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  2nd Opinion: The worst of times. Really?

  Despite reports of the demise of church attendance and giving, there has never been a better time to be a church on a mission. Here’s why.

  09/26/2014 - By John Rutledge

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  Down Home: Climbing back up to zero

  I thought I’d had “such an exasperating week” until I realized I sounded about as silly as Marianne Gordon’s old skit on Hee Haw.

  09/26/2014 - By John Rutledge

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  Down Home: Happiness is changing your wife’s flat tire. No, really

  Every now and then, something happens in a marriage that starts out as a great annoyance and arcs into a thing of beauty.

  09/12/2014 - By John Rutledge

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  Right or Wrong? Coercive clergy

  Some clergy manipulate and intimidate church members, even while they claim they’re only exercising religious liberty. What should members do about it?

  09/10/2014 - By John Rutledge

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  2nd Opinion: Eric Liddell, Mama C & Baylor football on Sunday

  “Everybody wants to be a Baylor Bear today!” Robert Griffin’s assessment of McLane Stadium’s opening was accurate, concise and simply astonishing to any long-time Baylor fan.

  09/05/2014 - By John Rutledge

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  2nd Opinion: Are Millennials different than Boomers 40 years ago?

  Back in the 1970s, a lot of congregational prognosticators warned the church, in general, was in the process of losing a whole demographic generation known as baby boomers. Are the Millennials any different?

  09/04/2014 - By John Rutledge

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  2nd Opinion: Entertained by angels?

  When my friend told me his story of getting help from a mysterious stranger in a Honduran airport, I thought of a Bible verse.

  08/29/2014 - By John Rutledge

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  Right or Wrong: Passages in life

  Isn’t life really a matter of transitions during which value formation’s ebbs and flows may be discerned only in retrospect?

  08/29/2014 - By John Rutledge

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  Down Home: Sundays, oxen and a peppercorn cannon

  Sometimes, the most carefully devised plans blow up like a peppercorn cannon. At least that’s what happened the other Sunday afternoon.

  08/29/2014 - By John Rutledge

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  Guest Editorial: A few sanity-savers as school gets under way

  If not already, pretty soon, the sunscreen-shined SUV seats will be covered in permission slips, after-school snacks and random articles of clothing shucked en route to after-school activities.

  08/27/2014 - By John Rutledge

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  2nd Opinion: Has humanity entered a new depth of degradation?

  Warfare never is pretty. Hatred and intolerance are nothing new, even in a land supposedly founded on tolerance and respect. “Man’s inhumanity to man” is a recurring theme in every age.

  08/20/2014 - By John Rutledge

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  Right or Wrong? Contextualizing the gospel

  We’re told we should contextualize the gospel, but this sounds like watering it down or forfeiting important principles. So, what nonessential gospel elements can be contextualized?

  08/18/2014 - By John Rutledge