Baptist News Global

Religious freedom bill gets Christmas upgrade

President Barack Obama signed a bill Dec. 16 updating a law passed in 2008 to promote religious freedom as an interest of United States foreign policy. The Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act passed both houses of Congress in…

Southern Baptist leaders defend Trump’s pick to lead EPA

Four dozen Southern Baptist leaders voiced support for President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency, under scrutiny for his views on climate change, in an open letter Dec. 16. The current and 12 past Southern Baptist Convention presidents,…

My Christmas prayer

We were standing at the airport in Havana, Cuba, preparing to depart for our return home when our translator, Vladimir, turned to me and asked, “What is a ‘grinch’?” His look of confusion was understandable given he could find no…

Interfaith events expand in wake of 2016 election

It’s getting real in a whole new way for Americans involved in local, regional and national interfaith movements. Donald Trump’s election is seeing to that. Religious folk who thought they had an uphill battle against sporadic prejudice, here and there,…

On fourth anniversary of massacre, the slaughter at Newtown remains constant memory

At memorial services for the victims of Sandy Hook Elementary School, it is common for a bell to toll 26 times — once for each of the 20 children and six teachers who died beneath Adam Lanza’s withering onslaught four…

Religious Right criticizes Trump’s secretary of state

Conservative white evangelicals credited with helping to elect Donald Trump as president oppose his pick for secretary of state not because of his cozy ties with Russia but for his role in leading the Boy Scouts of America to drop…

Congregants’ quiet agony at the Dylann Roof trial

Until the jury returned a guilty verdict on Thursday afternoon, family members stoically endured a week of tormenting testimony in United States District Court.

PBS show ‘Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly’ to end after 20-year run

The last episode will air on Feb. 24, announced WNET, the parent company of THIRTEEN Productions.

An Advent prayer

O God of Advent, You are with us, Emmanuel, near as breath, present as Spirit, guiding us as Lord. You hear our sighs and groans and speak their language. When we are in chaos, you make sense of our wildest…

Flood waters deepen minister’s calling into homeless ministry

Merianna Harrelson was cruising along as pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Lexington, S.C., when Mother Nature stepped in with historic flooding in the fall of 2015. The high waters, and the suffering they inspired, drew Harrelson and her husband,…

Former SBC agency head says Calvinism debate goes deeper than a failure to communicate

A former Southern Baptist Convention agency head disputed the argument that tensions over Calvinism in the denomination are the result of traditionalists who criticize what they don’t understand. Richard Land, former president of the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission,…

Southern Baptist leaders, others, oppose laws battling LGBT discrimination

More than 75 religious conservatives, including several leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention, have signed a public document opposing policies that ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Charter signers of the “Preserve Freedom, Reject Coercion” proclamation coordinated…

Theologizing with Larkin Poe, 10 years after Reskinned

Ministry leader with tall tales wins GOP bid for Colorado governor

What Willy Rice once knew

What I learned July 5 at church