(ABP) — Jim Somerville pastors a Baptist congregation in Virginia that, thanks to the Internet, includes people living in Austria, India and Slovakia. And now, he learned recently, some guy in Iowa. “He said ‘I tune in online and consider…
MLB game was ‘win-win’ for Georgia church
DALTON, Ga. (ABP) — The leadership of First Baptist Church in Dalton, Ga., expected no congregational split Oct. 6, regardless of which side prevailed when the local favorite Atlanta Braves took on the St. Louis Cardinals in a do-or-die game…
Tebow’s gridiron faith
(RNS) Can Tim Tebow do no wrong? Michael Butterworth of Bowling Green State University has turned his attention to sports media coverage of Tebow, an evangelical Christian and New York Jets quarterback. The author of a forthcoming article in the…
Is work intended to be a punishment from God?
(RNS)—On the first Monday of September, America honors working stiffs by taking a paid day off. But does Labor Day celebrate an enterprise that God intended to be a punishment? In a recent New York Times essay on the frenetic…
In media oversight, churches lag behind
(ABP)—Sheryl Fancher likes to tell social media nightmare stories that make ministers cringe. Like the one about a pastor who posted derogatory remarks about church members on his Facebook page without realizing his account was set to public. Ouch. Fancher…
Religion at the Olympics, from ancient Greece to London
NEW YORK (RNS)—A 600-foot footrace was the only athletic event at the first Olympics, a festival held in 776 B.C. and dedicated to Zeus, the chief Greek god. For the next millennium, Greeks gathered every four years in Olympia to…
Retired Baptist pastor returns to site of Olympic glory
AUGUSTA, Ga.—Jack Robinson is in England at the moment because of the dual callings he sensed as a child and because of the Olympic gold medal he won in London in 1948. And for all of that, the retired Baptist…
Is gun control a religious issue? Maybe, but the debate rages across America
(RNS)—Of all the controversies that have followed in the bloody wake of the July 20 shooting rampage in Aurora, Colo., few have provided such a clarifying insight into the moral tensions and contradictions in American culture than the argument over…
Ramadan fast poses challenge for Muslim Olympians
(RNS)—Winning an Olympic medal is hard. Surprisingly, winning one when you’re fasting for Ramadan is not that much harder. At least, not for Suleiman Nyambui of Tanzania, who took silver in the 5000 meters at the 1980 Summer Olympics while…