The Baptist World Alliance has announced its 2022 annual gathering will be convened both online and in-person after two years of virtual-only meetings due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And BWA isn’t alone. The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Alliance of Baptists…
Upton announces retirement from Virginia Baptist post after 20 transformative years
After two decades of leadership, John Upton has announced he intends to retire as executive director of the Baptist General Association of Virginia July 31, 2022. Since his election to the post in 2001, the landscape of Baptist state conventions…
Elijah Zehyoue named co-director of Alliance of Baptists
The Alliance of Baptists has called Elijah Zehyoue as co-director, following the retirement of Paula Clayton Dempsey, director of partnership relations. The Washington, D.C., pastor and former BNG columnist will begin work Oct. 15, upon Dempsey’s retirement. In the Alliance’s…
Interfaith coalition asks Biden to stop Arizona land swap to protect Native American religious liberties
A coalition of nearly 60 interfaith groups —including nine Baptist groups — has written to President Joe Biden asking for his intervention in a controversial Arizona land-swap enacted in 2014 but not yet consummated. The deal as currently structured would…
Alliance of Baptists updates its covenant and hears calls to action against injustice
The economic, racial and social injustices exposed and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic have called progressive Christians to bolder-than-ever action on behalf of the oppressed, pastor and writer Aurelia Dávila Pratt said during her opening keynote address to the Alliance…
‘Pandemic acknowledges no religious exemption,’ interfaith group warns state legislatures
“The pandemic acknowledges no religious exemption,” a group of faith leaders wrote to state legislators across the nation April 12. The interfaith group — which includes the Alliance of Baptists, American Baptist Home Mission Societies, Baptist Joint Committee for Religious…
With $1 million grant, 25 Alliance of Baptists congregations are working to understand systemic racism and overcome it
Twenty-five churches associated with the Alliance of Baptists are participating in a five-year national scholarly study of how to expose and address systemic racism in their local contexts. The “Churches that THRIVE for Racial Justice” initiative is funded by a…
Alliance of Baptists chooses restitution and redemption from thief who stole $20,000
The Alliance of Baptists was the victim of a $20,000 theft but chose to follow the biblical admonition to “turn the other cheek” in a redemptive way. The Baptist network’s executive committee released a statement on social media Feb. 9…
William Barber: 100 million eligible voters did not participate in the 2016 general election
Churches must help rally marginalized voters to reverse America’s political and moral decline, activist Bishop William J. Barber II said during the Alliance of Baptists’ online fall gathering Oct. 10. “Galvanizing poor and low-income voters isn’t an act of charity,…