Fred Luter, immediate past president of the predominantly white Southern Baptist Convention, says he mistakenly believed the nation had turned a corner when it elected a black president. The first African-American president of the Southern Baptist Convention says he believes…
Southern Baptists testify at Texas hearing on religious liberty
Southern Baptists in Texas were well represented at a Texas Senate hearing on how to protect religious liberty that critics say was in reality more about finding ways to discriminate against gays and lesbians. Southern Baptists in Texas need stronger…
Reading sacred texts on screens, not paper: Does it matter?
If computer devices are aspects of our material world that people pray over and for and through, what does that say about the boundaries between the sacred and the profane? A soft glow has long filled reading rooms during devotional…
BJC supports contraceptive mandate accommodation in Supreme Court brief
Far-reaching arguments made by some religious nonprofits against an accommodation procedure can endanger religious liberty, according to a brief filed at the U.S. Supreme Court by the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and professor Douglas Laycock of the University…
Transitions 02.12.16
Please submit transitions — including staff changes, ordinations, anniversaries or deaths — to Barbara Francis. This page will be updated weekly. STAFF CHANGES Blake Benge, to First Baptist Church, Pensacola, Fla., as coordinating pastor of missions and ministries. He previously served…
Georgia clergy oppose First Amendment Defense Act
For the second year in a row, religious leaders are lining up on both sides of controversies over bills labeled “religious liberty” measures that critics say mask a hidden agenda of discrimination against gays and lesbians. A Cooperative Baptist Fellowship…
Brian McLaren: It’s time to re-write pro-war hymns
Brian McLaren, a leader in the emergent church and postmodern Christian movements, has rewritten Onward, Christian Soldiers, which he said reflects a disturbing pro-war theology. For decades, activist, author and pastor Brian McLaren has helped redefine American Christianity in his…
Okla. Supreme Court upholds school vouchers
The Oklahoma Supreme Court has upheld a program that sends scholarships to parents of students with disabilities for use at private schools, including religious schools, rejecting claims it violates a provision in the state constitution barring taxpayer aid to religion….
College, seminary seek to bridge racial opportunity gap
Simmons College of Kentucky and the Baptist Seminary of Kentucky announced plans Feb. 16 to make it easier for African-American college graduates to earn graduate degrees. A historically black college and a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship-aligned seminary have announced a collaboration…
Minister ‘fought herself’ to accept generous church maternity leave policy
Carol McEntyre says she had to battle her own work ethic and guilt to take advantage of a generous parental leave policy at First Baptist Church in Columbia, Mo., where she is pastor. Many women clergy serve at churches where…
Aging hands no bar to ministry for retired couple
By Vicki Brown Don Wideman is a grateful man who, these days, concentrates on family and an adult Sunday school class at First Baptist Church in North Kansas City, Mo. The executive director of the Missouri Baptist Convention from 1987…
Lawyer says Scalia’s death looms large in pending cases
By Bob Allen The unexpected death of Justice Antonin Scalia looms large in cases currently before the Supreme Court concerning abortion and religious liberty concerns, says a lawyer who recently filed a brief asking justices to uphold a Texas law…