PLAINVIEW, Texas (ABP) — A charge that Wayland Baptist University educates and ordains homosexual ministers is false, damaging and almost slanderous, the school's president said. A listener to “Today's Issues,” a program broadcast on the American Family Radio Network, accused…
House passes ‘court-stripping’ bill to pre-empt gay-marriage lawsuits
WASHINGTON (ABP) — Barely a week after their Senate counterparts voted down a proposal to ban same-sex marriages, House members passed legislation using different methods to achieve a similar goal. On July 22, the House voted 233-194 to pass the…
Watchdog group files complaint against Arkansas church for ‘political’ sermon
SPRINGDALE, Ark. (ABP) — Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a religious-liberty watchdog organization, filed a complaint July 20 with the IRS against the 14,000-member First Baptist Church of Springdale, Ark., the largest church affiliated with the Arkansas…
Baptist mission board says volunteers must follow 2000 doctrinal statement
TYLER, Texas (ABP) — All groups working with missionaries of the International Mission Board must work within the parameters of the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message, IMB trustees decided, and only members of Southern Baptist churches can lead overseas mission…
Baptist ministers to face off in Georgia state Senate race
MACON, Ga. (ABP) — Two Baptist ministers — Republican Cecil Staton and Democrat Ben Taylor — will be campaigning for an open Georgia state Senate seat in the Nov. 2 general election. The newly created district covers parts of five…
Religious coalition protests inaction on Sudan genocide
WASHINGTON (ABP) — As Congress considered a resolution declaring the ethnic cleansing crisis taking place in western Sudan as genocide, a diverse coalition of religious leaders and congregants protested governmental inaction on the crisis. Around 300 people staged a “die-in”…
Poverty, homelessness take back seat to gay marriage, abortion in election
(ABP) — Gay marriage and abortion are overshadowing other moral issues in the presidential election, even among Christian voters, who make up the overwhelming majority of the electorate. “It has to do with the nature of our political structure,” said…
Money-strapped American Baptists warn missionaries of possible recall
VALLEY FORGE, Pa. (ABP) — The American Baptists Churches USA may lose up to a fifth of its missionary force unless its mission agency can raise enough money to overcome its current financial crisis. The head of International Ministries, the…
House panel approves bill limiting courts on marriage
WASHINGTON (ABP) — The same day a gay-marriage ban failed to move forward in the Senate, a different approach to opposing same-sex nuptials passed a House committee. The House Judiciary Committee voted July 14 to send the Marriage Protection Act…