Baptist News Global

Baptist Scholars Roundtable considers the future of training church leaders

The Baptist Scholars International Roundtable took on a typically hefty theme during its August meeting in Oxford, England. “The subject we explored this time was what and how seminaries should be teaching future church leaders,” said roundtable co-director and fellow…

Is it possible for a Baptist school to maintain top-tier recognition and still discriminate against gay students?

Although this time it’s Samford University in the news for discrimination against the LGBTQ community, walking the line between religious heritage and academic aspirations is nothing new for faith-based schools. Last year, it was Baylor University making headlines as it…

George Barna and the Barna Group are no longer the same — and one has joined forces with political activists

The founder of a respected evangelical polling company now works as a senior fellow with one of the most partisan evangelical advocacy groups in Washington, D.C. Although the Barna Group, which he founded in 1984 as Barna Research, still bears…

Christians could be a distinct minority in America by 2070

If current trends continue, Christians will become a distinct minority in America and the “nones” will make up more than half the population by 2070. “Nones” are those people who when asked their religious affiliation reply, “none,” although most are…

Hell is other people, but heaven is, too

Jessica Williamson, a receptionist at a gym in Los Angeles, gets bored, makes a poster and ends up with her story on public radio’s This American Life. She writes “CAT FOUND!!!” above two pictures of possums that she prints off…

Voting the wrong way makes Christians ‘unfaithful’ to God, Mohler says

Christians who fail to vote or who vote “wrongly” are “unfaithful” to God, Al Mohler told a group of conservative evangelicals Sept. 14. The president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., and a leading spokesman for Southern Baptists…

We are hurt by Samford’s exclusion

Baptist Church of the Covenant in Birmingham, Ala., is a vibrant, Spirit-filled Baptist congregation that was formed out of protest. In 1970, when a Black mother and daughter were refused membership at First Baptist Church because of their race, roughly…

100 clergy who are Samford grads urge president to reverse exclusionary policy

More than 100 clergy who are alumni of Samford University have signed an open letter to university President Beck Taylor asking for a reversal of the school’s new policy to exclude from campus ministries churches that affirm same-sex marriage. “We…

These Christians are leaving behind the church, but not their faith

In their 2015 book Church Refugees, Josh Packard and Ashleigh Hope discuss a demographic of people they call the “dechurched” or the “dones.” This group of Christians consists of people of faith who want to maintain their spiritual lives but…

Religious groups step up as DeSantis and Abbott make immigrants pawns for publicity

Religious groups are teaming with migrant advocacy networks and government agencies to serve asylum seekers recently sent by bus to Washington, D.C., and by plane to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., by the governors of Arizona, Texas and Florida to protest White…

Samford doubles down on LGBTQ exclusion, claiming nothing has changed, which some alumni say is a lie

Editor’s note: On Tuesday, Sept. 13, BNG sent two separate requests to appropriate media relations staff members of Samford University seeking a response to the events described in this article and two previous articles. As of this publication, three days…

‘Reverend, they ain’t ever coming back’: Confronting churchly realities 2022

Early on in the COVID crisis, I had a long conversation with a close pastor friend about changes in American church life occurring before our eyes. We talked about what I call “the changing sociology of Sunday,” a demographic-cultural reality…

An American experiment: 250 years of trying

10 reasons America is not a ‘Christian nation’

American Dominion traces deep roots of Seven Mountain Mandate

Lindsey Graham and the history of ‘widow’s succession’