Archives
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Singer/songwriter shares life story through music
Posted: 11/16/07
Charlie Hall and his band. Singer/songwriter shares
life story through musicBy Leann Callaway
Special to the Baptist Standard
ARLINGTON— While leading worship at this year’s Focus Conference for students and Texas Baptist Youth Ministry Conclave, Charlie Hall shared his life story through songs.
Through times of soul-searching, personal struggles and trials, Hall offered a personal message to youth and college students.
11/16/2007 - By John Rutledge
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D.C. congregation gives homeless a ride to church
Posted: 11/16/07
D.C. congregation gives
homeless a ride to churchBy Beckie Supiano
Religion News Service
WASHINGTON (RNS)—Jill Peddycord and Gary Bradley bow their heads and pray in the front seats of a white van parked outside Metropolitan Baptist Church in the nation’s capital.
Peddycord asks for God’s blessing as they begin the weekly rounds of Metropolitan’s transportation ministry.
11/16/2007 - By John Rutledge
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Christian leaders urge compassion in debate regarding immigration
Posted: 11/16/07
Christian leaders urge compassion
in debate regarding immigrationBy Heather Donckels
Religion News Service
WASHINGTON (RNS)—The faith community needs to help bridge the gap between immigrants and a society that often rejects them, representatives of Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform said last week.
“We call on people of faith to stand with immigrants as fellow human beings deserving of God’s love and to advocate for effective immigration policies consistent with our history as a nation,” said James Winkler, who heads the United Methodists’ Board of Church and Society.
11/16/2007 - By John Rutledge
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JEZEBEL: Did the Bible’s bad girl get a bad rap?
Posted: 11/16/07
Did the Bible’s bad girl get a bad rap?
By Heather Donckels
Religion News Service
WASHINGTON (RNS)—Few historical characters rival Jezebel for negative stereotypes. Today, “she’s a household word for badness,” one scholar said. Culturally, she’s portrayed as a brash, sexually provocative woman wearing too much make-up, another observed.
So in her new book, author Lesley Hazleton strives to set aside stereotypes and cultural images and show whom Jezebel, one of history’s most infamous women, really was.
11/16/2007 - By John Rutledge
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Texas Baptist Forum
Posted: 11/16/07
Texas Baptist Forum
Confession & churches
As a minister to youth, I was perplexed by Marv Knox’s approval of a forced public confession by two teenagers (Oct. 15). I would support these young people if they chose to confess their sin publicly. But forced confession is not true confession, just as forced conversion is not true conversion.
• Jump to online-only letters below Letters are welcomed. Send them to marvknox@baptiststandard.com; 250 words maximum.
“Hell is the crazy cousin that Protestants keep locking in the basement. … A lot of people don't want to talk about hell and engage it because if there is a hell, there’s a possibility they are going there.”
Greg Stier
President of Dare 2 Share Ministries, an evangelical youth ministry in Denver (The Washington Times/RNS)“There’s another church in our community that doesn’t have a baptistery, and that pastor and I were talking. He has five folks. I have three. I told him we might want to wait just a little bit, and I’ve never had to do that.”
Brian Harris
Pastor of Rock Springs Baptist Church in Rock Springs, S.C., on the drought that has prevented church members from filling up their baptistery and delayed the baptism of new members (WYFF4.com/RNS)“When I was growing up, denominations were a big deal. I don’t see that today. In our church, we have Baptists, Methodists, Jewish people—all kinds of people. I think a lot of those walls have come down.”
Joel Osteen
Houston megachurch pastor and author (USA Today/RNS)I also fear many churches would not have reacted as this church did. Instead of humble acceptance of these young people, forced confessions often create communities that reject, despise, humiliate and condemn sinners, even repentant ones.
I find it alarming that while Jesus, in John 8, refused to humiliate the woman, loving her even in her sin (“neither do I condemn you”) and yet still confronted her sin (“go and sin no more”), often our attitude is to condemn as the Pharisees did.
11/16/2007 - By John Rutledge
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Couple offers hard-to-place children a family where everyone fits right in
Posted: 11/16/07
Robert and Sheila Lee play with Jazmine, 7, Nico, 6, and Kylie, 2, in their front lawn. The adoption was expected to be completed Nov. 16—the day before National Adoption Day. Couple offers hard-to-place children
a family where everyone fits right inBy Analiz González
Buckner International
LUBBOCK—Robert and Sheila Lee waited until their four children reached their teens and 20s before starting over with a younger batch—Jazmine, 7, Nico, 6, and Kylie, 2.
The couple brought the three foster children home in March and April of 2005. The plan was to foster them through Buckner, then let them move on.
11/16/2007 - By John Rutledge
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It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s …a superhero in a burqa?
Posted: 11/16/07
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s …
a superhero in a burqa?By Beckie Supiano
Religion News Service
WASHINGTON—Move over, Fantastic Four. There’s a new team of superheroes in town.
Meet Jabbar the Powerful, a Hulk-like strong man, and Noora the Light, who can create holograms. Darr the Afflicter wields powerful pain waves. One hero, The Hidden, wears a burqa.
11/16/2007 - By John Rutledge
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Ministers want Ohio to become ‘Political Sleaze-Free Zone’
Posted: 11/16/07
Ministers want Ohio to become
‘Political Sleaze-Free Zone’By David Briggs
Religion News Service
CLEVELAND (RNS)—A coalition of Ohio religious leaders is asking for the battleground swing state to be a “Political Sleaze-Free Zone” for the 2008 election.
We Believe Ohio kicked off the campaign at rallies in Columbus and Cleveland, asking candidates and political parties to promote what they stand for and refrain from attack ads.
11/16/2007 - By John Rutledge
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New book probes poetry’s power to stir the soul
Posted: 11/16/07
New book probes poetry’s power to stir the soul
By Cecile S. Holmes
Religion News Service
CHICAGO (RNS)—Poetry is that unusual combination of words with the power to move, delight, nurture and transport readers beyond the here-and-now. It also can nourish our souls, according to the authors of a new book celebrating how poetry can kindle the spiritual in attentive readers.
“Poetry slows us down. It asks us to look—and look again. Poems have a way of reminding us we are part of something larger than ourselves,” said Judith Valente, co-author/editor of the new volume, Twenty Poems to Nourish Your Soul.
11/16/2007 - By John Rutledge
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Neurotheology opens doors for scientific study of belief
Posted: 11/16/07
(Art by Andrew Garcia Philips/The Star-Ledger)Neurotheology opens doors
for scientific study of beliefHannah Elliott
Associated Baptist Press
NEW YORK (ABP)—Some scientists say neurotheology—an emerging discipline that addresses the correlation between neurological and spiritual activity—proves God created the brain. Others claim “the brain created the god.”
At the root of the debate, some say, is the threat that faith could be reduced to nothing more than chemical reactions in the brain.
11/16/2007 - By John Rutledge
