By Bob Allen A recently appointed Southern Baptist missionary is in Zimbabwe to help turn around a seminary struggling since a leadership dispute in 2011 resulted in dismissal of its top administrator and formation of a new ecumenical seminary formed…
Tenn. association defends action dismissing church
By Bob Allen An association of Southern Baptist churches’ decision to kick out its only predominantly black congregation had nothing to do with race, the association’s director of missions insisted Oct. 20. “The issue is not about race,” DOM Mike…
Church booted for calling female pastor
By Bob Allen The only predominantly African-American Southern Baptist church in a rural county in Tennessee risks losing its house of worship for calling a woman as pastor. News Channel 5 in Nashville reported Oct. 15 that Greater Tabernacle Baptist…
Fallen BJC board member to be laid to rest
By Bob Allen A memorial service is scheduled Nov. 16 in Pennsylvania for a member of the Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty who died from injuries he suffered in a fall while leaving his hotel for the BJC’s recent…
‘Peeping preacher’ case comes to TV
By Bob Allen Incriminating video that three years ago helped land a former Southern Baptist evangelist in prison for video voyeurism aired on national television Oct. 15. Thursday’s installment of Crime Watch Daily, a syndicated investigative news magazine series that…
Russell Moore equates silence on abortion with past silence on slavery, lynching
By Bob Allen Pastors today who refuse to speak on behalf of the unborn are no better than 19th-century congregations that stayed silent on slavery, the Southern Baptist Convention’s top spokesman on public policy and religious liberty concerns said in…
Former SBC president opposes Houston equal rights ordinance
By Bob Allen A past president of the Southern Baptist Convention is front and center of a campaign by Houston pastors to convince voters to say no to a controversial equal-rights ordinance scheduled to be on the ballot Nov. 3….
SBC leader says Christians should not attend a same-sex wedding
By Bob Allen A Southern Baptist seminary president’s forthcoming book is making headlines with a suggestion that Christians should not attend a same-sex wedding ceremony, even it if means boycotting the marriage of their own child. “STANDING RESOLUTE” screamed a…
Baptist judge blocks Arkansas executions
By Bob Allen An Arkansas judge who also is pastor of a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship church has halted the executions of eight death row inmates challenging a new law allowing the state to withhold information that could publicly identify the…
Member of BJC board dies after fall
By Bob Allen A member of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty board of directors died Oct. 8 from complications related to injuries he suffered from a fall as he left his hotel for the recent BJC board meeting….
Appeals court throws out settlement of Baptist home lawsuit
By Bob Allen A federal appeals court has thrown out the 2013 settlement of a lawsuit challenging state funding of a Kentucky Baptist children’s ministry, saying a judge should decide if court-ordered monitoring of alleged violations of the separation of…
Baylor rescinds Bill Cosby’s honorary degree
By Bob Allen Baylor University acted Oct. 8 to rescind an honorary doctorate the school awarded to accused serial rapist Bill Cosby in 2003. The 78-year-old comedian, facing legal challenges from more than 50 women who accuse him of drugging…