Rob Nash, one day after being elected global missions coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, urged about 300 Baptists at an Associated Baptist Press banquet to pursue “information integrity” on their way to becoming “citizens of the world.” In his…
Leave ‘Christendom’ thinking behind, says BWA’s Lotz
Western Baptists need to leave Christendom behind and become more like the early church, Denton Lotz told about 150 persons attending a Baptist World Alliance dinner June 23. Lotz, who is general secretary of the BWA, said many Westerners still…
Baptist politics ‘wreaking havoc’ on universities, warns Godsey
Baptist higher education faces a monumental crisis, due in large part to abuses of control and financial dependence, longtime university president Kirby Godsey told participants at the Whitsitt Baptist Heritage Society's annual meeting June 22 in Atlanta. Godsey will retire…
Methodist numbers drop below 8 million
(RNS) — A United Methodist Church report says church membership dipped to a new low last year, dropping to under 8 million in the United States for the first time in nearly 80 years. The church's General Council on Finance…
BWA presses Vietnam on religious freedom
(ABP) — A Baptist World Alliance-led delegation recently returned from Vietnam, where they pressed government officials to ensure greater religious freedom in the rapidly Westernizing nation. Vietnamese-American Baptists and top officials from the Baptist World Alliance, the Baptist General Convention…
2nd Georgia church votes to join BGAV
First Baptist Church in Dalton, Ga., has voted to join the 1,400 congregations affiliated with the Baptist General Association of Virginia. The church, which unanimously approved the action June 25, is the second Georgia congregation to join the BGAV. First…
VBMB staff member Hazel Mallory dies
Hazel W. Mallory, 63, a longtime member of the Virginia Baptist Mission Board staff, died June 24 after a battle with cancer. She began her employment career in Richmond with the Equitable Insurance Group and for the past 31 years…
ANALYSIS: Baptist history on alcohol not totally teetotaling
Question: Why do you always take two Baptists with you when you go fishing? Answer: Because if you only bring one, he'll drink all your beer. Most everybody who grew up in the South has a favorite Baptists-and-alcohol joke, usually…
ANALYSIS: SBC surprise not a coup, but maybe a course correction
With the election of an outsider president who had strong support from reform-minded pastors, the Southern Baptist Convention may be changing in tone. But substantive changes are still a ways off, say denominational observers. While there were surprises, messengers to…
WMU retains auxiliary status after Greensboro SBC vote
Messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting voted down a proposal asking the Woman's Missionary Union to become an official entity of the SBC. The proposal's defeat allows WMU to retain its status as an auxiliary of the SBC. The…
ANALYSIS: Will election of president deal blow to neo-Calvinism?
When Southern Baptist Convention messengers elected dark-horse candidate Frank Page of South Carolina as president, they not only sent a populist message to the powerbrokers who backed other candidates, but also — at least in the eyes of some observers…
Messengers approve revisions in Cooperative Program report
Messengers approved a request by the Executive Committee June 13 to amend its earlier recommendation to the Southern Baptist Convention aimed at strengthening Cooperative Program giving. The action followed a vote of 35-27 by Executive Committee members June 12 to…