SALEM — Virginia Baptists' HopeTree Family Services is one of several agencies that provide adoptive home studies and supervisory visits. HopeTree is licensed to accept children from their birth parents with the purpose of agency adoption. Adoption Services also facilitates…
Global downturn necessitates increased U.S. anti-poverty efforts
WASHINGTON (ABP) — The global financial crisis makes it even more urgent that the United States not only take care of its own economy, but also redouble efforts to aid the world's poorest, according to a new report and several…
BOOK REVIEW: The Future of Faith in American Politics: The Public Witness of the Evangelical Cent
When many Americans think of evangelicals and politics, they often think of the “religious right” or possibly the “religious left.” Ethicist David Gushee makes a reasoned case for a movement toward an already existing and growing “evangelical center” as a…
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…