A two-week fundraising campaign in December exceeded the $500,000 Judson College needed to remain open this spring, officials at the all-women Baptist school have announced. The grassroots effort that included students and alumnae also got the Baptist school in Marion,…
25 years ago this week, five Baptist churches were booted for affirming gay members
The Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists will mark a pivotal moment in its history this week with an online celebration of five congregations booted from their regional associations a quarter century ago. Four of the American Baptist Churches USA…
With in-person disaster relief work curtailed due to COVID, Louisiana volunteers came up with a new idea
A record 2020 U.S. hurricane season combined with the COVID-19 pandemic has created an additional population of victims: eager and skilled disaster-recovery volunteers prohibited from traveling to assist devastated communities. Many of them are members of American congregations with long…
Most-read opinion pieces of 2020 addressed the big issues of the year
The most-read opinion columns published by Baptist News Global in 2020 wrestled with the most powerful and painful issues confronting the United States, its churches and people of faith in a year like no other. Among them were pieces on…
Most-read news of 2020 covered pandemic, racism, Calvinism, transgender pastor
Baptist News Global readers had a strong appetite this year for topics ranging from church-state battles over the pandemic, the link between Calvinism and racism and the painful experience of transgendered persons in the church. BNG’s most-read articles in 2020…
Pandemic complicates the grief at Middle Church after fire, but leaders see hope
There’s no good time to lose a church building to fire, but the middle of a global pandemic seems like an especially awful time to members of Middle Collegiate Church in New York. “When you get to the block and…
Gen Z and growth of the ‘nones’ might have swung presidential election
Republicans unhappy with the outcome of the 2020 presidential election are likely in for continued disappointment as younger generations of religiously unaffiliated Americans become eligible to vote, political scientist Ryan Burge said. This shift is demographically inevitable as members of…
On coronavirus beliefs, ‘It’s evangelical Protestants against everyone else’
When asked in October to list their top concerns, white evangelicals listed abortion, fair presidential elections and terrorism. The coronavirus didn’t make the cut, noted Robert P. Jones, CEO and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute. “Looking at their…
As COVID cases soar, court’s retreat opens doors of churches
The American legal and political approach to pandemic-era religious gatherings seems to be anything but consistent as Christmas bears down on churches. Challenges to previously approved restrictions on worship attendance are being upheld even as U.S. deaths speed toward 320,000…