By Bob Allen The only predominantly African-American Southern Baptist church in a rural county in Tennessee risks losing its house of worship for calling a woman as pastor. News Channel 5 in Nashville reported Oct. 15 that Greater Tabernacle Baptist…
Daniel Aleshire: An exceptional life characterized Diana Garland
By Daniel Aleshire 1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. 2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. 3 You…
Fallen BJC board member to be laid to rest
By Bob Allen A memorial service is scheduled Nov. 16 in Pennsylvania for a member of the Baptist Joint Committee on Religious Liberty who died from injuries he suffered in a fall while leaving his hotel for the BJC’s recent…
Pastor trades unconventional pulpit for traditional church — and a challenge
By Jeff Brumley Bob Ballance said he’s expecting the question from all quarters: why is he leaving his Colorado church popular with Millennials for one that’s more traditional in a small Virginia town? And he admits there will be some…
‘Peeping preacher’ case comes to TV
By Bob Allen Incriminating video that three years ago helped land a former Southern Baptist evangelist in prison for video voyeurism aired on national television Oct. 15. Thursday’s installment of Crime Watch Daily, a syndicated investigative news magazine series that…
Faith propels graduate beyond grief into service — and running
By Jeff Brumley Waco, Texas, resident Emily Guberman is a new Baylor University graduate, a recently minted Baptist and an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer. She’s also running 1,000 miles over a year for Mothers Against Drunk Driving. But the path that…
Russell Moore equates silence on abortion with past silence on slavery, lynching
By Bob Allen Pastors today who refuse to speak on behalf of the unborn are no better than 19th-century congregations that stayed silent on slavery, the Southern Baptist Convention’s top spokesman on public policy and religious liberty concerns said in…
American Baptists in Nebraska launch microloan ministry to address justice, poverty
By Vicki Brown Tom struggled to make ends meet, even though he had a full-time job. Willing to work more, he wanted to start a small landscaping business that would provide needed income and flexibility. Then Tom’s pastor told him…
Former SBC president opposes Houston equal rights ordinance
By Bob Allen A past president of the Southern Baptist Convention is front and center of a campaign by Houston pastors to convince voters to say no to a controversial equal-rights ordinance scheduled to be on the ballot Nov. 3….
SBC leader says Christians should not attend a same-sex wedding
By Bob Allen A Southern Baptist seminary president’s forthcoming book is making headlines with a suggestion that Christians should not attend a same-sex wedding ceremony, even it if means boycotting the marriage of their own child. “STANDING RESOLUTE” screamed a…
Rise of post-Christians scares some, energizes others
By Jeff Brumley The Barna Group’s recent report of a sharp increase in the nation’s post-Christian population this year came as no surprise to Joy Yee, senior pastor at Nineteenth Avenue Baptist Church in San Francisco. Nor was she shocked…
Baptist judge blocks Arkansas executions
By Bob Allen An Arkansas judge who also is pastor of a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship church has halted the executions of eight death row inmates challenging a new law allowing the state to withhold information that could publicly identify the…