Christianity is not defined in terms of "liberal" or "conservative." Still, many us fall into the trap of trying to do so.

Two conversations illustrate the point. In the first instance, a young man took me aside during a gathering and posed a quesiton: "Are you a liberal or a conservative?" I did not know whether he had religion, politics, genorosity versus miserliness, or so ...

After watching the UT Volunteers fall yet once again to the Florida Gators, a question popped into my mind: What if Christians felt as passionately about the church as they feel about their favorite college football teams?

Giving certainly would go up! True college football fans shell out big bucks for tickets, transportation, lodging, meals, team clothing and the like. Donors give huge sums of money to e ...

On September 11, 2001 a staff member popped into my office and said, "Someone has just crashed a plane into the World Trade Center." The church staff gathered around a television set and watched, first in disbelief then in mounting horror, as the drama of 9/11 unfolded.

By mid-day, we shifted gears. After all, we were a ministerial staff, and our first priority was to prepare to help church memb ...

Psalm 24:1 reads: "The earth is the Lord's and all that is it, the world and those who live in it." Taken to heart, the statement might just transform the way we live.

Take the well-known problem of what a series of public service commercials once called "Tennessee Trash." No, the commercials did not have to do with Baptists and their strange ways! They focused on litter, all those sod ...

Baptists carved out their niche in the American religous world the old fashioned way: they competed with other Christian groups. Especially during the 1800s, Baptists squared off (at one time or another) against Roman Catholics, Methodists, the Church of Christ, and other branches of Christianity. In each case, both sides laid claim to being the true expression of Christianity.

The battles left a legacy i ...

Rutherford County is the 20th fastest growing county in the United States. That's astounding to those of us who remember when Murfreesboro's population was around 8,000 or so. Why, if this keeps up Chattanooga had best be looking over its shoulder. Murfreesboro might well replace it as the fourth largest city in Tennessee within the next 15 years.

Letters to the editor either extoll or bemoan the ...