ORLANDO, Fla. (RNS)—Lynn Thompson quit paying the mortgage on her investment property—not because she couldn’t afford the payments, but because she thinks walking away is better for her long-term financial health. trategic defaults on home mortgages accounted for 31 percent…
Musician teaches young girls that modest is hottest
NASHVILLE, Tenn.—As Jaime Jamgochian performs concerts and leads worship around the country, she communicates to teenage girls messages about modesty, purity and self-worth. “I really want young girls to be who God created them to be and to believe that…
FAITH DIGEST
Church attendance inches up, Gallup says. A new Gallup Poll found Americans’ self-reported church attendance has increased slightly since 2008. When asked how often they attend church, synagogue or mosque, 43.1 percent of Americans in 2010 said they attended “at…
Churches start their own humanitarian aid agencies
WASHINGTON (RNS)—Members of Metro Community Church in Englewood, N.J., support the missionaries sent by their denomination, the Evangelical Covenant Church, to the Congo, but Africa is a distant and dangerous trip from the 400-member flock. “We can’t send our short-term…
BAPTISTS BRIEFS
Crumpler receives award. Carolyn Weatherford Crumpler, former executive director of Woman’s Missionary Union and a past moderator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, received the annual Courage Award from the William H. Whitsitt Baptist Heritage Society during the CBF general assembly…
RIGHT or WRONG? Repenting of racism
Many years ago, an African-American man attended our church by climbing the bell tower to listen to worship. He is buried eight feet outside church property but not in the church cemetery, according to the church’s policy at the time…
Analysis: Southern Baptists face the future — and an identity crisis
Bill Leonard (ABP) — Institutionally and organizationally, American Protestantism is in a state of permanent transition — and the Southern Baptist Convention is no exception. These days it is clear that fewer religious Americans think of their primary identity in…
Publisher of Ergun Caner’s memoirs stands by demoted seminary head
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (ABP) — A Christian publishing company said it has no plans to pull titles written by a Baptist seminary president recently demoted for making "factual statements that are self-contradictory" in sermons and speeches. After an investigation, Liberty…
ANALYSIS: Southern Baptists face the future — and an identity crisis
(ABP) — Institutionally and organizationally, American Protestantism is in a state of permanent transition — and the Southern Baptist Convention is no exception. These days it is clear that fewer religious Americans think of their primary identity in terms of…
In Grand-Goave, U.S. Baptists offer Haitians a hand with church, clinic
GRAND-GOÂVE, Haiti (ABP) — Michael Akinboro emanates gentleness. Toddlers sit quietly while he checks their breathing. Babies obediently swallow bitter cough syrup. Not one child who comes for diagnosis fusses or cries. Michael Akinboro, a Nigerian-born registered nurse from African…
‘Good News Bible’ translator Bob Bratcher dies
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (ABP) — Robert Bratcher, the New Testament translator for the Good News Bible, died July 11 at the Carol Woods retirement community in Chapel Hill, N.C. He was 90. Robert Bratcher Born in Brazil the son of…
Six months after massive earthquake, Haiti still has a long way to go
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (ABP) — Haiti is a country of conspicuous contrasts — a landscape both monochrome and vivid, and a people standing solidly, yet shaken to pieces. Nearly six months after an earthquake rocked Haiti, the island still bears the…