Baptist News Global

Pastor says losing ERLC head would set back race relations

A black Southern Baptist pastor says recent talk of firing Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission head Russell Moore sends a message to ethnic minorities they are welcome in the Southern Baptist Convention only if they toe the political line. Dwight…

To protect themselves, more American Muslim women give up hijab

“I’m sad about what it means about our religious freedoms in general in our country; I’m sad that I had to give it up,” says Nassrene Elmadhun, a Boston surgeon who stopped wearing her headscarf after a man threatened her…

Designing for places of worship: An architect’s guide

The faithful of all creeds are perhaps best served when architecture discovers that still point in a fast spinning world offering true solace and peace.

When obeying God means disobeying the Bible

Joseph is not a dominant figure in the nativity stories, but in Matthew’s story of his encounter with the angel (1:18-25), he functions as a kind of model for each of us. Consider how Joseph responded when he discovered that…

At Christmas, it’s not we who should be afraid. It’s the powers that seek destruction and preach division.

Amy Butler preached this sermon at The Riverside Church on Christmas Eve this year. Well, here we are, and it’s Christmas Eve, again. On the edge of yet another year, we hear the ancient story read, picture a peace-filled stable…

Marriage: The state of our unions

Love, marriage, sex and parenting comprise what many Christians believe is “traditional marriage,” unchanged since the Garden of Eden. Yet for most societies throughout history, including most Christian ones, the expectation that all four could be confined to one relationship was considered impractical, irrational or at best undesirable. The first in a series on the changing shape of one of society’s most ancient institutions.

Fear not: How Linus and his blanket can help us change the world

In addition to being an ordained minister, I am also a standup comedian. One thing I’ve always wanted to do at the end of my set (and my sermons) was a mic drop — that moment when a comedian…

Wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger

If you have seen Will Ferrell’s Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, it’s hard to hear Luke’s Christmas story without thinking of the “baby Jesus grace.” Ricky Bobby is a driver not a thinker, and it shows. “Dear lord…

Turn to service, faith in dark times, Sudanese survivor of lions and hyenas says

A rough election is turning into a rough Christmas for some. But the holiday blues will come screeching to a halt after a conversation with Abraham Deng. Deng, 35, was one of thousands of “Lost Boys of Sudan” who, as…

War on Christmas redux

While Bill O’Reilly and Fox News get much credit for seasonal claims of a “War on Christmas” waged by the secular left, a progressive blog site says the perennial cultural clash finds roots in a brand of early 20th century…

Appeals court rejects challenge to Glorieta sale

A federal appeals court has turned down an appeal by an Arkansas couple claiming wrongdoing by Southern Baptist Convention officials when they declined to renew their lease at the Glorieta Conference Center and instead sold the campus. Kirk Tompkins, who along with…

Why God is a curvy, black woman in ‘The Shack’ and some Christian critics say it’s ‘heresy’

Just as the book earned widespread notoriety and scathing critiques nearly a decade ago, the film is garnering its own praise and condemnation.

Supreme Court slides into partisanship

Before the fireworks, be careful what you drink

The contemptible case of Clarence Thomas

The permanent paradoxes of Christian thinking about war