Baptist News Global

Word & Way editor Bill Webb retiring this year

Veteran Baptist journalist Bill Webb announced plans to retire later this year, shortly after celebrating his 20th anniversary as editor of the Missouri Baptist publication Word & Way. Webb, 66, announced his retirement plans to readers in a May 10…

How rival Gardens of Eden in Iraq survived ISIS, dwindling tourists, and each other

Believers have alternately placed the garden in Armenia, in the Zagros Mountains of Iran, and in Bahrain. Even those who accept the mythological nature of the Garden of Eden still have the desire to locate it.

Pope Francis: Let’s study idea of ordaining women as deacons

In an opening with historic import, Pope Francis has said he wants to study the possibility of ordaining women as deacons, a step that could for the first time open the ranks of the Catholic Church’s all-male clergy to women.

‘If the church is so great, then why are you teaching in seminary?’

During my first class as a professor at Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology, I began waxing poetic on my years as a pastor and the glory of preaching: “What could be more wonderful than to imagine your way back…

It’s the Church’s birthday, not its funeral

I’m not going to tell you my age but not because I’m embarrassed by the number. I’m not that old yet. I’m only partly kidding. No matter what I have collected — a couple of degrees, student loans, a marriage…

CBF church models open attitude on NPR

National Public Radio featured a small Cooperative Baptist Fellowship church in Louisville, Ky., in a two-part series May 10 on the different ways U.S. evangelicals are responding to shifting attitudes about homosexuality and marriage in the United States. NPR’s Morning…

Peace group head urges Obama to get specific during Hiroshima visit

The leader of the nation’s largest peace group focused on abolishing nuclear weapons and urged President Obama to get specific about his plans to reduce their number during his historic visit later this month to Hiroshima, Japan. The White House…

Few pastors say adultery should permanently ban them from the pulpit

1,000 church leaders weigh in on how to investigate allegations and when the congregation should be told.

As U.S. attitudes change, some evangelicals dig in; others adapt

America’s culture war, waged in recent years over gender roles, sexuality and the definition of marriage, is increasingly being fought inside evangelical Christian circles.

Bridging the gap between the heart and systemic injustice

If you could ask a fish, “How’s the water?”, the fish would probably respond by saying, “What in the world is water?” That was the observation of David Foster Wallace in a commencement speech at Kenyon College used to illustrate…

Healing the world in one of Philadelphia’s toughest neighborhoods

With a name like Strawberry Mansion, it would be easy to assume one of Philadelphia’s most notorious neighborhoods is full of lavish abodes and Lamborghinis. But Wayne Weathers, a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship church starter and pastor of Vision of Hope Baptist…

Mississippi religious liberty law challenged in court

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit May 9 challenging Mississippi’s religious freedom law, which critics say could be used to discriminate against gays.

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