Barnabas File

For years, many of us have struggled with ways to describe how we go about being Baptists.     Very often, we have defined ourselves in contrast to another group and resorted to comments like, “We are not THAT kind of Baptists.”    In a recent conversation, I suggested that Baptists that I identify with might call ourselves “gracious Baptists.”  You can look up the definition of that word for yourself but, for me, it suggests several things.   First, being a gracious Baptist means embracing the power of God’s grace.  As a former pastor said, “God has not called us to judge but to love.”  Our God is a gracious God, showing patient forbearance while offering forgiveness and hope.  As God’s people, we should reflect and exhibit that same grace.  The message we bear is the one that God exemplifies.   Second, being a gracious Baptist calls upon us to welcome the stranger and marginalized persons into our midst....

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”-- John 16:33,NIV Earlier this month I attended a Mental Health Conference which featured a presentation by Timothy Jennings, a psychiatrist who studies the influence of various factors—diet, exercise, stress--on depression.   A lot of what he said was way over my head, but these two statements got my attention: “Religion based on fear damages the brain.   Religion based on love is healing to the brain.” Now I certainly cannot follow all the research that led Jennings to that conclusion, but as a Christian believer, his findings make sense to me.   This got to thinking how our view of God impacts our thinking, our mental health, and our subsequent actions. Kim Davis, the county clerk in Rowan County, Kentucky, has stated that issuing marriages licenses to gay couples is a violation of God’s authority and her consc...

Fifty years ago this month I was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army.   I had some idea of what was coming in the next few months.   I would graduate from college that same weekend. Rita and I would be married the following month and then almost immediately we would leave for my first posting at Fort Lee, Virginia, for the Basic Officer Training Course.   All of those things happened more or less as expected, but we had little idea of what the future held beyond those days. The years since have been immersed in raising a family, serving in various ministry roles, making and losing friends, living with both faith and uncertainty, experiencing tragedy, and celebrating loving relationships.   Some days I feel like Abraham!   God has given us three children, eight grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.   This is certainly not a “great nation” by biblical proportions but a significant group of offspring from my perspecti...

How believers talk about the faith to unbelievers, those of faith who have differing interpretations of the faith, or those estranged from the faith has always been a challenge for the Christians.   Does one pursue persuasion and reason or attack and ridicule? Unfortunately, the aggressive approach seems to win out more often in contemporary society.   Apologetics (defense of the faith) very easily becomes polemics (disputation about the faith) in the marketplace of ideas. Much of this is motivated by fear.   We fear that which is different from ourselves.   We fear that which calls into question our established habits and norms.   We also may be afraid that we will be proven wrong or made to look foolish. We see this when a “prayer breakfast” becomes an occasion to attack those who are different from ourselves.   A speaker finds it is much easier to stand on a platform and pontificate than to acknowledge the “other” as a real person who ...