By Bob Allen A Georgia school district is investigating whether any laws were broken after a Southern Baptist church posted online video showing football players being immersed in a makeshift baptistery before practice on a high school football field. Television…
Christian stuff the world needs, part 1: Welcome the stranger
By Corey Fields We hear a lot about the declining influence of the church and decreased religious participation. I can’t help but think that this has been partially self-imposed by our tendency to let issues of individual morality and other…
Guns, violence, and Christian faith
In June we were at the General Assembly of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship when we received news of the shooting at Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston. Yesterday I was at a denominational leadership meeting when we received word of…
Is Gov. Huckabee right?
To be fair, since earlier this summer I wished Sen. Lindsey Graham a Happy Birthday ( here), I am now wishing ex-Governor Mike Huckabee a Happy Birthday. Huckabee celebrated his 60th birthday yesterday, and as I said in the article…
Texas pastors want tax dollars for church schools
By Bob Allen One way to fix the troubled public-school system in Texas is making education funds available to church-based private schools, a group of prominent pastors including Ed Young of Second Baptist Church in Houston and Robert Jeffress of…
Five grieving mothers & the problem of race
I’m finishing a fine novel called All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr in which one of the characters repeats this mantra: Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever. I feel…
Holy smoke! Did Baptist News Global spot a ghost in that BBC barbecue report?
As you would expect, I get lots of email about religion- news stuff. That tends to happen when you’ve been in the religion-columnist business — in one form or another — since 1982. All that old snail mail on dead-tree…
Bruises that forever hurt: The death of a reporter and friend
But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. -Isaiah 53:5 (NRSV) Just one week ago, I wrote about…
Belonging: Maybe fences don’t make good neighbors
“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” –Mother Teresa It is Friday night, and 125 friends, new and old, crowd the yard at QC Family Tree. We are gathered to…
Centennial of the lynching of Leo Frank . . . and the struggle over the meaning of freedom
In August 1913 the body of 14-year-old laborer Mary Phagan was found in the basement of the National Pencil Company in Atlanta. The company’s Jewish-American superintendent, Leo Frank, was eventually convicted of the crime and sentenced to death by hanging….
For some, another threat to church survival: natural beauty
By Jeff Brumley The American church, it seems, just can’t catch a break. The “nones” won’t come in, the “dones” are … well, done, and the rest of the membership is slowly but surely dying off. Attendance and tithing are…
Between the World and Me: A reflection
Over the weekend, I ventured out to Barnes & Noble in Atlanta to pick up a couple books. I bought March, a graphic novel that is a first-hand account of Congressman John Lewis’ life and struggle for civil rights. I…