Baptist News Global

If you’re uncertain how to approach Israel and Gaza, start with grief

I’ve known churches that have been on the frontlines of every concern of justice, congregations in which you could well assume nearly everyone is voting for the same candidate at the top of the ticket, churches in which no controversial…

The Canceling of the American Mind: Both right and left embrace cancel culture in battle for power

If you believe conservative Christian groups like Focus on the Family and Summit Ministries, canceling others is something people on the political left do to people on the right. The authors of a recent book perform a valuable social function…

Mercer scholar studies Muslim women who marry non-Muslim men

Muslim women in Western and Islamic societies are increasingly standing up against Quranic interpretations barring them from marrying non-Muslims, religion scholar Shehnaz Haqqani said. “My respondents insist their marriages are Islamically valid and Islamically grounded, and that their marriages are…

Children fleeing alone need our compassion and protection

Violence, conflict and oppression seem to be everywhere these days. The horrors in the Middle East, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Syria, Haiti and many more places are devastating to contemplate. And the dangerous flight for safety they spur: Life-threatening travels on overcrowded…

Interfaith coalition produces ‘Faith in Elections Playbook’ to guide faith leaders

A national interfaith group and a cross-partisan democracy nonprofit have partnered to create a comprehensive online guide to faith-based involvement in the 2024 primaries and general election. The “Faith in Elections Playbook” provides detailed instructions congregations and other religious groups…

Black Gospel Music Preservation Program fine tunes the art of cultural preservation

Note: This is the last in a five-part series on the Black Gospel Music Preservation Program made possible by generous funding from the Prichard Family Foundation. While Baylor University’s Black Gospel Music Preservation Program is all about the music,…

The vice and the cure

Livy, the great poet of Rome, once said: “We have reached the point where we cannot bear either our vices or their cure.” As was true for the Romans, so it is for us. The political and social fabric of…

Humans in the hands of a silent God

Any more, as I hear about the bad and violent actions people take against other people, I shudder. I held onto a naivete about how “good” people — those who believe in God — were somehow better, that their relationship…

Faithful America inducts 12 more into its ‘false prophets’ hall of fame

Two weeks into his new job, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives already has made the list. Although it’s a list he might not want to be on. Mike Johnson is one of 12 “false prophets” highlighted this…

Lloyd Elder, Southern Baptist statesman

Southern Baptist statesman Lloyd Elder died Nov. 3 at age 90. Elder was the last “moderate” leader of the Southern Baptist Sunday School Board, forced out in 1991 by trustees elected through the “conservative resurgence” that had begun in 1979….

Coalition of Baptist leaders will file amicus brief challenging NAMB’s view of First Amendment

Will McRaney’s legal case against the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board will take a dramatic turn this week as a group of state Baptist convention leaders, former NAMB employees and former denominational officials submit an amicus brief alleging NAMB…

Making sense of the senseless death of an Alabama pastor

I did not know F.L. “Bubba” Copeland, but I probably have more insights into his tragic story than most Baptist pastors. Copeland, mayor of Smiths Station, Ala., and pastor of First Baptist Church in nearby Phenix City, took his own…

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