Baptist News Global

Not all coercive force is torture, Baptist ethicist insists

Debate over the morality of coercive force would be served better if everyone involved quit using the word “torture” altogether, said Daniel Heimbach, professor of Christian ethics at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. “The problem here is that in hotly debating…

Torture fails to ensure national security, experts insist

ATLANTA — Retired high-ranking military officers and national security experts at a national summit on torture agreed — a policy that permits torture does not make the United States or its troops safer. Speaking on the seventh anniversary of terrorist…

Declaration calls for presidential executive order on torture

Evangelicals for Human Rights, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture and the Center for Victims of Torture have drafted a declaration of principles its members want to see the next president include in an executive order on prisoner treatment, torture…

Human rights rooted in Bible, not political philosophy

ATLANTA — Concern about hu-man rights means biblically grounded compassion for oppressed people — not a selfish desire to protect one's own property or prestige, Baptist ethicist Glen Stassen told the National Summit on Torture. “It has been the defenders…

Tortured suffer lasting effects in body & soul, experts say

ATLANTA (ABP) — Nearly two decades ago, Dianna Ortiz says, Guatemalan security forces abducted her and took her to a clandestine prison where she was gang-raped; burned more than 100 times with cigarettes; forced to cut another woman with a…

Virginia Baptist volunteers join Texas Baptists to provide assistance after Ike

LIBERTY, Texas — Less than 72 hours after Hurricane Ike made landfall, a convoy of Virginia Baptist disaster relief units pulled into the parking lot of First Baptist Church, Liberty, Texas. By the next afternoon, Sept. 16, almost 100 Virginia…

The why and the how

Virginia Baptist disaster relief ministries are able to respond to disasters such as Hurricane Ike because of the gifts of Virginia Baptist churches to Cooperative Missions, the Alma Hunt Offering for Virginia Missions and individual designated donations to the general…

BGAV registration ends soon

RICHMOND — Preregistration for Connect:2008, the 185th annual meeting of the Baptist General Association of Virginia, will be closing in mid-October, say association officials. Connect:2008 will be held in Roanoke Nov. 11-12 at the Roanoke Civic Center and the Hotel…

VIRGINIA BRIEFS

Bluefield College earns membership in Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. Bluefield College has been awarded full membership into the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, a higher education association of more than 180 intentionally Christ-centered institutions around the world….

SECOND OPINION: Gender debate ultimately about Jesus

On Sept. 15, I published an article in USA Today that has bounced around the blogosphere evoking intense reaction ever since. The argument of the article was that Sarah Palin's nomination for vice president, and the warm conservative evangelical response…

INTERVIEW: Security is not the ‘highest good’ for Christians

In the final weeks of Campaign 2008, presidential candidates are lavishing promises to keep America safe from terrorist attacks and from economic meltdown. But some Christian thinkers are wondering aloud whether America might be truer to Christian ideals — and…

Trumpet sounds

Donald Jordan Dunlap retired from his last pastorate, Freemason Street Baptist Church in Norfolk, in 1999; and four years later, in 2003, Don and Kay Dunlap left Tidewater to return to his native Christiansburg. Don and his brother, the late…

Mohler again claims same-sex marriage harms children

Dan Patrick reiterates: ‘No separation of church and state’

Baptists know better than this

Judge bars Tennessee from revealing immigration status of sick children