Four years into a multi-faceted and sustained response to “the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era,” the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is continuing its efforts to serve Syrian refugees through field personnel and ministry partners in five countries. Belgium-based field personnel…
In North Carolina and Syria, the politics of ‘home’ is real
I haven’t lived in the place where I was born and raised in a long time. But sometimes a quality of “home” embedded in my consciousness is suddenly awakened — a visceral sense of rootedness in a place, among a…
Baptists aid Syrians who escaped war only to freeze in refugee camps
By Leah Reynolds The terror and violence became unbearable. At 4 a.m. some two years ago, Yusuf and Fatima Assad gathered their nine children and abandoned their home, possessions and comfort to search for a better life, away from bombings…
Pastor defends letter denouncing Syrian refugees
By Bob Allen An Alabama pastor is standing by a letter to the editor in his Baptist state newspaper criticizing Southern Baptist Convention leaders for what he says is coddling Syrian refugees. SBC leaders rushed to Twitter to condemn a…
Baptist missionaries hope song may soften hearts toward Syrian refugees
By Ken Camp After his wife and son witnessed the plight of Syrian refugees firsthand during a mission trip to the Middle East, Rick Brown wrote the words and music to For the Refugee both as a petition to God…
Seminary heads ask governors to support Syrian refugees
By Bob Allen Three Kansas City seminary presidents joined Dec. 15 in a letter asking governors of Kansas and Missouri to welcome Syrian refugees to their states. President Molly T. Marshall of Central Baptist Theological Seminary joined the presidents of…
Is politics trumping mercy?
In this age of the demise of many magazines because of the great growth of information on the Internet, a small Christian community in New York known as the Bruderhof has bravely begun to publish the Plough Quarterly , an…
Clergy urge welcome for Syrian refugees
By Bob Allen A Cooperative Baptist Fellowship pastor joined faith leaders from across metropolitan Louisville, Ky., in a press conference supporting the resettlement of Syrian refugees in Indiana and Kentucky. Joe Phelps, pastor of Highland Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky.,…
Wishing a Happy Thanksgiving to a Syrian-born imam and friend
Earlier this week I sent a text with a Thanksgiving message to my friend Samer Altaaba, Lubbock’s Syrian-born imam who immigrated to the United States a decade and a half ago. I wanted him to know I was thinking of…