By Bob Allen A former Southern Baptist youth minister arrested Aug. 20 in Texas on a warrant has returned to Alabama to face charges of sexual abuse. Charles “Kyle” Adcock, 31, appeared Sept. 12 in Colbert County District Court in…
ERLC head says Baptists should reclaim separation of church and state
By Bob Allen The Southern Baptist Convention’s top spokesman for religious liberty says conservative Christians should reclaim the phrase “separation of church and state” in order to avoid government overreach in matters of faith. Russell Moore, president of the SBC…
Church seeks dismissal in abuse lawsuit
By Bob Allen A Southern Baptist church in Alabama asked a federal judge Sept. 9 to dismiss a lawsuit alleging liability for child sex crimes committed by a former minister. Highland Park Baptist Church in Muscle Shoals, Ala., filed a…
Gushee urges CBF to reclaim lost ethical tradition
By Bob Allen One casualty of the Southern Baptist Convention conflict that led to formation of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in the early 1990s was a robust Baptist witness on issues of social justice, theologian David Gushee told CBF leaders…
Baptists, Mormons, ask Supreme Court to hear Utah marriage case
By Bob Allen Southern Baptists joined Mormons in a legal brief Sept. 4 asking the U.S. Supreme Court to settle once and for all if same-sex marriage is a fundamental right protected by the Constitution. The Church of Jesus Christ…
Healing the cop-community divide in Ferguson, Mo.
Michael Brown was unarmed when Darren Wilson gunned him down. Now the police chief of Ferguson, Missouri is suggesting that Brown was died because officer Wilson believed he had stolen a box of cigars. I suppose that bit of information is…
Don’t trade kids for immigration action, faith leaders say in one-sentence letter
By Bob Allen Following news reports of Honduran children being killed following their deportation from the United States and with President Obama considering executive action on immigration, 41 religious leaders signed a succinct, one-sentence letter Sept. 2. “While we celebrate…
I can do more: a lament
August 2014 is a bad month. People are angry. Humans are dying. Cultures are dividing. These are the talking points we have to discuss: Depression is a disease. Ukraine is in turmoil. ISIS just beheaded an American journalist. Refugee children…
Receiving the Truth
In the first chapter of Romans, as Paul is laying out the general indictment of all humanity before bringing to bear the good news of the Gospel, he makes the observation that what can be known about God has always…
Smuggling and trafficking: what are our responsibilities?
It was a normal school day. She worked with the children who needed some help with their English. One day a child asked her if she knew what a “coyote” was. She said, “Of course…it looks sort of like a…
Friends in the Valley of Shadows
I remember it like it was yesterday. Except it was 2005, and it wasn’t a single instance. It was two years after I graduated, and I was living with two of my best friends from college. And, I wanted nothing…
Former youth pastor charged with abuse
By Bob Allen A Southern Baptist church in Alabama pledged to cooperate with police following the arrest of a former youth minister charged with sexually abusing a girl younger than 16 and urged anyone with knowledge about the case to…