Baptist News Global

Democracy and religious freedom

For 2,000 years, Christians have worshiped God and followed Christ in an extraordinary variety of political circumstances. They have lived under Caesars and kings, republics and parliaments, democracies and dictators. The church has survived — and often thrived — without…

US Supreme Court won’t allow Alabama to use nitrogen gas

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to overrule two lower courts that prohibited Alabama from executing a prisoner using nitrogen gas. The state was set to execute Jeffrey Lee June 11 until a federal appeals court and a U.S. district judge…

Texas Lt. Gov. Patrick says Talarico will ‘go to hell’ for his beliefs

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says James Talarico will “go to hell” for his beliefs about the Bible. Talarico is an ordained Presbyterian minister and seminarian who is the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Texas. He will face erstwhile…

How anti-vaxxers and evangelicals found common cause

The COVID-19 outbreak helped unite the nation’s anti-vax movement, with evangelical Christians convinced that vaccine mandates, masking requirements and social distancing violated religious freedoms, religion scholar Kira Ganga Kieffer said. The two communities already shared a distrust of government when…

I grieve for SBC women

I grew up in a Southern Baptist church. I attended Sunday school as a child in a Southern Baptist church. I made a public profession of faith, accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and was baptized at the age…

How a ‘good kid’ makes a catastrophic choice

There is a particular kind of grief that settles over a community when a young person kills another young person. It is not only the grief of a life lost, but the grief of a life ruined. It is the…

We also need a reckoning with racist words that cut like a knife

In North Texas last week, all eyes were on a trial in Frisco, a northern Dallas suburb. The person on trial was Karmelo Anthony, a 19-year-old accused — and now convicted — of stabbing to death 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at…

To understand today’s SBC, listen to history

Across America this week, Baptist women are carrying a familiar weight. Some are pastors who have faithfully answered the call of God, only to watch the Southern Baptist Convention debate whether God possibly could have called them. Some are seminary…

Republicans push through more unregulated funding for ICE and CBP

Immigrant and civil rights advocates condemned the $70 billion immigration bill President Donald Trump signed into law June 10. The “Secure America Act” passed by Congress a day earlier provides funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol…