Baptist News Global

People-pleasing pastors risk health, families and callings

Besides preaching and visiting the sick, too many ministers also are skilled at denying themselves vacation days, putting in extreme time at the office and scaling back on family time. “We are well known for overworking,” said Merianna Neely Harrelson,…

British Baptists wrestle with same-sex marriage

Hoping to avoid division over an issue that is dividing religious bodies across the globe, British Baptist leaders are asking churches not to allow their buildings to be used for same-sex weddings. The leadership council of the Baptist Union of…

Former president, now professor, reportedly on way out at Louisiana College

A Baptist college in Louisiana is seeking to remove its controversial former president from a teaching position on the faculty, according to a local media report. The Town Talk in Alexandria, La., quoted unnamed sources March 16 saying that Louisiana…

Scalia death a blow to Obamacare contraception challengers

Christian groups asking the U.S. Supreme Court to exempt them from the requirement to provide insurance covering contraception under President Obama’s healthcare law face an uphill battle following Justice Antonin Scalia’s death last month.

Springsteen and Lent: Born in the USA

I always thought Palm Sunday was such a fun day as a child. Each year, the choir or children would enter into the sanctuary waving palm branches to a celebratory hymn of some sort. And each year, someone would awkwardly…

Is Palm Sunday a rainforest killer?

For years, Latin Americans were stripping the landscape bare to sell palm leaves to U.S. florists and churches, until an eco-friendly Guatemala program turned things around.

Survival mode

Survival mode generally does not bring out the best in people. When nearly all of the luxuries of life have been stripped away and all you have left is the choice to survive, those choices are brutal. I’m not a…

Packing in the pews

The latest challenge facing some congregations is deciding whether open carry gun laws should extend to church property — including the sanctuary.

Baptist World Aid director steps down

The director of Baptist World Aid, relief-and-development arm of the Baptist World Alliance, stepped down March 16 after three-and-a-half years on the job, according to a news release. Rothangliani Rema Chhangte, former liaison for Burmese refugees with American Baptist Home…

White Americans, this is what it feels like to be a minority

In this political season, a fear, masked by a sometimes openly raging anger directed toward an array of minorities, is the fear of a white majority that is thoroughly panicked by the awareness that it is on a slow but…

End U.S. embargo on Cuba, faith leaders tell Congress

Two dozen faith communities joined in a letter March 16 urging members of Congress to end the nation’s “long-standing and counter-productive” embargo on Cuba. “We have listened to the call of our partner faith communities in Cuba, with whom we…

DNC head challenged by faith leaders over exploitative payday lending

Several Cooperative Baptist Fellowship ministers were among 36 faith leaders sending an open letter March 17 taking the chair of the Democratic National Committee to task for resisting attempts by the Obama administration to rein in abuses in payday lending….

3 views on Donald Trump held by American Christians

US megachurches report strong rebound from pandemic

Baptists need to speak up again for religious liberty

What in hell became of heaven?