For the fourth year in a row, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has received a multimillion-dollar anonymous gift for global missions-this time $5 million. The majority of the gift will go to field personnel salaries, benefits, equipment and training, with additional…
Food and fellowship aids Christians’ faith
Having friendship and food at church leads to greater satisfaction among Christians, according to a study by the Gallup Organization. A survey of churchgoers showed people who report having strong friendships at church are 26 percent more likely to describe…
Lutheran denominations disagree about gay leaders
The president of the country's second-largest Lutheran denomination says the larger Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has taken an unbiblical approach in a report that recommends gays be allowed to serve in church leadership. At an annual meeting with ELCA…
Southwestern elects former Muslim as dean
Trustees of Southwestern Theological Seminary elected a controversial Muslim convert to Christianity as dean of the seminary's new undergraduate school, the College at Southwestern. Emir Caner, 34, was brought up to be a devout Sunni Muslim. His father, a leader…
Virginia Baptists, Averett University agree to ‘walk separate paths’
Virginia Baptists have approved a joint statement developed with Averett University leaders that will end their 145-year-old ties to the school. The Virginia Baptist Mission Board adopted the statement during its spring meeting April 6. Averett's trustees are set to…
Gay pride festival draws Jerusalem protests
Leaders of three major world religions are uniting in Jerusalem against a homosexual pride festival expected to draw thousands of people from around the world in August. Christians, Jews and Muslims are speaking out against the festival, which is set…
A favorite of the left and the right
Personalities for April 14, 2005 By Chris Herlinger When Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 39, quietly strode toward Nazi prison gallows as the Second World War neared its end, he could hardly have known that 60 years later, his life, memory and legacy…
Armaggedon: Bad for the earth, but good for publishing
By Cecile S. Holmes Tim LaHaye believes it is yet to come. Hank Hanegraaff thinks some of it may have already happened during Christianity's first century. Their ongoing debate over the proper understanding of the fearsome prophecies in the biblical…
Church & People News for April 14, 2005
Staff Changes Bryan Brooks, to Windsor Church, Windsor, as pastor. Phillip V. Faig, to Gayton Church, Richmond, as pastor. Tim Kirby, to Hermitage Church, Church View, as pastor. Harold Draper, to Fontaine Church, Martinsville, as interim pastor. Drexel Rayford, to…
McLaren speaks in Kentucky after controversy
GEORGETOWN, Ky. (ABP) — Challenging Christians to become “apprentices of Jesus,” emerging church leader Brian McLaren spoke at a Kentucky Baptist Convention-related school just a few weeks after being uninvited from speaking at a convention-sponsored event. McLaren, one of the…
In New York, legislators block reactivation of death penalty
NEW YORK (ABP) — A state legislative committee has effectively blocked the reinstatement of New York's death-penalty law. A committee of the New York State Assembly killed legislation April 12 that would have reinstated the state's capital-punishment statute. The law…
Sri Lanka asks Baptist agency to mold foster-care program
DALLAS (ABP) — The government of Sri Lanka has invited a Texas Baptist agency to shape the country's first child protective services program, with the man who got the group involved in January's tsunami-relief efforts taking the lead. David Beckett,…