Baptist News Global

Transitions for the week of 11.18.16

Please submit transitions — including staff changes, ordinations, anniversaries or deaths — to Barbara Francis. This page will be updated weekly. STAFF CHANGES Daniel Barringer, to First Baptist Church, Seymour, Ind., as interim senior pastor. Dennis Bickers, to First Baptist Church,…

Embracing doubt for the sake of the Great Commission

I was at a denominational conference this week and heard a speaker say plainly, and at times quite forcefully, that there is no room for doubt in the Christian faith, that serious Christians should have pre-packaged and ready-made answers for…

Failing to recognize the Jesus of the haters

I’m a social liberal. Want to know why? Jesus. Not the Jesus as interpreted by Paul. The Jesus of the Gospels. I grew up in a Baptist church in rural Texas and we went to church at least twice a…

The need for compassionate correctness

In the aftermath of the presidential election, the “N” word (a vicious reference to African-American human beings) is making a public comeback. In a Nov. 14 essay, the online journal, Fusion, documented multiple N-word postings, many related to schools, including…

Taking on the gun madness: it’s time to stop it, say faith leaders

Christian clergy are tired, they say, of wringing their hands, of changing their Sunday morning sermon after another Saturday night shooting, of gun advocates’ clichés and — worse — of expecting it to happen again soon.

Watching 81% of my white brothers and sisters vote for Trump has broken something in me

On Tuesday night, I watched as 81 percent of white evangelicals and born-again Christians voted for someone who admitted to sexually assaulting women and gleefully affirming that he would face no consequences for doing so.

BGCT sets view of marriage as criteria for cooperation

Texas Baptists established affirmation of same-sex marriage or homosexual relations as grounds for declaring a church outside the bounds of cooperation with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Love, resistance, and the trouble ahead

She looked like hell when I answered the door. The sun was not yet fully up and a lady was knocking already. This day was not to be one for the normal rules of politeness. All the rules had been…

The election seen from an Arizona slot canyon

This opinion piece was also delivered as a sermon at the historic Madison Avenue Baptist Church in New York City on Nov. 13, 2016. Recently, my husband and I were in Arizona and Utah. We love that area of the…

Building the muscles of a posture of grace

I have terrible pain in my neck. On the right side, just under the skull. I can point right to it. It’s always in the same place. It can make normal activities like sleeping and driving almost torturous at times….

Religious diversity a reality within churches, research shows

The church, it seems, is experiencing a constant “wake-up call” these days. It needs to wake up about the needs and interests of Millennials and the growth of the “nones.” It needs to wake up about worship styles, ministering outside…

After election, faith leaders seek spaces for healing

This week, both liberal and conservative churches have tried to embrace their role as places to help heal and rejuvenate people’s spirits after such a bruising election.

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