By Bob Allen Two Cooperative Baptist Fellowship pastors who have been friends for 30 years say it’s possible to disagree — even disagree strongly — on homosexuality and still remain friends. “You can advocate on these things without being polarizing,” Steve Wells,…
BNG honors Marv Knox for lifetime achievement
By Bob Allen Baptist News Global honored veteran Baptist journalist Marv Knox for “courage, moral integrity and truth-telling” across a career spanning more than three decades at a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly auxiliary event June 18. BNG board chair…
Baptists must do more to help immigrants, advocate says
By Jeff Brumley Baptists can no longer stand by and watch as Catholics, Mennonites, Methodists and other Christians take the lead in ministering to immigrants, a Baptist scholar and immigration advocate told members of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North…
CBF prays for victims in S.C. church shooting
By Bob Allen The first order of business for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship June 18 was prayer for victims in Wednesday’s deadly shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C. Prior to a Thursday morning business session of…
Mohler: ‘Confessional’ faith safeguards against error
By Bob Allen A member of the committee that revised the Baptist Faith and Message in 2000 says the growing acceptance of homosexuality and same-sex marriage in moderate and liberal denominations vindicates the wisdom of including a statement on the…
Taking Jesus seriously in East Texas
Kyle Childress doesn’t look like a dangerous radical. If Childress, pastor of Austin Heights Baptist Church in Nacogdoches, Texas, let his neatly trimmed white beard grow out a bit, he would make a passable Santa Claus. And when he pushes…
Former SBC presidents unite against gay marriage
By Bob Allen Sixteen former Southern Baptist Convention presidents released a statement June 16 urging churches to disregard any legal definition of marriage as anything other than the union of a woman and a man. The statement, drafted in a…
CBF Arkansas adds assistant coordinator
By Bob Allen The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Arkansas has named Arkansas native and recent George W. Truett Theological seminary graduate Megan Pike as the organization’s first assistant coordinator. Pike, whose husband, Marty, serves as minister of children and youth…
Volunteerism, vital for missions, transforms individuals and churches
By Brian Kaylor The leaders of faith-based disaster relief agencies know it as they respond to catastrophic weather in Texas. And so does Greg Morrow, pastor of First Baptist Church of California, Mo. What they and others know is that…
SBC asks Supreme Court to rule against gay marriage
By Bob Allen The Southern Baptist Convention called on the U.S. Supreme Court to leave it up to the states to decide whether or not to permit gay marriage in a resolution adopted June 16 in Columbus, Ohio. With a…
President of Northern Seminary to resign next year
By Robert Dilday Alistair Brown announced June 15 he will resign as president of Northern Baptist Theological Seminary at the end of the next academic year. Brown, who has been president of the seminary in suburban Chicago since September 2008,…
SBC ousts another gay-friendly church
By Bob Allen For the second straight year, the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee has voted to oust a church over homosexuality. The Executive Committee took action June 15 against Weatherly Heights Baptist Church in Huntsville, Ala., under a bylaw…