joe, understood the roles each filled. “He bore the pain. I bore the strain,” she said. Her husband, pastor of North Riverside Baptist…
Baptist church sign wows NYC, media
By Jeff Brumley “Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.” Thus read the sign recently in front of Madison Avenue Baptist Church, a New York City congregation whose pastor is all about convincing folks…
Are Baptists still nonconformists?
Not long after our move to work at Gardner-Webb University School of Divinity my wife Kheresa read Monique Truong’s Bitter in the Mouth (Random House, 2010), a novel rooted in Truong’s childhood experiences as an “outsider” Vietnamese-American in Boiling Springs, North Carolina, where…
Remembering Stan the Man
By John M. Wilkes My wife and I sneaked away, along with another couple, from the Thursday evening program of the Southern Baptist Convention’s 1961 meeting in St. Louis to watch a baseball game at the old Busch stadium. The…
Lessons from the catwalk
In the fashion and entertainment world, many famous, infamous, and “wanna-be” famous individuals have strutted up and down catwalks, modeling the latest fashions and amazing audiences with their ability to appear in one full-fledged ensemble, disappear, and suddenly reappear with…