Baptist News Global

Fear drives Christian nationalists, William Barber says

Christian nationalists oppose the teaching of Black history and Critical Race Theory out of fear the subjects could spark compassion for marginalized people, civil rights leader William Barber II said during a radio show hosted by Interfaith Alliance. “The forces…

Want to ‘protect the children’? Start somewhere other than fearing LGBTQ people

A rhetoric of “protecting the children” has been gaining momentum over the last two years, and it’s targeting the LGBTQ community. On June 9, the hashtag “LeaveOurKidsAlone” was used on Twitter to celebrate young kids trampling Pride flags. The hashtag…

A Southwesterner’s appreciation for Russell Dilday

The president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary from 1978 to 1994, Russell Hooper Dilday, died June 21, at the age of 92. Under his leadership, Southwestern reached heights of enrollment and impact seen neither before nor after by a Southern…

The influence of celebrity culture on the court, in the church and in journalism

While the Denver Nuggets defeated the Miami Heat to win the NBA title for the first time in their 47-year history last week, Southern Baptist complementarians defeated the egalitarians to win the title of “pastor” exclusively for men for the…

Judge blocks anti-trans law in Arkansas, saying the law is based on faulty ideas

An Arkansas law banning transgender care has been struck down because it discriminates against transgender people, violates the free speech rights of doctors and would harm the very young people it seeks to protect. As BNG reported last month, Arkansas…

In other news, the SBC is not threatened by AI but is threatened by transgender people

Amid all the headlines about the Southern Baptist Convention’s stance against women in ministry last week, other actions that would have made headlines in a normal year fell from view. Two such actions came in the form of resolutions among…

Transvestigation: The new eugenics

Behind a sliding bookcase in the library of a house in Buenos Aires lies a secret room. There, in July 2017, federal police in Argentina discovered the largest cache of Nazi memorabilia in the country’s history. Most of the items…

Transitions for the week of 6-23-23

Please submit transitions — including staff changes, ordinations, anniversaries or deaths — to Barbara Francis. This page will be updated bi-weekly. STAFF CHANGES Nick Boden, to First Baptist Church, Carrollton, Ga., as organist. Most recently he was organist for Peachtree Presbyterian…

Belmont says no to Promise Keepers after warning of ‘mutilated bodies’ in anti-trans post

Spreading “biblical” hate speech about transgender people apparently got Promise Keepers booted from using a venue at Belmont University for a fall event. Although details are sketchy and contested, the bottom line appears to be that the evangelical men’s organization…

Russell Dilday, Baptist statesman

Russell H. Dilday, whose tenure as president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, saw the school’s endowment more than double while leading the seminary to it its greatest period of growth but who was fired in 1994…

GOP candidates make their case to conservative Christian activists

They’re off and running, and if history is any guide, most white evangelicals will vote for one of these 11 candidates in the 2024 presidential race, now some 500 days away. So far, polls show Donald Trump far ahead of…

Another study shows majority of Americans want to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination

A majority of Americans oppose using religious beliefs to deny employment, medical care and business services to LGBTQ people, a new survey shows. The study even found most religiously active people disprove of such discrimination based on sexual preference or…

Supreme Court slides into partisanship

Before the fireworks, be careful what you drink

The contemptible case of Clarence Thomas

The permanent paradoxes of Christian thinking about war