Why coercive religious politics undermine Christianity and democracy

DALLAS (ABP) — Christian cartoons are nothing new. They're everywhere from gospel tracts to Christian magazines and newsletters. But a Christian cartoon as a nationally syndicated feature in secular newspapers? That's almost unprecedented. Despite the fact cartoonist Kevin Frank's upcoming…

RALEIGH, N.C. (ABP) — One of the most outspoken and legendary liberals in Southern Baptist life has died. William Wallace Finlator “thought the German theologian Karl Barth was right that a preacher should preach with a Bible in one hand…

WASHINGTON (ABP) — President Bush has chosen a low-profile think-tank leader to head the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Bush announced Aug. 3 that he had tapped Jay Hein, currently president of the conservative Sagamore Institute for…

Robert Marus/ABP Amy Walker (seated) tearfully expresses thanks to community-service groups at a media-studded ceremony where she received the keys to a new mobile home provided through a collaboration between religious, commercial and government organizations. BAYOU LA BATRE, Ala. (ABP)…

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (ABP) — The Missouri Baptist Convention and Missouri Baptist University must sit down and discuss possible solutions to their ongoing legal battle. In 2002 the convention sued five of its agencies that decided to elect their own…

Robert Marus/ABP Amy Hardee, a North Carolina minister who serves as a volunteer relief coordinator in the town of Pass Christian, Miss., explains to a visitor some of the plans the Hurricane Katrina-decimated town has for redeveloping its historic beachfront…

HOUSTON (ABP) — Robert Sloan, new president of the Houston Baptist University, says he doesn't expect the school to abandon its ties to the traditional Texas Baptist convention in favor of its competitor, the fundamentalist Southern Baptists of Texas Convention….

BEIRUT (ABP) — As international negotiations to end the war in Lebanon proceeded slowly Aug. 8, Lebanese Baptist leaders questioned whether two Baptist schools, now housing hundreds of refugees displaced by the conflict, will be able to begin the academic…

FORNEY, Texas (ABP) — A Texas mission team, trapped in war-torn Lebanon when Israel invaded July 13, says prayer, patience and the love of a Baptist congregation in Beirut helped them through the ordeal. The 10-member team originally set out…

GULFPORT, Miss. (ABP) — Members of First Baptist Church of Gulfport have learned a lot in the year since Hurricane Katrina destroyed their waterfront church buildings. Mostly they've learned that a church is much more than an edifice. “It's an…

HOUSTON (ABP) — Houston Baptist University trustees elected Robert Sloan, the controversial former president of Baylor University, as president of the 2,300-student school Aug. 8. Sloan will assume the presidency Sept. 1, becoming the school's third president since its founding…

ATLANTA (ABP) — Tom Stocks, the pastor for 17 years at Rosalind Hills Baptist Church in Roanoke, Va., never thought he would need a sabbatical. But in January — after recent staff changes, three church fund-raising campaigns in five years,…