Baptist News Global

Faith Commons becomes first organization and first interfaith work to receive T.B. Maston Ethics Award

Successful interfaith work is not seeking the lowest common denominator and watering down differences in beliefs, George Mason told supporters of the T.B. Maston Foundation Oct. 27 as he and colleague Nancy Kasten received the Maston Christian Ethics Award. The…

Dear Max Lucado, I speak in tongues too

Dear Max Lucado, I speak in tongues too. I still remember it like it was yesterday. I was a college student at Liberty University. As I sat confused, not knowing what to do, I began praying that April day and…

The Troubled Teen Industry, often linked to religion, is dangerous and deadly

Young people all over the internet are speaking out about their traumatic and life-altering experiences in something called the Troubled Teen Industry. The Troubled Teen Industry is “a system of underregulated residential youth treatment facilities” operating under the guise of…

When lying becomes a virtue

Is lying wrong? The question would have seemed impossible even 50 years ago. Now, the ninth commandment becomes expendable: “You shall not bear false witness.” If, as philosophers insist, we live in a post-truth age, we also live in the…

Baylor researchers get $2.5 million grant to help theologians and psychologists work together on human flourishing

A team of Baylor University researchers has landed a $2.5 million grant to train theologians how to use insights gleaned from the psychological sciences to study how human beings can live their most fulfilling lives. But the scholars involved also…

Should ‘real’ Christians really vote Republican today?

Numerous conservative pastors and commentators have declared to their flocks that true Christians must vote Republican if they are faithful. Chief among those is Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who told a conservative political action group this…

Transitions for the week of 11-4-22

Please submit transitions — including staff changes, ordinations, anniversaries or deaths — to Barbara Francis. This page will be updated bi-weekly. STAFF CHANGES Jose Aguilera, to Grace Baptist Church, Woodbridge, Va., as Hispanic pastor. Brian Ball, to First Baptist Church, Summitville,…

Blessing is not about good fortune; it is akin to God’s love

This is the second in a November series produced by BNG on what it means to be “blessed,” a word so flippantly used that it often loses meaning. #Blessed. It’s as common these days as saying the perfunctory “God bless…

Escaping the current double bind in church leadership

Listening to clergy, church staff, lay leaders, they describe being caught in the classic double bind. On the one hand, they want their churches to flourish in this emerging new environment. The pandemic is largely over, presenting wonderful opportunities for…

Blooming where we’re planted at Bubba-Doo’s

When one of your favorite hangouts is an old country store, you come to understand that you are at a small crossroads of the world. People stop in who are local. They live in the neighborhood, so to speak. Then…

What churches should know — and do — about a homelessness problem you likely didn’t know about

When it comes to college, “getting in is only half the battle,” according to Anthony Abraham Jack, professor at the Harvard School of Education. Elsewhere he has said: “Before all else, colleges must meet students’ basic needs.” Unfortunately, the nation’s…

Measure your political ideology against the life and witness of Jesus, Bishop Curry advises

Don’t be fooled by the “Christian” in Christian nationalism, warns Michael Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. “What we’re actually describing is an ideology that’s not really a religion, but it looks like a religion and uses and invokes…

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