A network of Baptist children’s homes in North Carolina is receiving credit for derailing sweeping reform of the child welfare system stripped from a larger bill that funds medical research, speeds up the approval process for drugs and devices at…
Georgia Baptists urge crackdown on illegal immigration
Southern Baptists in Georgia urged government leaders to crack down on illegal immigration in a resolution during the recent annual gathering of the Georgia Baptist Convention. Messengers to the Nov. 14-15 convention gathered in Savannah, Ga., approved a statement recommended…
Imagining Mary and Joseph as asylum seekers in the UK
Baptists in Great Britain joined three other Christian denominations in a new Nativity video imagining the welcome Mary and Joseph would receive as asylum seekers in the United Kingdom. A Very British Nativity uses child actors to portray harsh realities…
U.S. embassy to remain in Tel Aviv, for now
President Barack Obama took action Dec. 1 to keep the U.S. embassy in Israel in Tel Aviv for at least another six months. The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, a pledge to relocate the embassy to Jerusalem, allows the president…
Chapel speaker terms Calvinism ‘Trojan Horse’
A Southern Baptist seminary president said Nov. 29 that Baptists who adopt Calvinistic theology and practice ought to consider joining another denomination. “I know there are a fair number of you who think you are a Calvinist, but understand there…
Tennessee CBF responds to wildfires
A Cooperative Baptist Fellowship partner church in Sevier County, Tenn., lost a youth building and van to wildfires raging through the Great Smoky Mountains that killed at least three people, scorched hundreds of homes and businesses and sent more than…
Controversial religion clause stripped from defense policy bill
A massive defense policy bill is headed for a vote in Congress minus a controversial amendment opposed by religious and civil-liberties groups who claimed it would authorize taxpayer-funded discrimination in federal contracts. Lawmakers from the House and Senate Armed Services…
Study links church attendance with marriage stability
The old adage “the family that prays together stays together” is statistically sound, according to a new study by a Harvard University professor. Couples who attend religious services are 47 percent less likely to subsequently divorce than other couples, according…
Louisiana Baptists commission study of SBC ethics agency
Messengers to the Louisiana Baptist Convention annual meeting Nov. 14-15 in Alexandria, La., asked state convention leadership to study recent actions of the Southern Baptist Convention agency entrusted with public policy concerns. Clark Stewart, pastor of New Zion Baptist Church…
Trump education pick worries church/state separationists
Advocates of church-state separation found little comfort in Donald Trump’s Nov. 23 announcement that he plans to nominate DeVos, a leader in the self-described school reform movement for more than two decades, to head up the U.S. Department of Education.
Former SBC leader says ERLC out of touch with mainstream
A former Southern Baptist Convention leader who made the motion to sever ties with the Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty at the SBC annual meeting in 1990 now says it might be time for Southern Baptists to “call it…
Faith leaders say Trump building a ‘cabinet of bigotry’
More than 1,500 interfaith leaders charged President-elect Donald Trump with building a “cabinet of bigotry” in an online petition released Nov. 22. About 40 of the signers identify as Baptist, with affiliations including the Alliance of Baptists, the American Baptist…