When our church was tested by fire

MACON, Ga. (ABP) — Bill Underwood, interim president of Baylor University, was elected president of Mercer University Dec. 2, promising to retain the school's historic Baptist identity despite a recent break with the Georgia Baptist Convention. “I'm a Baptist,” the…

SAN'A, Yemen (ABP) — A Muslim man convicted of plotting the December 2002 terror attack that killed three Southern Baptist missionaries in Yemen was executed Nov. 27, according to several news reports. Ali al-Jarallah died at the hands of a…

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (ABP) — South Africa's highest court said Dec. 1 that the nation's constitution requires it to legalize same-sex marriage. The Constitutional Court delayed its ruling for a year to give Parliament time to rewrite the nation's 1961…

LAKE FOREST, Calif. (ABP) -– The pastor at the Southern Baptist Convention's largest church used a conference timed to conclude on World AIDS Day to announce a new commitment to caring for the millions of people infected with HIV and…

INDIANAPOLIS (ABP) — A federal judge in Indiana has said that state's practice of allowing explicitly Christian prayers to open legislative sessions violates the Constitution. In a Nov. 30 ruling, Federal District Judge David Hamilton ordered a halt to official…

WASHINGTON (ABP) — On a day when anti-abortion protesters gathered outside the Supreme Court's building, the justices inside concerned themselves with a decades-old case on whether federal law can ban certain protests at abortion clinics. The Nov. 30 arguments in…

ATLANTA (ABP) — For years, Jorge Zayasbazan's mission has been starting churches. But as his National Guard unit soon heads to Iraq, he will have an entirely different mission. Zayasbazan, pastor of Grace Chapel in Round Lake Beach, Ill., will…

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (ABP) — Moderate Baptists in North Carolina are now talking seriously about “realignment,” a move that could divert millions in contributions from the conservative-controlled Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. Executives of virtually all of the convention's institutions…

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (ABP) — The International Mission Board will no longer appoint Southern Baptist missionaries who use a “private prayer language” — a controversial practice related to speaking in tongues and previously practiced by IMB president Jerry Rankin. The Southern…