Baptist News Global

The holidays, family dysfunction and familiarity

By Amy Butler Like many of you, I had the opportunity to spend significant time with my family this holiday season. By “family,” I mean not my immediate family with whom I live everyday, but those whom I only get…

RIGHT or WRONG? Emerging Church

By Michael Clingenpeel Our church just hired a pastor who is young enough to be the child of many members. His language about “the emerging church,” “postmodernism” and “interfaith dialogue” distresses older members. Communication and context seem to be the…

Religious games and toys more than child’s play, authors insists

BOSTON (RNS) — On the first day of her introductory religion class at Merrimack College, professor Rebecca Sachs Norris put her students to work at having some fun. She assigned teams of three or four students to play some of the…

Tumultuous times fuel End Times preparations

WASHINGTON (RNS) — For years, Ken Uptegrove believed another Great Depression was at hand. A computer professional in Springdale, Ark., Uptegrove started a garden and researched ways to live more simply. He studied the lives of early Christians and launched…

Persecution a recent concern in SBC resolutions

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) — While staunch defenders of human rights and religious liberty for all, Southern Baptists rarely mentioned religious persecution in convention resolutions until the 1990s. That coincides with increased calls by social conservatives, including the newly conservative leadership…

Blessed are the Persecuted: Where persecution is real, it’s intense

WASHINGTON (ABP) — During the holiday season every year, America’s dutiful culture warriors spar over things like whether ecumenical holiday greetings are appropriate for retailers or Christian Nativity scenes should be displayed on courthouse lawns that Jews, Muslims and atheists…

Baptists worldwide take low-key approach to religious-liberty concerns

FALLS CHURCH, Va. (ABP) — Baptists generally prefer to handle violations of religious freedom through quiet diplomacy instead of media headlines denouncing “persecution” of Christians, said a freedom-and-justice specialist for the Baptist World Alliance. That approach contrasts with well-known organizations…

Most American Protestant pastors view Islam as ‘dangerous’

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) — Two-thirds of Protestant pastors in the United States believe Islam is a dangerous religion, according to survey results released by LifeWay Research. The survey, however, did not explore the issues behind their concern. While opinions vary…

Fear of flu prompts panic in cautious congregations

WASHINGTON (RNS) — Hand sanitizer appears at the sanctuary entrance. Worshippers greet each other with a cautionary bow rather than a warm handshake or hug. Absences increase in Bible classes. The H1N1 flu pandemic is shaking up religious communities and…

FAITH DIGEST: American Christians dabble in New Age

Nearly one-fourth of the self-identified Christians in the United States delve into a range of Eastern or New Age beliefs, a new study shows. Asked about their supernatural experiences, significant minorities of American Christian respondents said they believe in astrology…

Obama’s Muslim outreach named top religion story of 2009

WASHINGTON (RNS) — The nation’s religion journalists named President Obama’s speech to the Muslim world as the top religion story of the year. Members of the Religion Newswriters Association ranked the June speech in Cairo, in which the president quoted…

Use the Quran to share Christ with Muslim, veteran missionary suggests

ANGLETON, Texas — Winning Muslim converts to Christianity is difficult, but veteran missionary Kevin Greeson knows a way—start with the Quran. Greeson, who has served 16 years with the Southern Baptist International Mission Board working to start Christian movements among…

Republicans push through more unregulated funding for ICE and CBP

Trump admin defying court order on immigration access

What was there left to argue?

Beauty, ashes and the Southern Baptist Convention