Why coercive religious politics undermine Christianity and democracy

BETHALO, Ill. (ABP) — A Southern Baptist and Illinois Baptist leader is scheduled to appear in court in February on a charge that he solicited a prostitute in a carwash parking lot. Charles West, former president of the Illinois Baptist…

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (ABP) — By a unanimous vote Jan. 11, Wayne Stacy, dean of the divinity school at Gardner-Webb University, will become pastor of a church in Florida. A South Florida native, Stacy, 53, was presented to the 1,600-member Southside…

WASHINGTON (ABP) — Conservative evangelicals involved in an anti-gay-marriage coalition are drawing fire from some of their ideological and spiritual comrades over associations with a Muslim group. A prominent Southern Baptist and other conservative evangelical leaders have denounced a coalition…

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) — Albert McClellan, a Baptist statesman and executive whose ministry spanned parts of six decades, died in Nashville, Tenn., Jan. 9 after a long illness. He was 91. McClellan worked for the Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee…

WASHINGTON (ABP) — The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the American Baptist Churches are sending relief funds to aid victims of the earthquake that virtually wiped out the Iranian city of Bam. The Dec. 26 temblor killed, according to the U.S….

WASHINGTON (ABP) — Two new polls seem to provide more bad news for supporters of gay rights and the candidates who court them. Polls recently released by National Public Radio and the Family Research Council show strong opposition both to…

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (ABP) — Evangelist Billy Graham is recovering in a Jacksonville hospital after partial hip-replacement surgery Jan. 6, according to a story in the Florida Times-Union. Billy Graham Evangelistic Association spokesman Larry Ross said Graham, 85, fell during the…

DALLAS (ABP) — Disaster-relief volunteers from Texas Baptist churches are slated to leave the United States Jan. 9 bound for Iran, where they will spend two weeks meeting the needs of people left homeless and hurting after a massive earthquake….

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (ABP) — Lewis A. Drummond, prominent evangelist and former president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, died Sunday in Asheville, N.C. Drummond, 77, suffered a heart attack on Christmas Day after battling cancer for several years. He is survived…

WASHINGTON (ABP) — A council of regional and tribal leaders has given approval to a new Afghan constitution containing provisions that fail to protect religious freedom, say international human-rights activists. About 500 delegates to the loya jirga, or grand assembly,…

BOCHUM, Germany (ABP) — A German Baptist theologian, who was cited as an example of “aberrant and dangerous” theology within the Baptist World Alliance, says the Southern Baptist committee that leveled those charges is guilty of lying and should repent….

WASHINGTON (ABP) — New Jersey has become the second state to authorize human cloning for therapeutic purposes. New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey (D) signed a bill Jan. 4 authorizing what supporters call “somatic cell nuclear transplantation,” but banning cloning for…