This month, January 2023, marks the 250th anniversary of the classic hymn, “Amazing Grace.” The Museum of the Bible writes: “It was January 1, 1773. John Newton led his congregation down the road from the parish church in Olney, England, to Lord Dartmouth’s Great Hall to sing…and the hymn he wrote for this day was […]

JEFFERSON AND SLAVERY by Jerry Newcombe, D.Min. Looking back at  17th, 18th and 19th century American slavery, there is no justification from a moral and biblical perspective for “the peculiar institution.” Sadly, Thomas Jefferson was caught up in it, even though as a younger man, he did make some attempts to fight it. In 1770, Jefferson’s religious […]

First, they came for the George Washington mural in a school in San Francisco—because our first president had been a slaveowner.  Later they came for his name on the same school, and as of last count, the name survived. Then, they came for the statues of the father of our country during the summer of […]

Apparently fewer Americans are reading the Bible daily. A Barna study on behalf of the American Bible Society came out last year (during the time of COVID-19) that showed a drop in the number of Americans who claim to read the Bible every day—from 14 percent to 9 percent. That seems strange since you would […]

“Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,” wrote Yeats in “The Second Coming.” He penned those words in 1919, but as David Lehman once observed in the Wall Street Journal, those words provide a “summary of the present age.” Yet through it all, God is at work even when things look bleak—perhaps especially when things […]

Recent events have raised the issue, Should the pulpit always avoid politics? It depends on what we mean by “politics;” it demeans the pulpit to use it for partisan politics. But here are ten reasons why I don’t think politics and religion should (or even can) be completely separate: 1)          The […]

If there are riots now in America, what will it be like 20 years from now if the New York Times gets its way? The New York Times sponsored the 1619 Project, which postulates that America’s real beginnings as a nation are when the first African slaves were brought over….to Jamestown in 1619. Many historians […]