Baptist News Global

It’s not your imagination: Polling data confirm conservatives’ flip on morality in candidates, and Herschel Walker is Exhibit B

That conservative evangelicals appear to be turning a blind eye to Herschel Walker’s documented moral failures illustrates the flip-flop on valuing moral behavior found within the Republican Party over the past 20 years, according to research by journalist Aaron Blake…

‘These are not your people’

Meeting up with good friends recently, we all hugged and chatted about changes in our lives during the tumultuous pandemic. Everyone, of course, contributed with updates. At one point, I shared that a decision we made didn’t seem to be…

Burnettes’ Florida food-growing ministry badly damaged by Hurricane Ian

Cooperative Baptist field personnel Rick Burnette and his wife, Ellen, have been worn thin since Hurricane Ian wiped out Cultivate Abundance, the food-growing ministry they operate for migrant farmworkers in Southwest Florida. The couple has been working to address significant…

Why can’t churches get handling abuse right?

Yet another evangelical megachurch is repenting for mishandling clergy sex abuse. Every few days, it seems, we’re hearing about a different instance of a pastor or church leader who has abused women and/or children and a church (or denomination) that…

SBC president appears on ’60 Minutes,’ tells Anderson Cooper he couldn’t be a good Christian and Southern Baptist as a gay man

The president of the Southern Baptist Convention sat for an interview with an openly gay journalist and told him on national TV Oct. 9 that he could not be a good Christian and Southern Baptist. On the CBS program “60…

Letter to the Editor: ‘Ship of Fools’ has sailed

Letter to the Editor October 9, 2022 Dear Editor: My first recollection of the song “Ship of Fools” was in college while reading Book VI of Plato’s Republic in a political science class. An allegory using a ship with a…

Separate filings accuse two SBC agencies of misleading courts to delay trial and avoid scrutiny

It hasn’t been a good week for Southern Baptist Convention entities defending themselves against lawsuits. Court filings in the two most prominent such cases have accused SBC leadership of intentionally misleading the court and, in one case, committing perjury. The…

Mercer gets $9.6 million grant to address public school teacher retention and diversification

Mercer University’s Tift College of Education is embarking on a partnership with five Georgia school districts to strengthen teacher recruitment and workforce diversification through a $9.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education. In announcing the project, the Macon,…

In Central Texas, the Naomi House makes me proud to be a Baptist again

I never imagined I would utter, much less think, these words: “I am proud to be a Baptist.” But it happened. I don’t need to recount the long laundry list of problems with our denomination or with the church in…

New leader of Neighborhood Economics connects his work to his Baptist upbringing

Leroy Barber, co-founder and president of the Voices Project and former director of Innovation for the Greater Northwest area of the United Methodist Church, has joined Neighborhood Economics as its new executive director. Neighborhood Economics is an organization dedicated “to…

The importance of making virginity a personal choice within Christianity

John Chrysostom in his Major Treatises on Virginity argued that the first human beings were “adorned by virginity,” as they lived in a perfect and non-sexual state before the fall of humankind. Once the first sin occurred, this adornment ended,…

Thom Rainer launches new emphasis on evangelism

Thom Rainer is widely known as the former head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Lifeway Christian Resources, but now he is set to open a new chapter as he launches both a new company and a new book, I Am…

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