By Eric M. Eckert You’ve tried to escape it. You really have. But the constant stream of dings and buzzes from incoming texts and emails are just too much to take. And before you know it, you’re scanning your smartphone….
Pastors file brief in support of public education
By Bob Allen A group of Texas pastors who support public education warned that a proposal to divert public funds to private schools would create a “parallel private system of education” supported by taxpayers in a brief filed Sept. 1…
Fewer Americans believe suicide guarantees damnation
By Jeff Brumley A new survey shows that most Americans, including large numbers of Christians, hold compassionate views about people who kill themselves. But some Baptist ministers remember times, not all that distant, when that wasn’t the case. Barry Howard,…
Baptist church in hot water over baptism video
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…