COLUMBIA, S. C. (ABP) – After spending less than two years as associate executive director of the Missouri Baptist Convention, Jim Austin is expected to become new executive director-treasurer of the South Carolina Baptist Convention. A South Carolina search committee…

WASHINGTON (ABP) — Few events in American society could bring together the American Civil Liberties Union and Pat Robertson's American Center for Law and Justice, especially to defend a banner mentioning drug use. But a case argued before the Supreme…

WASHINGTON, D.C. (ABP) — More than three quarters of teens think religious leaders should do more to help prevent teen pregnancy — that's even more than the 64 percent of adults who think the same. But while 76 percent of…

WASHINGTON (ABP) — Thousands of Christians braved frigid temperatures, icy conditions and even arrest March 16 in Washington to protest the Iraq war. The “Christian Peace Witness for Iraq” began with a service at Washington National Cathedral and ended with…

WACO, Texas (ABP) — Paul Powell, who built up Baylor University's George W. Truett Theological Seminary in his six years as its dean, will retire in May and be succeeded by a veteran Baptist educator. David Garland, the school's associate…

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (ABP) — Prolific Christian author Max Lucado has announced plans to step down as senior pastor of his San Antonio megachurch due to a heart ailment. In a March 5 letter addressed to members of Oak Hills…

ATHENS, Tenn. (ABP) — Any Baptist pastor will tell you that deacons' meetings can sometimes get hairy, but this one has to take the cake. A man who robbed deacons at a small-town Tennessee March 12 is in custody now…

COLUMBUS, Ohio (ABP) — Ohio's new Democratic governor is proposing significant cutbacks in the state's groundbreaking school-voucher program. In his first “State of the State” speech March 14, Gov. Ted Strickland proposed that the voucher program be eliminated — except…

MACON, Ga. (ABP) — Publisher David Cassady, the first full-time employee of Smyth & Helwys Publishing, is leaving the company after 16 years. Cassady, publisher and executive vice president, will join the Macon media development firm The Brainstorm Lab in…

MURFREESBORO, Ark. (ABP) — Thanks to a popular network television show and an eclectic array of others, one Arkansas Baptist family now has a lot more room to breathe. Dennis and Kim Collins, their son, Mitchell, and the five young…

WASHINGTON (ABP) — For the first time under Democrats' new majority in Congress, a House panel refused March 14 to add language to a bill that would have allowed religious organizations receiving federal funds to discriminate in hiring on the…

The early onset of the presidential campaign has brought with it a renewed call for a “return to civility.” There seems, however, little prospect for any immediate restoration of such civility, assuming that it ever existed. I think there are…