LONGWOOD, Fla. (RNS) — There’s a price to pay for becoming the voice of moderate conservatism and coalition politics. Even more so for refusing to march in lockstep with the Republican Party. Ask Joel Hunter of Northland Church, Florida’s largest…
White House says it can’t list Westboro Baptist Church as hate group or remove tax-exempt status
WASHINGTON (RNS) — In response to five “We the People” petitions, the White House condemned the actions of the Westboro Baptist Church but said it is powerless to list the Kansas church as a hate group and remove its tax-exempt…
Mission trip provides religious liberty lesson
Less than a month after police in the former Soviet state of Georgia intervened to rescue peaceful gay-rights protestors from a religious mob, Baptist young adults from the United States stood alongside Georgian Baptists to speak up for Muslims denied…
200 years after first American Baptist missionaries arrived in Burma, mission landscape is altered
Yam Kho Pau, general secretary of the Myanmar Baptist Convention, recently invited American Baptist International Ministries to renew its 200-year-old ministry in Burma interrupted since the 1960s by political unrest. “This gathering is the renewal of a relationship between ABC…
Lottie Moon’s church led by a woman
What would Lottie do? Last year, Southern Baptists gave $149.3 million to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for international missions, hailed as the third-highest amount in the offering’s 124-year history. With less fanfare, meanwhile, the iconic missionary’s childhood church quietly…
Is yoga instruction religious? San Diego court case may decide
SAN DIEGO (RNS) — In an elementary school classroom with an American flag draped over one wall, a couple dozen students rose to standing positions. Then they shifted into poses called “volcano part one,” “silent gorilla,” and “rag doll.” Some…
New Gettysburg museum on seminary campus explores role of faith in Civil War
GETTYSBURG, Pa. (RNS) — When Confederate soldiers bore down on Gettysburg, Pa., in 1863, a quiet seminary building atop a ridge was transformed — first into a Union lookout, then a field hospital for 600 wounded soldiers. Now the structure…
Lutherans and Catholics bury the hatchet for Reformation’s 500th anniversary in 2017
VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Lutherans and Catholics have pledged to celebrate together the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in 2017, with both sides agreeing to set aside centuries of hostility and prejudice. The Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation…
In spite of declining attendance and increasing costs, leaders say annual meetings have a future
’Tis the season for Baptist annual meetings. But will declining numbers, the expense of gathering people for face-to-face encounters and rapid advances in technology soon mean the demise of the rite? Not necessarily and probably not anytime soon. Fellowship and…
Denominations: Dying or transforming into something new?
Do Baptist annual meetings matter if denominations themselves are dying? Some leaders believe denominationalism isn’t dying, but rather is undergoing metamorphosis. Those willing and flexible enough to change still will need the community and networking annual meetings offer. “Denominationalism is…
Occult obsession not a passing phenomenon but a folk religion, say some experts
Many Americans love sinking their teeth into stories about vampires, and some fans live for the latest tales of the undead. But as vacationers pack their beach bags with “teen paranormal romance” novels and movie-goers await World War Z, what…
America exporting new religion, Australian theologian insists
Fascination with zombies and vampires reflects a global New Spirituality which America shapes through pop culture, said theologian Ross Clifford, author of The Cross Is Not Enough: Living as Witnesses to the Resurrection. Clifford, principal of Morling College in New…