By Bob Allen Southern Baptist leaders in Oklahoma joined other clergy and lawmakers seeking to revive “personhood” legislation shelved by Republicans in the state’s House of Representatives. Representatives of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission…
Stand Your Ground sponsor sees no contradiction with his Baptist faith
By Jeff Brumley The state legislator and Southern Baptist layman who championed the Stand Your Ground law made infamous in the Trayvon Martin case was relieved when the killer was charged with second-degree murder. “I was redeemed by it because…
Look beyond denominational subculture, Baylor prof urges
By Ken Camp Contemporary ethical debates about sexuality cannot be separated from questions about the nature of the church and whether Christians will be shaped more by covenant community or by culture, a lecturer in Baylor University’s Great Texts program…
Christians need to formulate embodied theology, speaker asserts
By Ken Camp Varied views on the human body in the Bible and church tradition shape modern Christians’ attitudes about sexuality, ethicist Melissa Browning told a [Baptist] Conference on Sexuality and Covenant. Christians need to formulate “an embodied theology ……
Ethnicity thwarts unity: BWA head
By Marv Knox Ethnicity – not race – thwarts Christian unity, Baptists’ international leader told participants at the T.B. Maston Lectures in Christian Ethics. Neville Callam, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, delivered the 12th annual Maston Lectures April…
Christians lack consensus on sexual ethics, conference speaker says
By Bob Allen Christians no longer share a consensus that sex outside of marriage is always wrong and must find new ways to deal with that reality besides splitting into smaller and smaller groups over issues like homosexuality and contraception,…
What will churches do about wounded vets?
By Zachary Bailes On Monday, it was announced that The Huffington Postwon the coveted Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. Beginning on Oct. 10, 2011, they ran a 10-part series titled “Beyond the Battlefield.” The series was an exploration of the…
Groups urge end to religious profiling
By Bob Allen Organizations including the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty urged a Senate panel probing racial profiling in America to include profiling of religious minorities in their study. Thirty-five groups wrote leaders of a Senate Committee on the…
Seeing and shooting
By Miguel De La Torre By now we are all familiar with the Feb. 26 tragic story surrounding the fatal shooting of the unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in Sanford, Fla. Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch crime captain, “stood…