Republican presidential nominee, Arizona Senator John McCain, October 3, 2008 upon arrival in Flagstaff, Arizona. AFP/Getty Images

Last Sunday the New York Times ran a monster front-page story about Sen. John McCain’s gambling ties.

The story largely ignores the religious implications of McCain’s interest in gambling, but I figured paragraphs like these would get the attention of some Christians, most notably, Southern Baptists, who oppose gambling and have lobbied against its seeming ubiquity in today’s America:

As a two-time chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, Mr. McCain has done more than any other member of Congress to shape the laws governing America’s casinos, helping to transform the once-sleepy Indian gambling business into a $26-billion-a-year behemoth with 423 casinos across the country. He has won praise as a champion of economic development and self-governance on reservations.

“One of the founding fathers of Indian gaming” is what Steven Light, a University of North Dakota professor and a…

Southern Baptist Disaster Relief teams have once again proven their invaluable worth in experienced disaster relief, this time in the form of meals, showers, and places to stay for refugees from Hurricane Ike in Texas.

For better or worse, I’ve never known my fellow Southern Baptists to be strangers to big portions of good food - we know how to cook it, serve it, and eat it.

Well, there has been a lot of disaster relief cooking going on in the past few weeks as Southern Baptist relief teams have been all over the South, delievering timely help and assistance wherever needed (see an article here for more of the story).