By Bob Allen The Southern Baptist Convention’s top spokesman for moral concerns charged the Obama administration with “religious persecution” for requiring religious employers to cover preventive health-care services including FDA-approved contraceptives. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known…
Radio host blasts SBC president
By Bob Allen A Bible-prophecy broadcaster criticized Southern Baptist Convention President Fred Luter for retracting comments made in an interview on his radio show linking North Korea’s nuclear threat to America’s slide into immorality. “Poor pastor Luter, he wilted under the…
Judge not, lest ye be judged
By Joseph Havey Every major religion has been the butt of a thousand jokes, but Southern Baptists nearly monopolize the punch line industry. Catholics, Muslims and Jews all have their image, but the Southern Baptist caricature is the gossiping, pie-baking,…
SBC leader retracts radio comment
By Bob Allen The president of the Southern Baptist Convention said April 3 on CNN that he misspoke and was misunderstood in an interview on Christian radio linking North Korea’s nuclear threat to arguments about gay marriage in the United…
Duke McCall funeral arrangements set
By Bob Allen Visitation for longtime denominational leader Duke McCall is scheduled for 1-5 p.m. Sunday, April 7, at a pavilion bearing his name on the campus of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. His funeral will be 10…
The last denominationalist
Correction. This column was edited after its original posting to correct errors in the third and fifth paragraphs. By Bill Leonard Duke Kimbrough McCall was an institution, bearing in himself elements of American religious corporate and institutional life across much…
‘Celebrate Life’ composer Buryl Red dies
By Bob Allen Buryl Red, a renowned composer, conductor, producer and arranger known around the world as musical director of The CenturyMen and composer of the 1972 classic Celebrate Life, died April 1 after a battle with cancer. A graduate…
Duke McCall dies
By Bob Allen Duke McCall, a denominational leader known by Baptists worldwide for a ministry that spanned four decades, died April 2 at age 98. Chris Caldwell, pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., said McCall died this morning…
Luter says SBC watching Boy Scouts
By Bob Allen The president of the Southern Baptist Convention warned the Boy Scouts of America that the nation’s second-largest faith group behind Roman Catholics will be watching when the organization decides at its upcoming annual meeting May 22-24 whether…
Prof expects kinder, gentler ERLC
By Bob Allen A Baptist communications professor who has written a book about religious language in politics predicts that Southern Baptists’ new spokesman for public affairs will be less strident and politically partisan than his predecessor. Russell Moore’s selection as…
Russell Moore new ERLC leader
By Bob Allen The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission has named seminary professor and administrator Russell Moore as president. He succeeds Richard Land, who retires after 25 years as the Southern Baptist Convention’s chief spokesman on public policy and religious-liberty…
Longtime denominational worker dies
By Bob Allen Quentin Lockwood, 90, a longtime administrator with the SBC Home Mission Board, died March 20. He led the agency’s rural/urban department in an era marked by expansion into new work areas that transformed the Southern Baptist Convention…