By Bob Allen Nearly 150 faith leaders wrote Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius June 11 protesting the administration’s requirement that faith-based employers include contraceptive coverage for women in their health-care plans. The Affordable Health Care Act, also known…
Florida Baptists challenge abuse ruling
By Bob Allen The Florida Baptist Convention is contesting a May 17 jury verdict that found the Southern Baptist Convention affiliate liable for sexual abuse committed by a former church planter. The Florida Baptist Witness reported June 12 that the…
Baptist school fires gay librarian
By Bob Allen A gay librarian at Shorter University who refused to sign a statement rejecting homosexuality has been fired, the Save Our Shorter website reported June 7. Michael Wilson, 50, off-campus librarian for professional studies since 1998, returned his…
CBF assembly sessions to be webcast
By Bob Allen Five main sessions of the upcoming June 20-23 Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly in Fort Worth, Texas, will be broadcast live online. Sessions can be viewed live or accessed later from archives at www.thefellowship.info/fortworth. The first webcast…
Church aids widow facing eviction
By Jeff Brumley Mary Cate Jones never doubted her congregation would help when it learned she faced a foreclosure crisis last month. But raising $35,000 in the last two weeks of May and finding a donor to match the rest?…
LEADERSHIP LINK: Does your church conduct an annual audit?
For most of us the term “audit” calls to mind the potential of being notified by the IRS that our income tax returns will be scrutinized by their examiners. But the term simply means to examine or evaluate. Originally it…
HERITAGE: A bold friend to truth
Julian Howell Pentecost felt called to the ministry as a young boy. He once confided his feelings to his mother who prayed for God’s guidance. He was affirmed by his home church, Lawrenceville Baptist Church. In 1942 he entered the…
EDITORIAL: And now in conclusion …
Editor’s note: When Julian Pentecost penned his final editorial upon his retirement after 22 years as editor, I doubt that he imagined it would also serve as a kind of eulogy. But as I read through many of his editorials…
Measured by ministry to ‘the least of these,’ how do Christians fare?
When it comes to judging livestock, some Baptists have a beef with sheep and goats. In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus describes Judgment Day, with all the nations gathered around God’s throne and people separated into two groups—sheep on one side, goats…
LETTER: Sex conference missed the mark
From all that I have read, the Baptist Conference on Sexuality and Covenant [Herald, April 30] went just as I feared it would. Many speakers used fanciful and complex, but misguided, theological arguments to persuade participants that some homosexual and…
LETTER: Creationism vs. evolution
When God presented the account of how he created the world and universe in Genesis, he gave an explanation that was straight forward and easy to understand. We, of course, have no idea of what processes took place when he…
OPINION: Reading Scripture is like rock climbing
In a recent interview with the New Voice Media Group [which includes the Religious Herald, see May 28], I used rock climbing as an analogy for interpreting Bible passages about the role of women. Whether climbing a steep rock or…