Baptist News Global

Pay attention to what’s happening in Myanmar, Baptist pastors plead

Current and former refugees from Myanmar welcome the political pressure bearing down on the nation’s military since it staged a coup against a democratically elected government Feb. 1. But much more pressure is needed, they say. “I am very disturbed…

Why I wrote about hope in disarray

Three years ago, when I first started to write Hope in Disarray, the world was a very different place. It seems that the world back then was churning through time at rapid speed, unaware and untroubled by the destined forces…

Transitions for the week of 2-19-21

Please submit transitions — including staff changes, ordinations, anniversaries or deaths — to Barbara Francis. This page will be updated bi-weekly. STAFF CHANGES Jonathan Balmer, to Mount Hermon Baptist Church, Moseley, Va., as pastor. He comes from Seventh & James Baptist…

With Invictus Howard Goodall tells Christ’s Passion mainly through texts written by women

When Howard Goodall set out to write a fresh choral work on the Passion of Christ, he knew full well the giants who had trod this ground before, especially the ever-present Johann Sebastian Bach. Yet he also knew the overwhelming…

‘For fear of the Jews’: Confronting Christian anti-Semitism

As we enter into the season of Lent and draw near to Holy Week, we dig deep into narratives of the coming suffering and death of Jesus, and into what has been — across the centuries — a time when…

On religious liberty views and other issues, there’s still a wide gap between evangelicals and the rest of America

If recent surveys of religious beliefs and practices have revealed anything, it’s that white evangelicals are out of step with the rest of the nation on just about every social and political measure. “White evangelicals are just on another planet,…

What do we do now? The blessing and curse of COVID to the church

It’s a shame when an opportunity is lost. Don’t lose the opportunity that COVID presents. That probably sounds counterintuitive. What opportunities have presented themselves through this pandemic? Frustration. Yes, frustration is an opportunity. Don’t miss this opportunity because frustration has…

State conventions beyond the South question SBC North American Mission Board’s spending and accountability for church planting

A decade-long disagreement over how Southern Baptists fund church planting and missions in North America is coming to a head and threatens the sanctity of the denomination’s spirit of cooperative giving. The result: State conventions outside the South are reducing…

Loving my neighbor by being an ‘active bystander’

I grew up as a missionary kid in a country where political and racial differences led to bloodshed and genocide. This was not actively directed toward American missionaries. They were bystanders. Often they had no opportunity to intervene because the…

A lesson from Texas: Winterization of power stations and the Golden Rule

As a record-breaking wave of arctic weather sweeps across the nation, the biggest energy producing state, Texas, is crippled. The state’s leaders are quick to point fingers at green energy alternatives like wind and solar, claiming such sources of power…

‘Hour of decision’? Evangelicalism in a post-church, post-Trump era

In 1950, evangelist Billy Graham initiated a radio program called the “Hour of Decision,” an audio vehicle for dispensing the call to conversion on the airwaves of America and the world. Actually, it was only a 30-minute broadcast, but what…

During Lent, I’m learning to walk with a limp

As a small-town Southern Baptist, I had little if any idea what Lent was until I lived with Scoop. Scoop, my junior-year roommate at the University of Georgia, was a somewhat intermittently practicing Catholic — he called himself a “High…

Trump’s war on ‘woke’ targets federal grants and foreign relations

Reflections on In the Twilight of the Christian West

Why rural families need support now

Why do we keep sounding the alarm?