By David Gushee Follow David: @dpgushee Here on the eve of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly meeting in Atlanta, and with other national religious conventions recently in the news (for better or for worse), I choose to articulate what…
Faith leaders support reducing mandatory sentences for drug offenses
By Bob Allen More than 1,100 clergy and faith leaders urged Congress to pass legislation reducing federal mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses in a June 3 letter to party leaders in the House and Senate. A total of 1,129…
“Can’t we just play nice?”
“Look for the words ‘social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church website. If you find it, run as fast as you can.” That was the advice of Glenn Beck to his radio show listeners on March 2, 2010. It was…
For Lent, Baptist dons orange prison garb for poor and imprisoned
By Jeff Brumley Kent McKeever’s choice of Lenten sacrifice has already generated enough stares and media scrutiny to last him a lifetime. But that’s OK, he jokes, given the trade-off: a lot less laundry to do until Easter. “It’s very…
Risk list
I live in a hospitality house. Living in a hospitality house has become a more frequent choice for Christians lately, sort of in the way that kale has experienced a resurgence over the past few years: having people think you…
Unexpected Prophet
Most youth ministers know that if trouble is going to find you at youth camp, it will likely be on either the first night or the last night. At other times, the kids will be either too tired to bother…
Trial date nears in slain pastor lawsuit
By Bob Allen The widow of a Southern Baptist pastor fatally shot during a botched 2009 drug sting has asked that prospective jurors be polled about pretrial publicity of an incident that divided a small north Georgia community as the…
Keep the gov’mint in our bizness
By Joe Phelps Sunrise Children’s Services, the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s agency for at-risk children, receives $26 million of its $27 million budget — over 96 percent — from government funding, according to an Oct. 31 Courier-Journal report about its ongoing…
Who owns the land?
By Miguel De La Torre Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata coined the slogan, “la tierra es de quien la trabaja” — the land belongs to those who work it. The Bible seems to agree. The story of King Ahab, Queen Jezebel and…