By Bob Allen A high-profile British Baptist minister has stepped forward as the first prominent evangelical in the UK to speak out in support of faithful and monogamous same-sex relationships. Steve Chalke, 57, an ordained Baptist minister who in 1985…
UK Baptist minister affirms gays
By Bob Allen A high-profile British Baptist minister has stepped forward as the first prominent evangelical in the UK to speak out in support of faithful and monogamous same-sex relationships. Steve Chalke, 57, an ordained Baptist minister who in 1985…
Wendell Berry expounds on gay marriage
This news story originally ran on Jan. 14, 2013. Christian opponents to same-sex marriage want the government to treat homosexuals as a special category of persons subject to discrimination, similar to the way that African-Americans and women were categorized in…
Video recalls ‘forgotten’ Pearl Harbor
By Bob Allen President Franklin Roosevelt’s description of the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack as “a date which will live in infamy” went down in history, but Yosh Nakagawa remembers another day – Feb. 19, 1942. That’s when FDR, in…
Senate rejects UN disabilities treaty
By Bob Allen Religious Right leaders claimed victory Dec. 4 after Senate Democrats failed to muster a two-thirds vote necessary to join a United Nations treaty modeled after the Americans With Disabilities Act establishing international standards for the rights of…
Baptists divided on Florida amendment
By Jeff Brumley Florida Amendment 8 has pitted secular civil rights and education activists against religious conservatives in a rhetorical battle over the meaning of religious liberty. But the measure also has re-exposed the divide between Baptists over the separation…
PNBC addresses prisoner reentry
By Bob Allen The Progressive National Baptist Convention has set out to raise $100,000 to establish its first national center to aid churches in helping individuals re-enter and reintegrate into communities after being released from prison. The PNBC hopes to open…
Pastors foresee raceless church
By Jeff Brumley Park Avenue Baptist Church in Atlanta is considered by some a hopeful sign that Sunday may soon no longer be the most segregated time in America. A dwindling, all-white congregation eight years ago, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship…
Education ‘today’s civil-rights issue’
By Bob Allen A new kind of “school choice” agenda is gaining ground as more and more young adults — including Christians concerned about social justice — choose teaching in public schools over more lucrative and less challenging careers. U.S….
Talk about sexuality isn’t enough
By Chris Hughes A [Baptist] Conversation on Sexuality did many things for CBF Baptists, including creating an open forum for people of differing theological beliefs to sit across from one another and talk. It welcomed more people from differing perspectives…
The politics of race
By Miguel De La Torre At 53, I am old enough to remember a pre-Civil Rights era when all types of shenanigans were employed to prevent certain groups of people (predominantly African-Americans) from voting. Heavily populated black districts would elect…
SBC gay stance termed ‘holy terrorism’
By Bob Allen A Christian gay-rights activist has charged Southern Baptists with “holy terrorism” for opposing civil rights for homosexuals. A resolution passed June 20 at the 2012 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in New Orleans opined that homosexuality “does…