By Bob Allen One hundred sixty-seven years after forming over the right to appoint slaveholders as missionaries and 17 years after apologizing for the denomination’s racist past, the Southern Baptist Convention elected its first African-American president June 19. Messengers to…
Group builds home, hope in 10 days
By Bob Allen Butch and Mary Ann Brown were nearly at a loss for words walking for the first time through their new home built by volunteers with the Kentucky Baptist Fellowship. “Beautiful,” Butch, terminally ill and confined to a…
LifeWay pulls ‘Blind Side’ from stores
By Bob Allen LifeWay Christian Stores will no longer sell videos of “The Blind Side” after a Florida pastor proposed a resolution for next week’s Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting protesting the sale of a PG-13 movie that contains profanity…
U.S. Baptists support Zimbabwe seminary
By Bob Allen Two U.S. Baptist groups that formerly sponsored a Baptist seminary in Zimbabwe have switched loyalty to a new school started since the 2011 firing of a principal who opposed changes in governing documents that included required adherence…
SBC membership drops below 16 million
By Bob Allen Membership in the Southern Baptist Convention declined for the fifth straight year in 2011, falling under 16 million for the first time since 2000, according to annual statistics released June 12 by LifeWay Christian Resources. The 2011…
Florida Baptists challenge abuse ruling
By Bob Allen The Florida Baptist Convention is contesting a May 17 jury verdict that found the Southern Baptist Convention affiliate liable for sexual abuse committed by a former church planter. The Florida Baptist Witness reported June 12 that the…
CBF assembly sessions to be webcast
By Bob Allen Five main sessions of the upcoming June 20-23 Cooperative Baptist Fellowship General Assembly in Fort Worth, Texas, will be broadcast live online. Sessions can be viewed live or accessed later from archives at www.thefellowship.info/fortworth. The first webcast…
Richard Land signs off radio show
The head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission signed off without fanfare for the last time on the Richard Land Live! weekly radio show June 2. Land, Southern Baptists’ top spokesman for moral and religious-liberty concerns…
ABPNews adds blog section
Beginning today, Associated Baptist Press will publish one or more blogs daily, Monday through Friday, submitted by a variety of lay and ordained writers on www.baptistnews.com/blog. Topics will be as varied as the contributors themselves, ranging from social issues and spiritual…