“The relationships that are being built mean everything. … When an evangelical Christian gets to know a Muslim, the whole defense of Islam has stepped up to a higher level because … you’re no longer talking about a religion. You’re…
Riverside pastor resigns after short tenure
NEW YORK (ABP) — A Baptist minister and former Wake Forest Divinity School professor has resigned just nine months after becoming senior pastor of New York’s Riverside Church, a historic congregation identified with the 20th-century Social Gospel movement that downplayed…
VIRGINIA BAPTIST FORUM: Quotes evoke comments
I comment on statements on four pages in the issue of July 2. Page 5: “What if another religion becomes the majority?” I assert that other religions have already become the majority: the worships of money, power, pleasure, status, possessions….
Moderator urges CBF to celebrate movement
HOUSTON (ABP) — Following a year of financial hardship, the moderator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellow-ship urged the group’s general assembly to celebrate the movement’s success and potential for the future. Jack Glasgow, pastor of Zebulon Baptist Church in Zebulon,…
SECOND OPINION: Fifty years as a pastor
April 20, 2010, will be a significant day in my life. It will mark the 50th anniversary of my ordination. Since January 1960 I have spent most of my days as a pastor. In September of 1974 I began my…
CBF a work of God’s grace, Vestal insists
HOUSTON (ABP) — Nearly 20 years after its founding as a small breakaway group birthed by controversy in the Southern Baptist Convention, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship exists today as a work of God’s grace, the group’s top executive said. CBF…
HERITAGE: The rabbit trap
In 1915 Frederic W. Boatwright was the busy president of the University of Richmond (although at the time the school was still known as Richmond College). He had just lived through the first academic year of the school’s relocation from…
Leonard: Baptists must express ideals in new ways
HOUSTON — Baptist denominational systems across the United States are in transition and being redefined, spawning a number of issues that are complicating and clouding the Baptist landscape, historian Bill Leonard told a group of Associated Baptist Press supporters July…
Virginia musician chosen to lead hymn society
RICHMOND (ABP) — A Baptist woman has been tapped to head an organization of church leaders and artists dedicated to preserving the congregational singing of hymns. Deborah Carlton Loftis, visiting professor of church music at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond,…