Baptist News Global

As someone with family in McMinn County, here’s how I’m straddling the fence on the debate over Maus

Several folks have asked my opinion about the recent controversy over the book Maus and its removal from the middle school curriculum in McMinn County, Tenn. Two disclosures: First, I have deep and abiding family roots in McMinn County. Second,…

Remembering the struggle to integrate even ‘progressive’ Baptist churches in the 1960s

Writing from a Birmingham jail cell in 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. expressed his profound disappointment with “white moderates” who “constantly advise the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’” We easily assume that, had we belonged to a…

600,000 prisoners will be released this year, and we need to do more to prepare them — and us — for their reentry to society

“I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick, and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”— Matthew 25:36 Innumerable dramatizations have made arrest, trial, conviction and prison imaginable to many Americans….

Yet another study confirms: Many pastors are hanging on by a thread

New research confirms that the past year has been an especially tough one for pastors in the United States as they’ve faced partisan rancor and feelings of isolation and stress that led a growing number to consider leaving full-time ministry….

It’s scary to watch fearmongers at work (but not in the way they think)

Raise your hand if you’re already sick of political ads. Much of the country still hasn’t voted in the primaries, and all of us have the general election to go. At this point, we can safely predict (a) 2022 is…

The solution to a peaceful world is respecting other people’s religious freedom, U.S. leader says

Nadine Maenza is nearing the end of a two-year term as chair of United States Commission on International Religious Freedom and a four-year term as a commissioner. USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan government agency that monitors religious freedom worldwide and…

‘Deconstruction’ is not a dirty word

On a fateful day during my third-grade year, my family was playing a board game and I was nearing victory. I rolled the dice and landed on a square that read, “Go back 17 spaces.” My family all laughed, as…

In survey of religious oppression across the globe, Russia, Afghanistan and China take center stage

Russia has spent recent years in diplomatic and economic hot water with the United States over its mounting human rights and religious freedom violations, including the persecution of Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Protestant Christians. But the ongoing invasion of Ukraine…

The rest of the story: Standing in someone’s winter

Last year, I wrote a column about a high school teacher who had made a substantive difference. It was the story of a woman who changed the trajectory of my life. I could not have foreseen the positive response I…

What will Twitter’s $44 billion purchase do to theological discourse?

Imagine if the online theological discourse that led to the rise of Donald Trump and the conservative determination to use political power and misinformation to push their agenda on others was owned by a man rich and powerful enough to buy and control it for $44…

Is a new archaeological find from Mount Ebal a game-changer or not?

Have you heard about the Mount Ebal inscription? It has excited a diverse group of individuals. From the nerdiest of the nerds who get lit about new ancient inscriptions to evangelical apologists who are enthusiastic when archaeology seems to corroborate…

A ‘Christian’ nation beset by false witness

It’s in the Bible. In fact, it’s one of the Ten Commandments: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” (See Exodus 20:16.) There’s more: Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self…

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