Lutheran publisher announces cutbacks. Augsburg Fortress, publishing arm of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, is cutting back operations, closing its nine bookstores in the United States, laying off more than 50 employees and declining to publish new books in…
The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom
I. Whereas Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan…
Rick Warren to give invocation at Obama inauguration
WASHINGTON (ABP) — Rick Warren, founder of the Southern Baptist Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., will give the invocation at Barack Obama's Jan. 20 presidential inauguration. In August Warren invited both then-candidate Obama and his Republican opponent John McCain…
Rick Warren to give invocation at Obama inauguration
WASHINGTON (ABP) — Rick Warren, founder of the Southern Baptist Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., will give the invocation at Barack Obama's Jan. 20 presidential inauguration. In August Warren invited both then-candidate Obama and his Republican opponent John McCain…
Rick Warren to give invocation at Obama inauguration
WASHINGTON (ABP) — Rick Warren, founder of the Southern Baptist Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., will give the invocation at Barack Obama's Jan. 20 presidential inauguration. In August Warren invited both then-candidate Obama and his Republican opponent John McCain…
Rick Warren to give invocation at Obama inauguration
WASHINGTON (ABP) — Rick Warren, founder of the Southern Baptist Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., will give the invocation at Barack Obama's Jan. 20 presidential inauguration. In August Warren invited both then-candidate Obama and his Republican opponent John McCain…
Evangelical leaders seek broad moral agenda in Cizik replacement
WASHINGTON (ABP) — Fifty-nine evangelical leaders signed a letter requesting that whoever is chosen to replace ousted lobbyist Richard Cizik at the National Association of Evangelicals carry on Cizik's commitment to a moral agenda broader than opposition to homosexuality and…
Time ranks SBC rejection of sex-offender database as ‘under-reported’ story
NEW YORK (ABP) — Time Magazine ranked the Southern Baptist Convention's refusal to establish a database of clergy sex offenders one of the most under-reported news stories in 2008. A ranking of under-reported stories in Time's "Top 10 Everything of…
Pastor calls for ‘un-blending’ of secular, sacred Christmas traditions
LEAWOOD, Kan. (ABP) — A Baptist pastor thinks he has a solution to the dilemma about whether it's more appropriate to say "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" in secular settings like department stores. Mike McKinney submits that tensions that flare…
Mike Huckabee says American Christians ‘persecuted’
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (ABP) — Former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee says it is culturally acceptable in America to persecute Christians. In an interview with the Florida Baptist Witness, the former Arkansas governor cited foot baths provided for Muslims at the…
Supreme Court orders new review of detainee religious-rights case
WASHINGTON (ABP) — The Supreme Court has instructed a lower court to review its decision that terrorism detainees lack religious rights under United States law. The justices issued an order Dec. 15 reversing the January decision by the District of…
Southern Seminary facing budget shortfall
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP) — The head of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary is predicting layoffs and tuition increases to manage a $3 million budget shortfall. President Al Mohler said in a Dec. 15 letter to the seminary community that cost-saving measures…