Baptist News Global

Democratic presidential race features more faith than usual

WASHINGTON (ABP)—With many Republicans concerned their party's leading presidential candidates are not sufficiently conservative on social issues, Democrats have what may be their most faith-friendly crop of candidates in recent years. According to experts in politics and religion, faith-savvy Democrats…

Giuliani leads among evangelicals, Clinton leads among Catholics

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Presidential hopefuls Rudolph Giuliani and Sen. Hillary Clinton hold early leads among key religious voting blocs in the race to win their party nominations, a national survey revealed. The survey by the Pew Research Center shows religious voters leaning…

News about Virginia Baptists and their ministries for May 3, 2007

STAFF CHANGES • J. Lytle Buckingham, to Sharon Church, King William, as pastor. • Bill and Mary Dell Sigler, resigning as co-pastors of Kilmarnock Church, Kilmarnock, effective June 15. She will become a bereavement and spiritual care coordinator for Hospice…

Time to relax

I was most impressed with your front page article in the April 19 issue. When a pastor leaves a congregation is a perfect time for a church to “relax, rest, regroup.” I advise a congregation, after a pastor leaves it…

Opinion: Communities don’t prevent violence, but they help us cope

“We are all Hokies now.” So reads a banner that appeared at a Baptist church near our home. It tries to express the empathy that most Virginians feel in the wake of the terrible murders at Virginia Tech. The school…

Immigration ethics: The system impacts whom churches can hire

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (ABP) — Claudia Munoz wants to work on a church staff and has done everything she can to prepare herself, including traveling from her home country of Chile to enroll at Baptist University of the Americas. Munoz…

Immigration ethics: Any reform better than nothing, some say

WASHINGTON (ABP) — As Congress debates immigration-reform proposals, some Christian immigration activists say there is no perfect legislation in the pipeline, but time is of the essence in getting something — anything — passed. A reform bill with broad bipartisan…

Panel debates ‘tongues’ in Baptist life; Burleson sees McKissic as SBC prez

ARLINGTON, Texas (ABP) — Wade Burleson thinks Dwight McKissic, the Texas pastor who caused a stir in the Southern Baptist Convention by acknowledging he speaks in “tongues” in private, will eventually be president of that 16-million-member group. If Burleson is…

Turkey’s few Baptists fear threats after murders, civil unrest

IZMIR, Turkey (ABP) — Turkey's handful of Baptists and other evangelical Christians fear increased persecution as the nation continues to reel from political upheaval and the brutal murder of three Christians, allegedly by radical Islamists. Meanwhile, Turkish Christians of all…

Jim Austin confirmed as executive for South Carolina Baptists

IRMO, S.C. (ABP) — Messengers to a special meeting of the South Carolina Baptist Convention April 26 voted without opposition to elect conservative Jim Austin as the new executive director-treasurer of the state convention. The vote, taken at Riverland Hills…

Non-partisan federal panel decries Iraq’s religious-freedom record

WASHINGTON (ABP) — For the first time since the United States overthrew Saddam Hussein four years ago, a non-partisan federal panel said May 2 that religious freedom in Iraq is gravely endangered. The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom,…

Worship pioneer Robert Webber dies of pancreatic cancer at 73

SAWYER, Mich. (ABP) — Robert Webber, one of the most influential figures in Christian worship during the last half century, died April 27 of pancreatic cancer in his Sawyer, Mich., home. He was 73. The author of more than 40…

Theologizing with Larkin Poe, 10 years after Reskinned

Ministry leader with tall tales wins GOP bid for Colorado governor

What Willy Rice once knew

What I learned July 5 at church