As we enter October, the holiday season is coming up quickly. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas. Most of these holidays entail some sort of celebration that involves food. Even if you are not celebrating a specific holiday, this is the time of…
Most Americans oppose high court’s decimation of church-state separation, surveys show
Despite recent Supreme Court cases that chopped chinks in the “wall of separation” between church and state, most Americans believe government and religion should butt out of each other’s business, according to polls conducted by the Pew Research Center. The…
When it comes to leading corporate prayer, are we really all in this together?
Let’s talk about corporate prayer. Houston, we’ve got a problem. Yes, I know it is dangerous to hold oneself out as an expert on anything related to prayer. My true confession is that I’m a whole lot better at praying…
Create in me a clean heart
We cringe to see the result of hate and anger in the world: bullying, mudslinging, demeaning, plotting, scheming, lying and worse. I’ve become aware of its increasing popularity and the draining, negative effect on my spirit. It’s easy to get…
Who’ll be there at the end of your prayer?
It was late in my adolescent chapter of the Fabulous Fifties, and I was a member of the youth group in my home church — the Fifteenth Avenue Baptist Church in Meridian, Miss. Soon, the Sweetheart Banquet would be here…
Pastor’s wife felt the prompt of the Spirit, now she’s the First Lady’s prayer partner
In 2020, Robin Jackson took a leap of faith that has changed her schedule every Wednesday since. During the presidential campaign, then-candidate Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, attended Brookland Baptist Church of West Columbia, S.C., where Jackson’s husband, Charles,…
Why praying for God’s will to be done is a dangerous act
Something remarkable and courageous, perhaps even miraculous, happened in Russia on Monday, March 14. Marina Ovsyannikova, a news editor at Channel One, the Kremlin’s leading news channel with 250 million viewers worldwide, suddenly appeared behind the news anchor during the…
The recovery of prayer at the turn of the age
It is becoming clearer by the day that we are living at a turn of the age, as one era ends and another is beginning — religiously, socially, politically and globally. The words of the Irish poet W.B. Yeats in…
How to pray for Vladimir Putin
I struggle to reconcile Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:44 with my desire to see Vladimir Putin and his minions annihilated. The Gospel text states: “But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Two questions…