Baptist News Global

Why a biblical inerrancy-based bill in the Texas Senate matters

Texas Senate Bill 17 raises serious questions. This year’s Bible-impacted legislation is intended to protect people of faith from the LGBTQ “agenda.” Fifty years ago, the debate involved a similar “biblical” and “legal” response to civil rights for African Americans.

If Trump came to your church, what sermon would you want him to hear?

Many of President Trump’s actions are antithetical to the Gospel. But anger cannot be everything that Trump’s backers hear from us. Ministers would be better off, at times, asking the Spirit to help the president and his defenders understand that God loves all people.

Survivors support bill to criminalize adult sexual abuse by clergy

Survivors of clergy sexual abuse and experts from across the country traveled to Maine March 29 to support legislation making it a crime for clergy members to abuse their positions of trust to have sexual relations with adults.

Why all Christians, not just Baptists, are profoundly indebted to Glenn Hinson

A weekend of lectures on the life and teaching of Baptist historian E. Glenn Hinson prompts further reflection on Hinson’s contributions over six decades. These are just four of his many gifts to the Christian community.

Transitions for the week of 4-5-19

Please submit transitions — including staff changes, ordinations, anniversaries or deaths — to Barbara Francis. This page will be updated weekly. STAFF CHANGES Dennis Barton, to Oakland Baptist Church, Gum Spring, Va., as interim pastor, effective April 28. David Breckenridge,…

James E. Wood, Baylor scholar and BJC leader, dead at 96

James E. Wood Jr., a Baptist statesman and scholar recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on the subject of church-state relations and religious liberty, died peacefully March 4 at age 96. Born in Portsmouth, Virginia, Wood began his…

Midway through Lent, I am pondering my ‘negligences’ as I seek to watch with Jesus

The Rule of St. Benedict urges us during the season of Lent “to wash away . . .the negligences of other times.” I have been pondering the areas I neglect as routinized behavior scurries past attentiveness and contemplation.

Baptists applying some ‘very Catholic’ approaches to racial reconciliation

A small group of Baptist ministers is exploring ways to apply historically Catholic spiritual formation disciplines to the work of racial reconciliation. The exploration is based on the belief that those ancient practices, such as meditation and contemplative prayer, can…

Proposed Texas bill would shield churches that report sexual abuse from lawsuits

Nearly two months after newspapers reported hundreds of allegations of sexual misconduct by ministers and volunteers in churches aligned with the Southern Baptist Convention, a Texas lawmaker is sponsoring legislation to make it harder for sexual predators to move from church to church without detection.

As the mother of a child with autism, I see how preaching and practicing the Gospel are fractured

World Autism Awareness Day is a good day for Christians to covenant together to learn about autism, to invite the child on the outskirts to the birthday party, to notice the one who sits alone and make room on our pew for them.

Religion Notes: Pastors oppose sports gambling; Gardner-Webb featured in March Madness broadcast

Most Protestant pastors oppose sports gambling and its legalization, a position placing them at odds with much of society and even with their own congregations. “The large majority of pastors oppose sports betting,” Scott McConnell, executive director of LifeWay Research,…

Mohler again claims same-sex marriage harms children

Dan Patrick reiterates: ‘No separation of church and state’

Baptists know better than this

Judge bars Tennessee from revealing immigration status of sick children