By Bob Allen Baptist signers including ABPnew/Herald columnists Amy Butler and David Gushee were among more than 350 clergy leaders across the United States opposing a bill in Mississippi that critics say would legalize discrimination by commercial businesses throughout the…
It’s not simply about denying service
A recent article from the RNS describes the efforts in Oregon to craft the bill that would legalize gay marriage in such away as to allow conscience protections for business owners. The conscience protections being debated would allow private business…
Groundbreaking Texas pastor Marvin Griffin dies
By Bob Allen Marvin Griffin, a Baptist pastor and denominational statesman known for his efforts to improve economic and educational opportunities for African-Americans in Austin, Texas, died Christmas Day 2013 at age 90. Griffin, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in…
Obama lauds Baptist civil-rights icon
By Bob Allen President Obama noted the passing of T.J. Jemison, a civil-rights icon who organized a 1953 bus boycott in Baton Rouge, La., that became the non-violent protest model adopted by Martin Luther King two years later in Montgomery,…
Groups want probe of NYPD surveillance
By Bob Allen The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty joined more than 120 national, state and local organizations in an open letter Oct. 24 urging the Department of Justice to investigate post 9/11 surveillance practices in New York City…
Baylor social work school fetes trailblazers
By Daniel Wallace Baylor University’s School of Social Work recently recognized two daughters of the segregated South who served as forerunners for change and equality when they broke the color barrier at the Carver School of Missions and Social Work…
Oakhurst Baptist celebrates 100 years
By Bob Allen A progressive and radically inclusive Baptist congregation celebrates its 100th anniversary this weekend in Atlanta. Constituted in 1913, Oakhurst Baptist Church in Decatur, Ga., sparked controversy in the 1960s as one of the first Southern Baptist churches…
Things that make for freedom
By Bill Leonard “Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last.” We recall the words of that spiritual a half-century after Martin Luther King Jr. sounded them across the Lincoln Memorial, a hallmark of the…
Things that make for freedom
By Bill Leonard “Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last.” We recall the words of that spiritual a half-century after Martin Luther King, Jr. sounded them across the Lincoln Memorial, a hallmark of the…