Baptist News Global

Faith community nurses ‘carry the hope’ during COVID-19 pandemic

As many look toward local and state health departments, health care providers or even the news for trusted coronavirus information, people of faith are also leaning on faith community nurses. A lesser-known specialty practice, faith community nursing aims to care…

What I learned by listening to women pastors during the pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a differential impact on women. In particular, working mothers have faced a greater burden of child care and home schooling than men and have ended up leaving the work force in significantly greater numbers than…

Coronavirus challenging denominational summer conventions yet again

For the second year, denominational annual meetings are being derailed and reworked due to the coronavirus pandemic. This will have an urgent effect on the United Methodist Church, which already had delayed from last year a critical vote on the…

Why vote to fund something you won’t ever use?

Last fall, my hometown of Austin, Texas, put a monumental public transportation bond question on the ballot: light rail, tunnels underneath downtown, electric buses. Austin’s Capitol Metro called the plan “bold.” Another way to say that: “Billions.” Austin voters have…

Matter-of-fact statements about Scripture aren’t always the gospel truth

It was a beautiful September day on the campus of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. The sun was shining brightly through the Beech trees along Lexington Road as they turned from green to orange. I ran down the stairwell from my…

Some Methodist churches finding greater mission results with simplified governance

If there’s an aspect of church life that United Methodists love more than a potluck supper, it’s structure. After all, John Wesley — who imbibed structure as a means of discipleship from his mother, Susanna — founded the Methodist movement…

Black History Month: Remembering, waiting, watching

Black History Month has ended for 2021. This year during Black History Month the Public Broadcasting System aired a four-hour documentary, produced by Henry Louis Gates, about the Black church. Across the nation, people paid tribute to the contributions by…

Diverse religious coalition urges Congress to finalize the Equal Rights Amendment

Religious groups are joining forces to breathe life into the Equal Rights Amendment and to push back against conservative white evangelicals opposed to granting women full legal protections under the U.S. Constitution. About 50 Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and…

Canada labels Uyghur repression ‘genocide,’ but that’s not as exemplary as you might think

This week, Canada’s Parliament voted to label China’s treatment of its Uyghur Muslim minority as “genocide.” This makes Canada the second country in the world after the United States to describe Beijing’s egregious repression as it is. A bit of…

She’s Gen-Z, became leery of the church but practices faith with fitness

Tia Howell didn’t invent the idea that mind, body and spirit are intimately connected, but the 24-year-old personal fitness coach in Mount Holly, N.C., lives it as she would a calling. She’s also among one of the fastest-growing groups in…

About disfellowshipping churches based on the ‘clear’ teaching of Scripture

Two churches were disfellowshipped this week by the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee for “affirming homosexuality within their memberships.” I have ties to at least one of the churches — friends, colleagues and former students and seminary and Sunday school…

What the SBC should learn from the Ravi Zacharias tragedy

According to an investigative report released earlier this month, deceased celebrity evangelist Ravi Zacharias abused multiple women with “sexting, unwanted touching, spiritual abuse and rape.” The evidence is overwhelming. The details are stark and nauseating. Many have described the report…

The wicked are punished — or not

What Ryan Burge sees in America’s megachurches

We are a nation of immigrants

As worldwide deaths mount, Musk insists DOGE cuts didn’t kill anyone