Baptist News Global

Supreme Court declines to reinstate Florida ban on drag shows

“Pro-family” groups that hoped the U.S. Supreme Court would defend a Florida law banning drag shows were disappointed by a decision announced a week before Thanksgiving that leaves the law unenforceable while a legal battle continues over its constitutionality. The…

Immigration advocates deplore House Republicans’ effort to tie Ukraine aid to severe border measures

Immigration rights advocates are pleading with Congress to reject any foreign aid legislation that includes permanent and severe reductions to asylum access for migrants. The appeal was issued as Senate Republicans seek to make border security issues a key condition…

Big ideas at human size: An interview with Carrie Newcomer

Carrie Newcomer may be the holiest person I’ve ever met. The Quaker singer-songwriter embodies the peace and universal love that characterize Quakerism, and it comes across clearly in her songs, which are peopled with characters who are flawed, searching, quirky,…

Even as Biden supports their interest in Israel, white evangelicals disapprove of his job performance

White evangelical Christians — the core supporters of Donald Trump — overwhelmingly disapprove of the job President Joe Biden is doing, but also strongly disapprove of his handling of the war between Israel and Hamas, which many Democrats complain has…

As SBC moves toward second vote on Law Amendment, debate continues on just what it means

Just how restrictive will the Southern Baptist Convention become if messengers to next summer’s SBC annual meeting approve a second reading of a proposed constitutional amendment against women in ministry? It depends on who’s doing the explaining. One of the…

What I learned teaching incarcerated white students about structural racism

Note: This is the final in a three-part series by Chris Caldwell about his work in Kentucky prisons. The course I taught this summer in two Kentucky prisons was one I created a couple years ago at our HBCU:…

Jack Tales: Remembering Jack Causey

Growing up in Southern Appalachia, I was reared on what the mountain and foothill people called Jack Tales. Stories involving a young protagonist who finds himself in a world that sounds familiar but is filled with the unfamiliar. Jack’s adventures…

Hawks and Felton to lead CBF advocacy efforts

The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is expanding its advocacy work with the addition of two new staff members announced Nov. 30. Jennifer Hawks, associate general counsel for Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty in Washington, D.C., has been named CBF’s director…

The horror of Let Us Prey may not be as far from home as you think

“Every IFB church is a powder keg ready to explode,” says Eric Skwarczynski on Let Us Prey: A Ministry of Scandals, which released last weekend on HBO Max and Investigation Discovery. The four-part docuseries follows the stories of sexual abuse survivors…

How churches can participate in the Indigenous Land Back movement and why they should

In 1777, Cherokee statesman Kaiyahtehee, also known as “Old Tassel,” arrived at Fort Henry near the Long Island in the Holston River to negotiate a treaty with commissioners from the state of North Carolina. The treaty would give America land…

30 years ago, RFRA passed with support from a broad coalition unimaginable today

It’s difficult to imagine in today’s bitterly divided America the political, religious and civic alliance that helped pass the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993, said Amanda Tyler, executive director of Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. “This coalition was…

Are our churches prepared for Christian autocracy?

A 1638 treatise titled A Discourse about Civil Government in a new Plantation whose design is Religion, written in response to the founding of New Haven, Conn., contained this definition of a properly Christianized government: Theocracy, or to make the…

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