Note: This article discusses suicide, child sexual abuse and domestic violence. It may be distressing for some readers. On June 30, child liberation theologian and abuse survivor advocate Ryan Stollar died by suicide, following a lengthy struggle with his...
I’m afraid, my friends, that I have shocking news: it’s time to turn in your plastic WWJD bracelet. Yes, it was cool to own them in the ’90s. Yes, the plaque version paired nicely with Precious Moments figurines. But when…
Way back in April, Barack Obama told a CBS reporter, “The single most important question I’m asked these days from other world leaders is ‘What’s going on with your elections?’” I don’t rub shoulders with world leaders, but my Canadian…
Feeding people does more than satiate their hunger. Daniel Banyuls, pastor of Iglesia Evangelica Bautista in Cerdanyola, Spain, can testify to that. “Through this feeding ministry, we are fighting material, educational, emotional and spiritual poverty,” Banyuls said. Banyuls has served…
The pastor of a small Southern Baptist church in Alabama is out of a job following a dispute he says began when two deacons asked him not to invite African-American children to Vacation Bible School. Mount Sterling Baptist Church in…
Lincoln Mullen, a George Mason University professor, has put the Bible and 11 million pages of old newspapers into a computer and mashed the two together.
A Baptist preacher has become the unlikely leader of a social media movement that’s inspired Zimbabweans to protest against their authoritarian ruler and the collapsed economy.
Please submit transitions — including staff changes, ordinations, anniversaries or deaths — to Barbara Francis. This page will be updated weekly. STAFF CHANGES John Baldwin, to Berea Baptist Church, Rockville, Va., as pastor. He comes from the pastorate of Glenn Memorial…
I think of my vegetarian friends like I think of my Jewish friends. I love and respect them, but we are of different faiths. I believe in barbecue. To the casual observer those who gather for a church barbecue have…
“Has anyone seen Jesus? I know that he is around here somewhere. He is always with us.” Jesus’ parents were traveling home after the festival of the Passover (Luke 2.41-51). It was two days before they noticed that he was…
Five decades. That’s how long Ken Hale served small Baptist churches without an extended break. But that streak finally ended last fall when long-time friend and retired pastor Bill Bruster volunteered to stand in for Hale at Trinity Baptist Church…
Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. was convicted in 2001 of murdering Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, all 14, and Denise McNair, 11, and sentenced to life in prison.
Openness to calling a woman as senior pastor is growing incrementally in moderate and progressive Baptist churches in the southern United States, according to the latest State of Women in Baptist Life report by Baptist Women in Ministry. “The statistics…
