SHANGHAI, China — A leader of the China Christian Council — the official organization of Protestant churches in China — affirmed the group’s continuing commitment to strong ties with the Baptist General Association of Virginia during a meeting with BGAV…
Hall announces retirement; Reyes named Buckner CEO
AUSTIN, Texas (ABP) — Ken Hall, chief executive officer of Buckner International since 1994, announced his retirement from the Dallas-based organization during a July 22 meeting of the board of trustees. His retirement is effective April 30, 2012, when President…
Opinion: Walk out of your way
Colleen Burroughs (ABP) — As our group of 22 boarded a plane to return home from Malawi this week, organized protests began making world news. Malawians had grown tired of petrol shortages, the rising cost of commodities and perceived government…
Author seeks stories of ‘exiled’ young adult Baptists
BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (ABP) – A Western Kentucky University professor is seeking contributors for an upcoming book detailing moderate responses to the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1980s. Carl Kell’s 2006 Exiled: Voices of the Southern…
Judge vacates $4.75 million judgment against church
TAMPA, Fla. (ABP) – A Florida judge said July 19 that a prominent Southern Baptist church does not have to pay $4.75 million in damages awarded last year to a man injured seven years earlier on a church-sponsored youth ski…
Blogosphere abuzz over Rupert Murdoch as ‘Bible mogul’
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (RNS) — The scandal involving Rupert Murdoch’s British tabloid empire continues to widen, bringing scrutiny to, of all places, western Michigan and the Zondervan publishing company. Among the major holdings in Murdoch’s News Corp is publisher HarperCollins,…
Calling old name ‘problematic,’ Campus Crusade rebrands itself
FORT COLLINS, Colo. (RNS) — Campus Crusade for Christ is out. “Cru” is in. The 60-year-old evangelical ministry announced its new name at a staff conference in Fort Collins, Colo., on July 19, saying the old name had become problematic….
Pastor disagrees with SBC leader about homosexuality
ORMOND BEACH, Fla. (ABP) – A prominent Florida pastor took exception to recent statements by a Southern Baptist seminary president that homosexuality is “not merely a matter of choice.” Roy Hargrave Roy Hargrave, senior pastor of Riverbend Church in Ormond…
‘Circle of Protection’ makes case to President Obama
WASHINGTON (ABP) – President Obama met 40 minutes July 20 with Christian leaders seeking to protect programs that aid poor people in any debt-reduction deal that the administration reaches with Congress. Participants in the meeting said the national coalition calling…
Faith leader challenges Cain’s statements about Islam
WASHINGTON (ABP) – An interfaith leader criticized presidential candidate Herman Cain for “at best” misunderstanding the First Amendment and at worst “a blatant attempt to spread Islamophobia for political gain.” Cain, a businessman and political commentator running as a Republican,…
Obama supports repeal of federal marriage law
WASHINGTON (ABP) – President Obama lent his support July 19 to legislation that would repeal a 1996 law barring recognition of gay marriage by the federal government. The president has said before that he supports legislative repeal of the Defense…
NYT says Michele Bachmann now a Baptist
STILLWATER, Minn. (ABP) – Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, in the news for recently severing ties with a church in a conservative Lutheran denomination accused in the past of being anti-Catholic, may have found a new spiritual home among Baptists….