Baptist News Global

Why won’t the SBC be more financially transparent?

Amid all the other headlines at this week’s Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, you might have missed an important internal debate that happened about financial transparency. To those outside the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, this may not matter. But for…

Americans United sues over Anti-Christian Bias Task Force

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is refusing to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request from Americans United for Separation of Church and State, prompting AU to sue the Trump administration. The lawsuit contends the VA is violating federal…

Trump administration says it will deport abused and neglected children

The federal government can now deport abandoned, abused and neglected children even if they have been granted Special Immigrant Juvenile status. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced the change June 6, the same day it went into effect. The action…

Trump’s actions in LA are popular only with Republicans

Nearly half of Americans are opposed to the deployment of U.S. Marines and National Guard troops to Los Angeles to quell protests against President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign. A June 9 CBS News/YouGov poll found 45% of adults surveyed…

How I’m preparing for No Kings Day

In the long-ago time when cell phones were becoming more ubiquitous, we were encouraged to put the letters ICE with the names of our contacts who should be called In Case of Emergency. Everyone knew if someone was in need…

Here’s what didn’t happen at this year’s SBC meeting

The most notable thing about this year’s Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting is what didn’t happen. The convention did not advance a third try at the so-called Law Amendment that would enshrine a Constitutional ban on females in any role…

In conversation with Stephen Newby and Robert Darden

I’ve had plenty of opportunity to get to know Robert Darden and Stephen Newby. Bob is a distinguished writer and teacher, and in our youth, we lived a few houses apart on 30th Street in Waco’s Castle Heights neighborhood. With…

Supreme Court sides with woman alleging discrimination as a heterosexual

The U.S. Supreme Court sided with an Ohio woman who claimed to be the victim of reverse discrimination because she is heterosexual. Justices ruled unanimously June 5 that a federal appellate court erred in determining Marlean Ames’ majority-status sexual orientation…

Why Michael Tait’s apology is not enough

“I can do anything! Anything!” These are words posthumously ascribed to Russian mystic and claimed religious healer Grigori Rasputin. Their authenticity is debated by historians, but the dramatization of the real event did make for excellent television in the Netflix…

Michael Tait issues ‘confession’ confirming abuse and drug reports

Contemporary Christian musician Michael Tait published a “confession” June 10 that largely corroborates accusations against him published the previous week by The Roys Report and also reported by Baptist News Global. “Recent reports of my reckless and destructive behavior, including…

SBC’s attack on women as leaders is ‘historic,’ Beth Allison Barr says

The Southern Baptist Convention’s current attempt to put women in their place “is one of the harshest measures against women in ministry” in history, according to Baylor University history professor Beth Allison Barr. “If you follow church history, this is…

SBC’s 1,000-word resolution covers nine hot topics

A single resolution adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention June 10 rolls together at least nine hot topics in a single statement that was adopted without notable opposition. Resolution No. 5, titled “On Restoring Moral Clarity through God’s Design for…

‘Be careful of Scripture heavy in law but light on grace,’ Wesley warns

‘Show up and do something,’ ACLU leader urges

From the South Side to the South Lawn and back again

Democracy as a moral practice, not just a system