By Bob Allen A former British Baptist pastor convicted last year of sexual abuse has been transferred to custody of the Virginia Department of Corrections. Robert Dando, former senior minister at Worcester Park Baptist Church in suburban London, is now…
Baptist minister enters state prison system
Saddleback civil forum called off
By Bob Allen Saddleback Church pastor and Purpose-Driven Life author Rick Warren announced Aug. 22 that a civil forum planned with President Obama and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has been canceled. Warren, who held a similar event in…
AU asks IRS to investigate Mo. Baptists
By Bob Allen A watchdog group that advocates strict separation of church and state has called on the Internal Revenue Service to investigate whether a Missouri Baptist newspaper editor violated tax law by endorsing two candidates for political office in…
AU asks IRS to investigate Missouri Baptists
By Bob Allen A watchdog group that advocates strict separation of church and state has called on the Internal Revenue Service to investigate whether a Missouri Baptist newspaper editor violated tax law by endorsing two candidates for political office in…
Violence and the cross
Challenging the notion that some violent responses to violence are justified often seems to cause people to respond with greater vehemence than if their most deeply-cherished convictions about the nature of God had been questioned. I suspect there are two…
Absolute complexity is not allowed here
More than 35 years ago I was working on a graduate degree in the sociology of religion at the Southern Seminary in Louisville. The time came to declare the subject of our thesis. Some of us were sure and others…
Moderate Baptist blasts atheist billboards
By Bob Allen A moderate Baptist ethicist labeled billboards by American Atheists claiming religion has no place in presidential politics an unfair attack on people of faith. A billboard campaign timed with the national presidential nominating convention mocks the religion…
Black Baptist says racism still a problem
By Bob Allen Policy statements on racial inclusion aside, the church still has a long way to go toward eradicating racism in denominational structures, says a black Baptist leader in the United Kingdom. David Shosanya, a regional minister and director…
Asking Good Questions
“[And] they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.” (Luke 2.46, NRSV) This month hundreds of thousands of students flock back to school ready to learn, ready to read, and ready to…
Christians, guns, and the myth of redemptive violence
“How many more daughters, sons, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, husbands, wives, friends—people created by and in the very image of God—have to die a horrific death before Americans will learn to lay down their guns?”…
Analyst says Romney plays religion card
By Terry Goodrich A new political ad by presidential candidate Mitt Romney accusing President Obama of “waging war on religion” is an opening salvo in religious rhetoric that likely will escalate as the November election approaches, says a Baylor University…