Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Executive Coordinator Suzii Paynter voiced solidarity with “our Jewish neighbors and friends in cities and towns across the country” in the aftermath of Saturday’s mass shooting inside a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. “We condemn ideologies of white…
‘Nobody in their right mind’ would do what this peace activist has done
The Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America has grown a lot since its founding in 1984. Its focus over the years has expanded from poverty and nuclear proliferation to racial justice, gun violence and immigration, among other issues. And a…
Americans seeking self-care in age of Trump, mass shootings and nuke fears
Anyone who even casually consumes news websites or social media is confronted with an array of anger- and fear-driven reports of End Times-inducing developments. So, it may be no coincidence that new Barna research has found “that most Americans are open to investing in their mental health through counseling” and that discussions about self-care have become mainstream.
Paul Ryan and the House chaplain: Proof that prayer works?
The scientific study of prayer focuses on the things for which people most often pray — health concerns, financial difficulties, or societal problems — but the prayers we do not pray are the best evidence that prayer works.
Inspired by youth, churches rising to oppose gun violence
Inspired by the concept that nothing changes if nothing changes, people of faith are responding the gun crisis by organizing everything from congregational letter-writing campaigns to strategy conferences to local gun buybacks. Clergy and laypeople involved say the key is doing something — anything — rather than caving in to the enormity of the gun violence issue.
If character is ‘irrelevant’ in politics, eventually the Church will be, too
It is a confusing time, but one thing is crystal clear to me: if committing an adulterous affair with a porn star, if that kind of morality and that kind of character is “completely irrelevant” to a Church that has always said exactly the opposite, there is another thing that will be “completely irrelevant” to today’s culture — and that is, sadly, the Church.
Join the march to end gun violence this Saturday, but let the youth lead
This is how the church will keep the next generation in our community: by providing them space to lead us, and join them in the revolution of peace they are working so hard to usher in to our world.
The right to bear arms: Be cautious in attributing that right to God
The Bible seems to be the most reasonable place to look for evidence that this right to bear arms, located within the founding papers of a civil government, is God-given.
‘Anticipatory mourning’: America’s youth on death, guns and dissent
We’ve ritualized death away from the young in this culture, in funeral homes and hospice facilities, but it has overtaken them with a vengeance in what were once safe spaces for learning.
The nation is grappling with mass gun killings. Why is the BGAV focused on human sexuality?
At this moment, why is the Baptist General Association of Virginia Executive Board talking about human sexuality? Yes, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship recently released their Illumination findings. And the CBF faces criticism from the right and the left for it. Right now, who cares?
Seasoned saints: Stand down and take direction from the youth on gun control
The Son of Man called on society then and, I believe, does so now, to “change and become like children.” Literally, we must humble ourselves enough to put aside what we deem as comforting and correct based on experience and age, power and privilege, and commit to living in a world where the first shall be last and the last shall be first.
Parkland massacre takes pastor back to father’s mass shooting death
For one Baptist minister in South Florida, the response to the most recent school gun massacre is visceral. Joe LaGuardia, pastor at First Baptist Church in Vero Beach, graduated in 1996 from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where one of his best friends was fellow student Aaron Feis — the assistant football coach and security guard who died protecting students from gunfire. What’s more, his father was killed in a mass shooting in Pennsylvania in 2013.