Baptist News Global

Transitions for the week of 10-15-21

Please submit transitions — including staff changes, ordinations, anniversaries or deaths — to Barbara Francis. This page will be updated bi-weekly. STAFF CHANGES Mike Anderson, to Springwood Baptist Church, Buchanan, Va., as interim pastor. Lonnie Brawley, concluding his tenure as pastor…

Apocalypse now? If only it were that easy!

I was scared; 16 years old and scared. Jesus Christ was going to return at any moment, and I was scared. It was the last night of church camp, and the preacher had practically promised that Jesus Christ would return…

CBF state organizations in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi to merge

Cooperative Baptist Fellowship state organizations in Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi have voted to merge into a single regional organization in a process facilitated by CBF leaders. “Our coordinating councils have all unanimously approved this and in each of our separate…

Listen for a change

White guys sporting ball caps and goatees, driving loud pickup trucks. You know the type. They’re everywhere, especially in the South. They get on my nerves, bigtime. Lately, I’ve found myself assuming they’re all obnoxious Trumpers — and probably racist…

Not your typical Pastor Appreciation Month

I confess, I haven’t given too much thought to Pastor Appreciation Month in years past. Most of my career was spent as part of vocational ministerial teams in local congregations. Asking for “appreciation” for oneself is certainly not apropos. Truth…

10 ways to appreciate clergy this month

For me, ministry is the family business. I am an ordained Baptist minister. Married to an ordained Baptist minister. My grandfather was a pastor, my dad is a pastor, my sister is a pastor. The rhythms and the risks of…

A prayer for the death of the death penalty

On Sept. 8, 2021, the United States Supreme Court took the unusual step of staying Texas’ execution of John Ramirez, a convicted murderer. The question the court has decided to consider is a narrow one. Notably, the question is not…

It’s tough being a pastor on World Hunger Sunday, but it’s harder to be hungry

In order to keep the senior minister from becoming popular, Plymouth Church observes World Hunger Day on the second Sunday of October each year. We sing hunger hymns none of us like. We add hunger to the list of prayer…

What seemed like an odd motion at the June SBC meeting now appears prescient

Lost among the big headlines of the June Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting — headlines about creation of a Sexual Abuse Task Force, a hotly contested presidential election and resolutions on Critical Race Theory and abortion — was a consequential…

Gov. Abbott’s COVID-19 vaccination ban tramples on my religious practice

Like me, many Christians in Texas live in a state of perpetual agitation over the actions of our governor, Greg Abbott, regarding sensible public health practices around the coronavirus pandemic. His latest action — an executive order “banning any entity in…

White supremacy permeates U.S. life, scholar says

The issue of white supremacy in the United States is not confined to people of the past who spewed racial hatred, researcher and author Robert P. Jones told a Baptist gathering in Kentucky. “When most white people hear the word…

Amid the pandemic and racial reckoning, most Americans give clergy high marks

A majority of Americans, churchgoing or otherwise, believe pastors are trustworthy and aware of the challenges faced by their local communities, new research by Barna shows. Among U.S. adults, 59% either “disagreed strongly” or “somewhat disagreed” that local clergy are…

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