By Ken Camp Legal representatives of 16 states filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the U.S. Supreme Court supporting two Texas Baptist universities and a Pennsylvania seminary in the schools’ challenge to the Health and Human Services mandate of the Affordable…
Progressive National Baptists initiate call to restore and advance voting rights
By Ken Camp On the eve of the landmark Voting Rights Act’s 50th anniversary — and meeting in Dallas hours after a federal appeals court ruled against Texas’ voter ID law — three groups historically linked to Martin Luther King…
Missionaries from Venezuela learn skills aimed at self-sustaining church planting
By Ken Camp Missionaries from Venezuela learned how to drill water wells and maintain a simple drilling rig recently, thanks to a water ministry operated by Baptists in Texas. At the Everything Jesus Ranch near Seguin, Texas, volunteers with Texas…
Baptist leaders join call for national strategy on global religious persecution
By Ken Camp Baylor University President Ken Starr, Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Community Church in Southern California and Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, joined a call for a national strategy to…
Two Baptist colleges ask Supreme Court for protection from mandate
By Ken Camp Two Baptist-affiliated universities in Texas and a seminary in Pennsylvania are appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court a religious liberty case regarding the Health and Human Services mandate of the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as “Obamacare.”…
Taking Jesus seriously in East Texas
Kyle Childress doesn’t look like a dangerous radical. If Childress, pastor of Austin Heights Baptist Church in Nacogdoches, Texas, let his neatly trimmed white beard grow out a bit, he would make a passable Santa Claus. And when he pushes…
Urban missionary brings faith, hope and food to troubled inner city
By Ken Camp Some labels seem contradictory — urban farmer, for instance. Ask Daron Babcock what he knew about agriculture, poultry-raising and animal husbandry before he launched Bonton Farm-Works in South Dallas. “Zero. I’m surprised these girls are still alive,”…
Denominational leader, pastor Phil Lineberger dead at 69
By Ken Camp Phil Lineberger, pastor of Sugar Land Baptist Church near Houston and former president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, died May 31. He was 69. Lineberger “lost a battle with depression and took his own life,”…
‘God’s way’ of doing missions in N. Korea, Baptist minister says
By Ken Camp A Korean Texas Baptist minister returned recently from North Korea where he verified delivery of 60 tons of corn and 10 tons of wheat noodles to schools, orphanages and a hospital. He also renewed a memorandum of…
Don’t plan any funerals for religion just yet, Baylor scholars say
By Ken Camp Reports about the imminent death of religion, the rise of secularization and the growth of atheism largely ignore facts or rely on faulty research, scholars from Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion said during a recent conference. Reports…
Baptist nursing students learn ropes on Ethiopia medical mission
By Ken Camp Student nurses grow accustomed to signs prohibiting firearms and other weapons on hospital property. So, treating spear-carrying tribesmen at a remote clinic on the banks of the Omo River in southern Ethiopia required mental adjustment for five Baylor University graduate…
No forgiveness for slavery, racism without repentance, CBF pastor says
By Ken Camp Real repentance leading to racial reconciliation demands restitution for victims of oppression and injustice, Wendell Griffen told a Hardin-Simmons University audience March 23. “The work of healing what has been wounded, righting what has been wronged and…