By Bob Allen Baptist-owned Hobby Lobby faces fines up to $1.3 million a day for refusing to obey a law that takes effect Jan. 1 requiring employee health care plans to provide insurance coverage for all FDA-approved contraceptives, including methods…
The illnesses of American Christianity
In his important new magnum opus, A Thicker Jesus, my friend Glen Stassen suggests that Christianity is ill in America, but in two very different ways. One form of Christianity is ill, according to Stassen, because it is essentially theologically and…
Westboro: Condemn or ignore them?
By Jeff Brumley Public resentment of Westboro Baptist Church has reached new heights as a petition drive to label it a hate group has surpassed 250,000 signatures. Even some religious leaders have joined in the chorus denouncing the Kansas-based group…
Welcoming the child
By Molly T. Marshall I don’t know about you, but if there is a baby in the room, I want to hold it. I want to feel those little fingers curl around mine, and I love the compact weight of…
2012: A year in review
By Bob Allen Here are some of the top newsmakers of 2012 as reported by ABPnews. Obamacare Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler observed in January that Health and Human Services regulations, including pregnancy in “preventive services” that insurers…
Faith leaders call for gun reform
By Bob Allen Religious leaders from various faith groups gathered in Washington’s National Cathedral Dec. 21 asking their congregations to lobby Congress for gun control and mental health reforms in the wake of recent school shootings in Newtown, Conn. Curtis…
In good company (or, the futility of theodicy)
It was the innocence of the twenty youngest victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, all the ages of my son and his first-grade classmates, which made this latest mass shooting most enduringly haunting. Their innocence also underscores the…
Blaming God for tragedy nothing new
By Jeff Brumley Many criticized prominent evangelicals like James Dobson and Mike Huckabee for claiming last week’s Connecticut school massacre was God’s punishment of a morally disobedient nation, but don’t expect such views to change. Scholars say the belief in divine retribution…
Raising a lament
By Bill Leonard “Summon the wailing women to come. Send for the women skilled in keening to come quickly and raise a lament for us, that our eyes my run with tears and our eyelids be wet with weeping…. Teach…