WASHINGTON (ABP) — A unanimous Supreme Court said March 6 that law schools, no matter how distasteful they find the military's anti-gay policies, cannot claim their First Amendment rights are being violated by a law that requires them to allow…
Chairman to ask IMB committee to revisit, clarify controversial issues
RICHMOND, Va. (ABP) — The chairman of the International Mission Board is asking the board's personnel committee to take another look at two controversial measures the board passed in November. Chair Tom Hatley, pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Rogers,…
Catholic Democrats outline beliefs on church, state, abortion rights
WASHINGTON (ABP) — In an apparent attempt to address a controversy that has swirled since the 2004 general election, a group of Catholic Democrats in the House of Representatives issued a document Feb. 28 explaining how they reconcile their faith…
Terrorist executed in Yemen for killing Baptist missionaries
DALLAS (ABP) – A man convicted of murdering three Southern Baptist missionaries in a Yemeni hospital in 2002 died by firing squad Feb. 27, Reuters reported. Abed Abdel Razzak Kamel's execution happened in the southern Ibb province, the same region…
Supreme Court says racketeering law can’t be used against abortion protests
WASHINGTON (ABP) — A unanimous Supreme Court declared Feb. 28 that a federal law originally aimed at mobsters can't be used to shut down abortion-clinic protests. The high court already ruled in 2003 that one federal anti-racketeering law cannot be…
Gaddy warns Mainstream Baptists to be vigilant on religious liberty
RICHMOND, Va. (ABP) — Speaking Feb. 24 in the birthplace of the First Amendment's religion clauses, a Baptist minister who is a professional opponent of the Religious Right warned Baptists to be equally vigilant. Welton Gaddy, president of the Washington-based…
NAMB panel to study Index charges; agency won’t release media audit
ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP) – Trustees of the North American Mission Board are asking a task force to see if there is any truth to allegations — first reported in the Christian Index — that NAMB's evangelism and church-planting efforts are…
Government agrees to stop funding controversial abstinence program
BOSTON (ABP) — The federal government will stop funding a teen-abstinence program that bills itself as an “evangelistic ministry” and gives teenagers silver rings inscribed with a Bible passage. The American Civil Liberties Union, which in May sued the Department…
Baylor administrator Brumley follows Underwood to Mercer
MACON, Ga. (ABP) — Baylor University administrator Larry Brumley has been named senior vice president and chief of staff at Mercer University — following incoming president Bill Underwood, also a former Baylor administrator, to the Georgia school. Underwood, former law…
North Carolina leader resigns over conservative changes
BOONVILLE, N.C. (ABP) — The recent conservative shift in the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina has prompted one member of its governing board to resign, saying the state convention is “becoming a subsidiary of the Southern Baptist Convention.” Ken…
Alabama church finds movie theater spurs growth in student ministry
TRUSSVILLE, Ala. (ABP) — It's a typical scene at the Regal 16 Cinemas in Trussville, Ala. Teenagers are milling around and loud music blasts from one of the theaters in the complex. A bus pulls up to the curb to…
Stallings, pastor singled out in King’s ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail,’ dies
LAKELAND, Fla. (ABP) — A white Baptist pastor who was made both famous and infamous by Martin Luther King Jr.'s legendary “Letter From Birmingham Jail” has died. Earl Stallings, who was pastor of Birmingham's First Baptist Church when King penned…