by John D. Pierce | Jun 8, 2020 | Opinion
Asking, “How was church last Sunday?” has a whole new connotation. The answer is likely to have a technical dimension. Curses, biblical and otherwise, rained down on Zoom’s unfaithfulness one Sunday in mid-May. Other online services were delivered as advertised....
by John D. Pierce | Jun 2, 2020 | Opinion
Decades ago, at my home church, the pastoral prayer would be followed by the choir’s soft refrain: “Hear our prayer, O Lord, hear our prayer, O Lord; incline thine ear to us, and grant us thy peace.” Those long-buried words were resurrected from memory during early...
by John D. Pierce | Apr 15, 2020 | Opinion
“Truth and Hope: Essays for A Perilous Age” is a timely new book by Walter Brueggemann. “Truth-telling is grounded in the God who will not be mocked by our illusions,” he writes. “Hope is God-grounded in the conviction that even our wayward resistance does not negate...
by John D. Pierce | Apr 1, 2020 | News
For the first time in its storied history, First Baptist Church of Gainesville, Georgia, called a pastor and hardly anyone showed up. Jeremy Shoulta, who accepted the call to become pastor of the congregation founded in 1837, was introduced last week in a video posted...
by John D. Pierce | Mar 2, 2020 | Opinion
My favorite line among so many in “Cloud Miles: A Remarkable Journey of Mercy, Peace and Purpose” (2020, Nurturing Faith) is when Imam Imad Enchassi recalls receiving and responding to an ugly message posted on his Facebook page. With typical, though inexcusable...