GRAPEVINE, Texas (ABP) — “Churches need to do better jobs connecting with college students and keeping them in the denomination,” said former college minister Ryan Clark during a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship workshop July 1. “Students often go to college and…
Child killed in rollover accident involving 15-passenger van
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (ABP) — A group of Florida children with cuts and bruises stood by an overturned bus June 29 watching paramedics try unsuccessfully to save the life of their 6-year-old friend. The children, from a church-affiliated day-care center…
UCC becomes first major denomination fully to support same-sex marriage
ATLANTA (ABP) — The leaders of one of America's most historic Christian denominations voted overwhelmingly July 4 to endorse same-sex civil marriage and encourage their local congregations to extend religious marriage to gay couples. Meeting July 4 in Atlanta, about…
Wilmer C. Fields says ABP must continue as ‘strong force’
GRAPEVINE, Texas (ABP) — With the takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention by fundamentalists, the devil won a clear and sweeping victory like never before in Southern Baptist history, pioneer Baptist journalist Wilmer C. Fields told Associated Baptist Press supporters…
Time is right for biblical leaders, pollster George Gallup says
GRAPEVINE, Texas (ABP) — “This is the time that is right for an explosion of biblical leaders,” Pollster George Gallup Jr. told a Texas audience June 30. Gallup received the John Newport Foundation Annual Leadership Award for his years of…
Court rules Shorter decision final; trustee chair warns of changes
ROME, Ga. (ABP) — The Georgia Supreme Court's decided July 1 not to reconsider a ruling that Shorter College improperly severed ties with the Georgia Baptist Convention. The decision brings an end to the long battle over control of the…
Poverty, suffering present ‘acid test’ of faith, Vestal tells CBF
GRAPEVINE, Texas (ABP) — Global poverty is “the moral issue of our day,” and how Christians respond is “the acid test of our faith,” Daniel Vestal told members of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship July 1. “Statistics do not tell all…
Charlie Johnson urges BJC supporters to challenge ‘uncivil religion’
GRAPEVINE, Texas (ABP) — American Christendom has become infected with a disease, and free and faithful Baptists hold the cure, Texas pastor Charlie Johnson told a group of Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty supporters July 1. Johnson addressed the…
Hispanic involvement growing within Fellowship ranks
GRAPEVINE, Texas (ABP) — The Hispanics are coming to the United States in droves — and in response the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship plans to plant Hispanic churches in droves. The CBF's Hispanic Initiative aims to start 400 new Hispanic congregations…