By Robert Dilday Bill Self, a longtime Atlanta-area pastor and prominent Baptist leader for decades, died Jan. 9 after a long struggle with Lou Gehrig’s Disease. He would have turned 84 on Jan. 10. Self was pastor emeritus of Johns…
Marketed faith fuels Millennials’ distrust of church, minister says
By Jeff Brumley American churches already struggling with ways to attract young people got more bad news this week: Millennials don’t like them very much. And worse yet, their esteem of religious organizations is dropping right along with that of…
Disaster recovery in full swing in wake of N. Texas twisters
By Jeff Brumley Disaster recovery forces have swung into action to help the victims of tornadoes that struck North Texas the night after Christmas, killing 11. Much of the work is being led by faith-based organizations, with organizations like Texas…
Planned facility will continue SBU’s ‘Christ-centered’ mission, leaders say
Word & Way Southwest Baptist University has broken ground on a project to expand and renovate the Bolivar campus’ Gene Taylor National Free Enterprise Center, which houses the Robert W. Plaster College of Business and Computer Science and the department…
Texas churches grapple with open-carry firearms policies
By Ken Camp Some Texas Baptist congregations rang in the New Year by posting signs prohibiting openly carried handguns inside their church buildings — or updating signs already banning concealed handguns. Effective Jan. 1, Texans with firearms licenses are allowed…
Lawyers who had abortions petition Supreme Court
By Bob Allen More than 100 women with careers in the legal profession have filed a brief with the United State Supreme Court claiming without access to safe and legal abortion they wouldn’t be where they are today. The brief,…
Disability advocates applaud Obama’s proposal for gun control, with a caveat
By Bob Allen Disability-rights advocates criticized President Obama’s plan to reduce gun violence by adding the names of 75,000 Americans who receive Social Security benefits with aid of a third party to the National Instant Criminal Background System. The American…
Making resolutions for 2016? Give them to God, ministers say
By Jeff Brumley New Year’s resolutions are huge in the United States, where 45 percent of Americans commit to them annually. But fewer take them seriously, according to the Statistic Brain Research Institute, which tracks the trend. It reported that…
Martha Stearns Marshall Month around the corner
By Bob Allen Heading into the 10th annual Martha Stearns Marshall Month of Preaching, Baptist Women in Ministry Executive Director Pam Durso sees evidence of “a shift in Baptist culture” toward accepting that God calls women as well as men…
Religious groups challenge contraceptive mandate in Supreme Court brief
By Bob Allen The government has no right to force religious groups including an order of Catholic nuns and the Southern Baptist Convention’s insurance provider to alter their own health care plans to achieve an Obamacare goal to provide women…
Bomb scare prompts evacuation at church
By Bob Allen Nearly 150 children were evacuated Jan. 4 from a day-care center at a Baptist church in Winston-Salem, N.C., while police investigated a suspicious package later determined to pose no threat. According to local media, authorities evacuated First…
Baptist minister seeks to comfort war-ravaged refugees in Belgium
By Ashleigh Bugg Children from more than 30 ethnicities play on the winding stone streets of Antwerp, Belgium. Some don religious head coverings while others wear their hair in intricate braids as they run through the fountains at a nearby…