By Bob Allen A retired Baptist state convention executive says formerly confidential files detailing decades of sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts of America reflect the ethos of a time before mandatory reporting, when a common approach was to deal…
Voters reject ‘no-aid’ repeal
By Bob Allen Florida voters rejected a measure to repeal the state’s ban on public funding for religious organizations, 55 percent to 45 percent, Nov. 6. Amendment 8 would have removed language from Florida’s constitution prohibiting state funds from being…
Faithful seek truce in culture war
By Jeff Brumley If Facebook is any measure, Americans are emerging from the 2012 election season convinced the nation’s political and religious divisions are wider and more hostile than ever – and getting worse. But not Duke McCall, 98, the…
Evangelicals and abortion: chicken or egg?
News analysis by Bob Allen Heading into a presidential race in which taxpayer funding of abortion tops the Family Research Council’s “values voter” guide, author Jonathan Dudley suggested in a recent CNN religion blog that as late as the 1960s…
Think, vote, pray
Today we have an opportunity to exercise our civil liberty by going to the polls to vote. Tom Brokaw reminds us that we will go freely and “not at the point of a gun or a tank” and that is…
Talking politics in church
When 4-year-old Abigail Evans burst into tears for no apparent reason, her mother asked what was making her so sad. “I’m tired of Bronco Bama and Mitt Romney,” Abigail wailed between sniffles. Mamma Evans didn’t switch off NPR, but she assured her daughter that…
What Election Day won’t fix
By Miguel De La Torre This Tuesday, we as a nation vote. For some reason, the presidential cycle this year seemed nastier than usual. Emotional rhetoric replaced civil discourse. Rather than assessing the positives and negatives of the respective candidates,…
Communion alternative for election strife
By Jeff Brumley Kevin Glenn has become quite the buzz in Columbia, Mo., the past couple of weeks for publicly promoting what he says has become a radical concept in American Christianity: That devotion belongs first to God and to…
Criswell College sues over health mandate
By Bob Allen Criswell College, a Southern Baptist Bible school with informal ties to the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, sued the federal government Nov. 1, claiming the contraceptive mandate in President Obama’s Affordable Care Act violates the school’s opposition…