Baptist News Global

Why I’m quitting church: I’ve got better things to do than watch my pastor be run off over race

World Series. Halloween. Time Change. Full Moon. Election. COVID. And for me: Goodbye Church. I love my church here in Georgia and my ministers, my Sunday school class, and the friends I have made. But today, I resolved to put…

Elections have consequences, and now my marriage may be at stake

Raise your hand if the U.S. Supreme Court decided whether or not you could marry. I see you, folks in interracial marriages and you queer folks. Now raise your hand if justices on the current Supreme Court want to invalidate…

The Beatitudes for 2020

Listen now, for this is the way of the world: Blessed are the rich, for they can buy the earth. Blessed are the powerful, for they will control the people. Blessed are the war makers, for they will conquer the…

Happy Halloween, but this year I don’t need anything else to fear

I’ve always hated Halloween. I didn’t like it as a kid. The creepy faces, the scary clowns. It was all too unnerving. That didn’t change when I became an adult. The Halloween after my college graduation, sitting at the desk…

Why herd immunity is worse than other potential ethical concerns about a COVID-19 vaccine

The ethical issues surrounding development of a COVID-19 vaccine are complex but pale in comparison to the deaths that would be necessary to reach so-called “herd immunity” in the United States. Questions get raised about the feared use of fetal tissue from…

Is there a message from God in the pandemic?

Author, speaker and Baptist minister Alan Rudnick said he’s considered writing a column asking if God sent the coronavirus to plague humankind. “And, of course I would end by saying ‘no,’” said Rudnick, senior minister-elect at DeWitt Community Church in…

Protestants helped create the death of expertise but also can help reclaim it

“Go to seminary, but don’t let them teach you anything.” That’s what I remember from my conversation with my beloved Southern Baptist pastor when, about to graduate from college, I told him I was heading to seminary. I don’t remember…

Prescription for a divided nation: Love and forgiveness

It didn’t surprise me in recent weeks to read articles like the essay Gene Weingarten wrote for the Washington Post in which he lamented the fact that “I find myself profoundly disliking and disrespecting almost half of my countrymen and…

Your gospel is too small

September 11, 2001. Although post-graduate theological diplomas decorated my book-stuffed office and 40 years of pastoral ministry were under my belt, I was speechless that Tuesday morning when hijacked airplanes demolished more than national icons. What was I to say…

If court reverses same-sex marriage it will do so against what majority of Americans want

While members of the LGBTQ community and their allies expressed fear and outrage over the rushed appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court this week, new polling data shows the American public is on their side —…

‘All Souls to the Polls’ engages churches to make voting fun and accessible

Contentious, high-stakes elections are nothing new to Darryl Warren Aaron or his members at Providence Baptist Church in Greensboro, N.C. But there is a different feel surrounding the 2020 general election, said the pastor of the city’s oldest Black congregation….

From religion to immigration to COVID, Fox News creates divisions even among Republicans

One simple question may be the most reliable predictor of the strength of a conservative person’s political views in this hotly contested election year. That question: Do you trust Fox News? From religion to immigration to race to the economy…

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