Baptist News Global

As a pastor, I tried engaging the issue of abortion with Facebook friends. Here’s what I learned

No matter if we are talking about abortion, LGBTQI issues or politics, we need to stop thinking we can change the world with an angry Facebook post or a partisan online article. We need face-to face conversations that humanize one another.

Baptist-Amish singalong takes bite out of toxic charity

If Amish and Baptists singing hymns together in rural Appalachia isn’t an expression of Christian unity, Joshua Hearne says, nothing is.

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.

Eradicating DEI hasn’t made anything better

How Christian nationalism shows up in patriotic worship services

Dear Trump-supporting Christians, are you really OK with this?

‘Every Student. Every State’ campaign promotes school tax credit