Baptist News Global

Transitions for the week of 06.10.16

Please submit transitions — including staff changes, ordinations, anniversaries or deaths — to Barbara Francis. This page will be updated weekly. STAFF CHANGES Jerry Benfield, to Buechel Park Baptist Church, Louisville, Ky., as interim pastor. Janet Cleland, to First Baptist Church,…

Faith leaders oppose military drone policy

A Baptist leader joined 27 other officials from Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh traditions in a June 6 letter to President Obama urging greater transparency about the role of unmanned drones in U.S. military policy. Paula Dempsey, director for…

‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ and the power of myth

To understand the deep appeal of Narnia, we need first to appreciate the place of stories in helping us to make sense of reality, and our own place within it.

Refugees seeking asylum on religious grounds quizzed on ‘Bible trivia’

“When is Pentecost?” is among the questions put to people fleeing persecution after converting to Christianity, MPs say.

Outsider SBC presidential hopeful loses nominator

A Georgia layman who announced recently he is running for president of the Southern Baptist Convention says it looks like his agenda to shake up business as usual in the nation’s second-largest faith group will have to wait another year….

Mecca goes mega

A building boom in the city’s sacred center has created a dazzling, high-tech 21st-century pilgrimage.

A Southerner living in a foreign land — Brooklyn

“Yankee” was a term of derision in my fourth grade class. When the teacher announced, “We have a new student who just moved to Mississippi from New York,” we looked on his poor little lost soul with pity. The progressive…

When ‘Satan goes to a prayer meeting’

I love prayer. Despite the popularity of social media, status updates and tweets do not compare to sharing a prayer request with God. There is no better connection. The fact that we can be in direct dialogue with the Divine,…

Churches wage war against child hunger

As the last bell rings in late May or early June, throngs of schoolkids rush from their school to celebrate the start of summer. More time to play games, more opportunities to sleep and less homework. Yet, for some children,…

Freefall continues in SBC membership, baptism stats

The Southern Baptist Convention lost more than 200,000 members last year and baptized fewer than 300,000 new converts for the first time in 68 years, according to statistics compiled by LifeWay Christian Resources. The loss of 204,409 members in 2015…

Baptist pastor memorializes Muhammad Ali

A Baptist preacher joined other community leaders June 5 in a Louisville, Ky., mosque for an interfaith service memorializing the boxing icon and world humanitarian Muhammad Ali. “He was a miracle worker in the ring, where he used his fists violently…

Seminary prof to lead Mid-Atlantic Baptists

A seminary professor was elected June 7 as executive director of the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware, also known as the Mid-Atlantic Baptist Network. Kevin Smith, assistant professor of church history and Christian preaching at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and teaching pastor…

How much is enough?

Robert Sloan, Baptist educator, dies at 77

What patriotism is not

Amid flurry of rulings, habeas corpus spells trouble for Trump immigration policies