By Bob Allen One way to fix the troubled public-school system in Texas is making education funds available to church-based private schools, a group of prominent pastors including Ed Young of Second Baptist Church in Houston and Robert Jeffress of…
Burma conversion bill raises religious freedom concern
By Bob Allen Advocates for religious liberty view with alarm a new law recently passed by the parliament in Myanmar making it harder for a person to switch religions. Human Rights Watch, an international non-governmental organization that monitors human rights,…
Coalition opposes taxpayer-funded discrimination
By Bob Allen American Baptist Home Mission Societies and the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty are among 130 religious, education, civil rights, labor, LGBT, women’s and health organizations asking President Obama to review a Bush-era legal opinion allowing faith-based…
Ordinance foes claim religious right to discriminate
By Bob Allen More than 200 people gathered Aug. 11 in a Southern Baptist church in Fayetteville, Ark., to rally against a proposed civil rights ordinance that opponents say poses a threat to religious liberty. The rally at University Baptist…
Heroes in Farmersville Muslim cemetery fuss: Religious-liberty-lovin’ Baptists
I initially wasn’t exceedingly jazzed about the idea of writing today’s Farmersville editorial, which is pegged to tonight’s forum in the rural Collin County community about plans for a Muslim cemetery just west of town. It’s a juicy story no…
Federal agencies propose rules for faith-based social service providers
By Bob Allen The White House announced proposed rules Aug. 5 from nine federal agencies clarifying rights and responsibilities of faith-based and community organizations receiving taxpayer funds. The proposals, which must pass through a 60-day period of public comment before…
Contrary consciences
By Bill Leonard Some things never change, even as the times “get out of hand.” In the 1640s, Puritans Roger Williams and John Cotton engaged in a “tractarian debate,” fit for tomorrow’s “Morning Joe,” over politics, culture and of course…
Muslims, a cemetery & Baptist principles
A proposed cemetery in Texas may be causing old-time Baptists to roll in their graves. Muslims want to develop a cemetery in Farmersville, a still-rural village in eastern Collin County, about 35 miles northeast of downtown Dallas. Some locals-Baptists among…
Baptist leaders join call for national strategy on global religious persecution
By Ken Camp Baylor University President Ken Starr, Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Community Church in Southern California and Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, joined a call for a national strategy to…