Eight years with a black president capped by state-by-state victories for same-sex marriage didn’t sit well with white evangelicals already feeling like victims in American society. The result was a victory for Donald Trump last November. While that may have…
Southern Baptists say Christian baker has right to refuse same-sex wedding
The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission is siding with a Colorado baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple in a case headed toward the United States Supreme Court.
Mississippi religious liberty law has day in court
An attorney defending Mississippi’s controversial law allowing state employees to refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and various businesses to deny services to LGBT individuals claimed in federal court April 3 that individuals challenging the statute should not…
Baptist lawmaker seeks to remove the state from marriage debate
A Southern Baptist lawmaker is proposing a truce in the political battle over same-sex marriage by getting the state government out of the business of issuing marriage licenses altogether. Missouri State Rep. T.J. Berry, a member and deacon at First…
Anti-Trump protesters target Southern Baptist church
Anti-Trump protesters marched on a Southern Baptist megachurch whose pastor was among the president-elect’s most vocal evangelical supporters in a fourth night in the streets Saturday night. “This church right here is the mother Mecca of the hate that lives…
Poll finds consensus on contraception, division over gay marriage and transgender controversies
Two-thirds of American adults believe employers who have religious objections to contraception should be required to cover birth control as part of their employees’ insurance plan, according to a new Pew Research Center survey about recent controversies pitting claims of religious liberty…
Sue for religious freedom? It’s not just for conservatives, anymore
The number of religious freedom bills across the United States may give the impression that using the law to protect faith is a purely conservative pursuit. Well, it isn’t, says Brent Walker of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty.
Survey suggests continuing resistance among Baptists to LGBT inclusion
A little over a year after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, Baptists remain among the most resistant to LGBT inclusion among U.S. Protestant groups, according to new data from LifeWay Research.
The Whore of Babylon: Pimping the Body of Christ to the highest political bidder
“God is on our side” has led to more bloodletting in the form of crusades, wars, colonialism and genocides than any other human caused catastrophe — a truth in which all faith traditions have, at one time or another, participated. All churches have played the “whore,” falling into the temptation of tailoring the liberative Good News to sell a political ideology or party as ordained by God.
When it comes to same-sex marriage, it’s all over but the shoutin’
I recently spent one day at the national convocation of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which is just beginning a conversation about the hiring of non-celibate gay employees. That frustrating experience made me reflect on my own experience. I thought I…
Mississippi pastors support law widely-described as anti-gay
More than 50 Southern Baptist ministers in Mississippi recently issued an open letter supporting a new law which purports to protect religious liberty but is widely-described as the country’s most aggressive anti-LGBT legislation. Baptist pastors including current and past presidents of the…
Do No Harm Act seeks to rein in RFRA claims
Some who 23 years ago worked for passage of a law ensuring broad protection of religious freedom say now the Religious Freedom Restoration Act needs tweaking so it can’t be used to discriminate against others. Groups including Americans United for…
Protecting pastors without condemning neighbors
There has been a lot of fear-mongering since last summer’s U.S. Supreme Court decision recognizing same-sex marriage as a constitutional right.
CBF church models open attitude on NPR
National Public Radio featured a small Cooperative Baptist Fellowship church in Louisville, Ky., in a two-part series May 10 on the different ways U.S. evangelicals are responding to shifting attitudes about homosexuality and marriage in the United States. NPR’s Morning…