Baptist News Global

Transitions for the week of 6-17-22

Please submit transitions — including staff changes, ordinations, anniversaries or deaths — to Barbara Francis. This page will be updated bi-weekly. STAFF CHANGES Kristofer Anderson, to Buechel Park Baptist Church, Louisville, Ky., as interim music director. Mike Anderson, to Springwood Baptist…

Many voices call for prosecution of mob who lynched and burned Christian student in Nigeria

Four weeks after the brutal mob murder of Deborah Samuel, a 22-year-old Nigerian Christian student of Shehu Shagari College of Education, reactions to her killing and the demand for the prosecution of her killers have not ceased. On May 12,…

Religious Liberty Council elects two BJC board members

Members of the Religious Liberty Council on June 15 elected two candidates to serve as representatives on the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty board of directors and re-elected three already serving on the board. The council, which is one…

Hymn Stories: ‘Will You Come and Follow Me’

Do you remember singing the children’s Sunday school song “I will make you fishers of men”? Often it accompanied learning the biblical narrative of Jesus calling his first disciples, Simon Peter and Andrew. This stirring song so captured our imaginations…

Still no external review of North American Mission Board finances

For at least two years, critics of the current leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention North American Mission Board have been seeking some way to crack open the mission board’s books, where they believe fraud is being hidden. This week,…

The SBC rebuffed its most extreme factions but remains extremely conservative

By some accounts, the Southern Baptist Convention once again rejected its most extreme factions during this year’s annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif. But by any outside measure, the nation’s largest non-Catholic denomination remains extremely conservative. Defining the term “conservative” within…

Attempt to dismantle SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission fails

In yet another setback to the most conservative wing of the Southern Baptist Convention, an attempt to disband the denomination’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission failed June 15. This vote was the culmination of a years-long campaign against the ERLC…

Brian Foreman named CBF’s coordinator of congregational ministries

North Carolina educator Brian Foreman has been named coordinator of congregational ministries for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. He was chosen for the newly created position by an eight-member search committee, then affirmed in the role by the CBF Governing Board….

A Bubba-Doo’s regular loses a loved one

I stopped outside the door at my favorite hangout, Bubba-Doo’s, to hold it open for an acquaintance. I knew Landrum from his occasional visits there to the country store. He showed up some afternoons and very rarely said much. In…

Most Americans hang out with people who are a lot like them

A majority of Americans associate most closely with people who look, think, vote and worship like them, according to new research by Public Religion Research Institute. “Across demographic groups, Americans’ core friendship networks tend to be dominated by people of…

The oxymoron of being both anti-abortion and pro-gun

The recent mass murder events help to nudge the conscience, a conscience that has been beaten senseless by the incessant beating of the anti-abortion drum and the idolatrous-like worship of the Second Amendment. The oxymoron of being both anti-abortion and…

Southern Baptists approve sexual abuse response and debate doctrinal parameters

Southern Baptists spent their annual meeting debating how tight the doctrinal boundaries should be around the denomination’s fellowship. Sexual abusers are out. But so are members of the LGBTQ community and those who support them. Women pastors are out, although a…

How much is enough?

Robert Sloan, Baptist educator, dies at 77

What patriotism is not

Amid flurry of rulings, habeas corpus spells trouble for Trump immigration policies