By Bob Allen A former traveling Southern Baptist evangelist and popular youth speaker under investigation in three states for video voyeurism has so far escaped prison in exchange for guilty pleas in two cases but now faces a June 25…
ABP rolls out web upgrade
By Bob Allen Today, Associated Baptist Press unveils a long-overdue website upgrade to better function as the primary delivery system of the nation’s first and only independent news service created by and for Baptists. Made possible by a grant from…
Lee Porter, longtime SBC officer, dies
By Bob Allen Lee Porter, a former Southern Baptist Convention leader who worked to ensure the integrity of voting in contentious ballots for the SBC presidency during a tumultuous era in the nation’s second-largest religious body, died May 17. He…
State convention held liable for abuse
By Bob Allen A jury found May 17 that the Florida Baptist Convention is liable for failing to do an adequate background check before recruiting and training a former church planter now in prison for molesting a 13-year-old boy. According…
2012 Task Force report now online
By Bob Allen The final report of a blue-ribbon task force appointed two years ago to chart a future for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is now available online, giving Fellowship Baptists a month to digest the 24-page document before it…
Baptist dean eulogizes Chuck Colson
By Bob Allen A Baptist divinity school dean eulogized former Watergate henchman and Prison Fellowship founder Chuck Colson as a man who was not perfect but forgiven and who never forgot Jesus’ words, “I was in prison and you visited…
BPFNA seeks conflict transformation
By Bob Allen Directors of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America voted recently to authorize funding for conflict transformation training in Sudan/South Sudan and the Philippines and to assist with creation of a Baptist Peace Fellowship of Latin America…
Pastor punts sermon over Obama
By Bob Allen A Southern Baptist mega church pastor shelved his prepared Mother’s Day sermon and instead led 6,000 worshippers in prayer over President Obama’s May 9 statement that he supports gay marriage. “This past week we had a historic…
Shorter librarian’s job in jeopardy
By Bob Allen A gay librarian has become a reluctant symbol for opponents of Shorter University’s new “personal lifestyle statement” that must be signed by faculty and staff who want to remain at the Baptist-affiliated school in Rome, Ga. A…