Baptist News Global

MAGA equals authoritarianism, professor says in Shurden Lectures

The MAGA movement represents not only a yearning for a mythical golden age in American history but a strident campaign to transform the United States into a totalitarian nation, theologian Joseph Evans said. “What you hear in ‘Make America Great…

In an ironic twist, South Africa calls out Israel’s genocide

Yesterday marked the six-month anniversary of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. Still, we see the images of dead bodies wrapped in white sheets, women lamenting their fate, Gaza residents young and old with empty bowls and pots wondering when…

Letter to the Editor: Don’t downplay the realities in Gaza

April 8, 2024 Dear Editor: I am writing in response to “Netanyahu’s got to go but so do other obstacles to Mideast peace” by Erich Bridges, which itself is a response to Mark Wingfield’s “Netanyahu has turned Israel into an…

Is this the end of the world as we know it?

Back in 1987, the alternative rock band R.E.M. sang their hit song: “It’s the End of the World as We Know It.” The song clamors of catastrophic events devastating the earth (such as earthquakes, hurricanes, fires, continental drifts and military…

God’s divine plan for eclipses and ellipses

A few years ago, my teenage son beat me at chess. Because I’m a horrible chess player, I took the defeat with aplomb. Later the same day, though, he beat me at Scrabble. Now, that just plain hurt. I rarely…

Portents in the heavens and signs of the times: An eclipse, Harry Potter and a scholar changing his mind all in the same week

As if it were not enough to have Anne Graham Lotz and Marjorie Taylor Greene warning of God’s judgment on America through a solar eclipse, some in the Religious Right lost their minds over the weekend in two other social…

An oft-quoted biblical scholar changes his mind on LGBTQ inclusion in the church

Hang up your tweed jackets and lower your spectacles, people, something big just rattled all us scholarly types. Richard B. Hays has changed his mind on LGBTQ inclusion, and there are layers to this conversation. In 1996, Hays released Moral…

‘Broken Churches, Broken Nation?’ A crisis of our times

“The very worst omen of the times is the fact that the religious (people) of the country stand apart to so great an extent in this hour of trial. Most of the Churches have split on the very rock upon…

Searching for Grace: Bend or break?

This is the final in a five-part fictional story set in the early 1990s about Rev. Paul Graham and his congregation, Grace United Church of Christ. In previous episodes Tommy Branson, a gay man and a lifelong member of Paul’s…

We’re still terrified and amazed

I think I know why the women were too terrified to say anything that first Easter morning. It’s the Gospel of Mark’s year in the Lectionary, which means this Easter we were left with an unsatisfying ending to the resurrection…

Iowa governor signs religious freedom law at Christian group’s event

Iowa’s governor signed a Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law April 3, thrilling religious conservatives who claim it protects religious liberties while worrying liberals who fear it will be used to favor religious claims over other rights and open the…

Indiana court cites religious freedom as reason to override abortion ban

Religion won on the opposite side of an abortion case than usual April 4, part of a trend of those who favor access to abortion declaring they have a religious right to the procedure. That counters the more common narrative…

Matthew Vines sets off a debate over what it means to be ‘queer’

Dear Mike Johnson, be careful what you ask for

What, to the white Christian, is America 250?

Four years later, anti-abortionists battle on other fronts