By Bob Allen Three civil-liberties organizations filed a lawsuit Jan. 9 challenging New Hampshire’s new school-choice bill that provides scholarships funded by tax credits for underprivileged students to attend private schools. Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the…
Georgia guns-in-church ban upheld
By Bob Allen Georgia’s law banning the carrying of guns in churches will remain on the books after the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal Jan. 8 to revive the case of a Baptist minister who claimed it burdens his free exercise…
Youth speaker to pray at Obama inauguration
By Bob Allen A Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary graduate whose student ministry at Baylor University exploded into the Passion Movement encountering millions of students and young adults will deliver the benediction at President Obama’s inaugural swearing-in ceremony Jan. 21. The…
Youth speaker to pray at Obama inaugural
By Bob Allen A Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary graduate, whose student ministry at Baylor University exploded into the Passion Movement encountering millions of students and young adults, will deliver the benediction at President Obama’s inaugural swearing-in ceremony Jan. 21. The…
Baptists in Africa seek prayer
By Bob Allen Baptists in the Central African Republic have requested urgent prayer from global Baptists about rebels challenging the leadership of President Francois Bozizé. Peace talks are scheduled this week between government officials and the rebel coalition called Seleka,…
Gender-role group gets new leader
By Bob Allen The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, an organization opposed to women’s ordination and other trends attributed to feminism in the evangelical church, has named a new leader. Owen Strachan, 31, assistant professor of Christian theology and…
Baptists open eyes to Epiphany
By Jeff Brumley For Christians who observed Epiphany on Sunday, Jan. 6, the holiday signified a formal end to the Christmas season and the world’s recognition of Jesus’ divinity. While it meant all of that to Baptist minister Don Flowers, for…
Missionary/prof Justice Anderson dies
By Bob Allen Justice Anderson, who often introduced himself as a “sometime Baptist pastor, a longtime Baptist foreign missionary and an even longer-time professor of missiology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas,” died Dec. 29 of a…
Youth pastor charged with sex crimes
By Bob Allen The youth pastor of a Tennessee Baptist church was arrested Jan. 3 on charges of statutory rape and sexual battery by an authority figure. Joseph Todd Neill, 36, youth director at North Fork Baptist Church in Shelbyville,…
Casting visions from the pulpit
By Jeff Brumley Some pastors may look forward to — and even need — a post-holiday lull. But not Doug Dortch, the senior minister at Mountain Brook Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. Instead, he’ll be busy those first few days…
Redeeming fornication
By Bob Allen Christians lost more than just a word when they began substituting modern euphemisms like “premarital sex” for the old-fashioned sin of “fornication,” a Southern Baptist theologian said in a recent essay. Russell Moore, theology dean at Southern…
Iowa Baptist church open to gay weddings
By Bob Allen An American Baptist church in Iowa City has announced it will perform same-sex weddings, presumably the state’s first Baptist congregation to do so since Iowa’s Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in 2009. The Des Moines Register reported…