Other Opinions

Although it is still three weeks until Mother’s Day, I am writing today about taking care of Mother Earth. This week marks the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, so it is a fitting time to think about taking care of our planet. 

After breaking ranks four years ago with fellow evangelical leaders and calling Trump a “sexual predator” who “fails the baseline test of character,” Southern Seminary President Albert Mohler announced this week that he had changed his mind.

At Blue Valley Christian Church they like to say, “we are so far outside the box that we can’t see the box and don’t want to see the box.” After selling our building about six years ago, we are now located at an independent and assisted living retirement community.

Mark Twain is reputed to have said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” In that spirit, it is worth remembering evangelist Billy Sunday’s face-to-face encounter with the great influenza pandemic while conducting a revival crusade in Providence, Rhode Island.

As states issue stay-at-home orders and bar gatherings, some evangelical Christians — those who believe they are a persecuted minority — have become convinced that religious freedom is under attack. The war on Christmas is now the war on Easter.

After worship on Sunday, March 15, our church family discussed what we would do next. For more than three years we had had Sunday lunch together, but there was a sense this would be the last time for a while. After a few days of prayerful consideration we decided to try a “drive-in” worship service. Everyone would remain in their vehicles on the church parking lot while I led worship and preached from the front steps.

All of you old-timers like me who grew up in Baptist, Methodist, or other “evangelical” churches know the name Fanny Crosby, the blind woman who wrote more gospel songs/hymns than anyone else in history. She was born 200 years ago this month.

If there’s a silver lining to a global pandemic, perhaps it’s having a bit more time on our hands to read. If you don’t know where to start, here are six classic and contemporary works that offer a helpful perspective on the state we find ourselves in — and are terrific reads.

After watching historic political events recently unfold and talking to dear friends on both sides of the issues at hand, I am once again reminded of how dangerous it is to live in a bubble of our own making. A political bubble has its obvious challenges, but a spiritual bubble can affect us just as much.

It’s a good time for people of faith to reflect on how well digital technologies serve faith communities and consider the future of religion, which by definition is that which binds people to one another.