By Bob Allen A Texas Baptist church is facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit filed by parents claiming sexual abuse by a youth minster in the 1990s led to their son’s death by suicide. A lawsuit filed in Dallas County District…
Family says seminary professor’s death a suicide
By Bob Allen A beloved professor at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary found dead in his home on the first day of class Aug. 24 took his own life and left a suicide note saying his name was exposed in…
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,…
Beware the calling
– Reflections from a spouse for ministers who support their communities during a season of funerals and tragedies Clergy, beware the calling and tread carefully before you enter into its wake. Beware the calling for it is disguised in nobility,…
What about physician-assisted suicide?
” There’s more to life than living and more to death than dying.” Those are the intriguing words on the cover of Finding Frances, a 2010 novel by Janice M. Van Dyck. Frances is a 74-year-old woman who, beset by…
Phil Lineberger “Through a Glass Darkly”
When the phone rang in my hotel room in the middle of the night, I knew. I’d dreaded this call for weeks, begged God that it would never come. Becky, more than a thousand miles away, wept on the other…
SBC leader calls on churches to confront suicide
By Bob Allen Suicide is “a very serious and tragic reality” that every minister will encounter, Southern Baptist Convention leader Frank Page advised students at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in a recent chapel address. Page, president and CEO of…
There is purpose
There’s an argument going on. Sometimes you have to listen closely, but it’s rumbling beneath the polite noise of our sophisticated society like the background radiation of the Big Bang, filling every black hole as it sweeps across an infinite…
Learning to think more clearly about death
By Russ Dean She was surrounded by family and friends in the warmth of her own home. Her breathing stopped; the light went out; she was at peace. It was apparently just that simple when Brittany Maynard ended her fight…
Dying well, part 2
In part one I asked some big questions, shared the tragic story of Brittany Maynard, and offered a quick explanation as to why we as Christians cannot support her decision to end her life “on her own terms.” In this…
Dying well
By Jonathan Waits Do you want to die well? Do you want to die with dignity? I suspect that desire resides in the hearts of just about everyone. But what does it really mean to die well? I’ll admit, at…
Dying well, part 1
Do you want to die well? Do you want to die with dignity? I suspect that desire resides in the hearts of just about everyone. But, what does it really mean to die well? I’ll admit, at 32 and healthy,…