By Thomas Kidd When Thomas Jefferson won the presidency in 1800, Baptists represented one of his most reliable constituencies. Jefferson’s Baptist supporters knew that the president did not share their evangelical faith, yet they saw him as a great friend…
It’s just war
By Bill Leonard “It’s just war.” That phrase often describes our society’s implicit response to the war in Afghanistan, begun in 2001, the longest combat conflict in American military history. The “other war” in Iraq, begun in 2003, continues with…
Are we Greece?
By Jim Denison There is a transportation strike going on here as I write from a hotel room in Athens. I come to Greece often and have never seen such gridlock. Today’s traffic is a metaphor for the politics of…
Jeffress flap illustrates wisdom of ‘no religious test’
By Brent Walker We have been instructed over and over again of this folly: — In 1789, when in Article VI of the U.S. Constitution our nation’s founders declared “no religious Test shall ever be required as a qualification to…
Fred Shuttlesworth and Steve Jobs
By Bill Webb They both died on Wednesday, Oct. 3. One man was well-known for his creativity and technological innovation. But many people might not have known the other individual, who stood with Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy…
The sacredness of human life
By David Gushee I am entering the final stage of a seven-year journey as I make last edits on a book exploring the historic Christian conviction that human life is sacred. The manuscript will be at Eerdmans by month’s end,…
No one did more to kill Jim Crow than Fred Shuttlesworth
By Alan Bean Fred Shuttlesworth is dead at 89. He never thought he would survive the civil rights struggle in Birmingham. Far less protective of his personal safety than men like Martin Luther King and Medgar Evers, Shuttlesworth attributed his…
The sociology of Sunday school
By Bill Leonard These days, clergy and laity, professors and students alike generally agree that basic knowledge of the Bible is fast disappearing among Americans conservative, moderate and liberal. Indeed, in recent years I have occasionally received notes from undergraduate…