By Bob Allen North Carolina’s new school voucher law, which allows families to use taxpayer dollars to send their children to private schools, violates the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and…
SBC leader calls on churches to confront suicide
By Bob Allen Suicide is “a very serious and tragic reality” that every minister will encounter, Southern Baptist Convention leader Frank Page advised students at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in a recent chapel address. Page, president and CEO of…
Woes persist at Georgia Baptist college
By Bob Allen The week after Brewton-Parker College President Ergun Caner resigned citing the emotional and physical toll of his son’s recent suicide, a vice president said he was fired after refusing to resign. C.B. Scott, vice president of alumni…
Some Americans feel ‘cold’ toward Muslims and Mormons, survey says
By Jeff Brumley Few were surprised by a Pew Research Center survey finding that Republicans hold more negative views about Muslims than Democrats do. But the poll — along with recent anti-Muslim protests in Texas — reconfirmed for some observers that it’s…
Former children’s minister pleads not guilty to murder
By Bob Allen An Alabama Baptist minister accused of fatally stabbing his wife in the home they rented from their church in 2013 pleaded not guilty to murder in a pretrial hearing and arraignment in a Birmingham, Ala., courtroom Feb….
Openness to Cuba is nothing new to these Baptists
By Ken Camp The world focused on Cuba in recent days, gauging the impact of restored diplomatic relations with the United States after more than 50 years. But for a volunteer team from Texas, a trek to Cuba was business as…
Huckabee stumps at N.C. Baptist church
By Bob Allen Potential 2016 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee told about 400 people in a town hall meeting at First Baptist Church of Charlotte, N.C., that while some GOP presidential candidates are shying away from hot-button social issues in an…
Samford buys property to expand health care programs
By Bob Allen Baptist-affiliated Samford University has purchased property adjacent to its campus in Birmingham, Ala., from Time, Inc., so it can relocate its College of Health Sciences. Southern Progress Corp., a Time subsidiary, decided last year to sell the…
Fostering multiethnic churches easier said than done, pastors say
By Jeff Brumley The Southern Baptist Convention can cure the nation’s racial tensions if its churches will embrace congregational integration, said Russell Moore, president of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Moore has joined with other white conservative Christian…
D.C. Baptists tap longtime staffer as exec
By Bob Allen A nationwide search for a new leader of the District of Columbia Baptist Convention turned back home, tapping a 20-year employee as its next executive director, and capping an 18-month nationwide search with 60 applicants. Robert Cochran,…
Georgia Baptists divided over religious liberty bill
By Bob Allen A Baptist newspaper editor compared perceived discrimination against Christians in the 21st century to the 1960s struggle for civil rights in comments at a Georgia statehouse rally Jan. 28 quoted by local media. Gerald Harris, editor of…
American Baptists intervene on behalf of women in Myanmar
By Bob Allen American Baptist Women’s Ministries has issued a statement to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urging action in response to the Jan. 19 rape and murder of two young Kachin Baptist women in Myanmar by soldiers in the Burmese…