Baptist News Global

11/02/2024

Here are 39 of the best weekly essays written by Mark Wingfield for readers of the Baptist News Global "Friday Roundup." These timely tales come from the news, from personal experience, history and the arts.

Here are 39 of the best weekly essays written by Mark Wingfield for readers of the Baptist News Global "Friday Roundup." These timely tales come from the news, from personal experience, history and the arts. The brief essays are inspirational, heart-warming and challenging, often drawing on Scrip...

11/01/2024

By Michale P.L. Friday

I never have told anyone — not even my children — how to vote. Today, though, I shall ask you to consider for whom to vote, if you have not already. I encourage you to vote for your neighbor, for it is the only way we cast the right vote for “us.” Vote for us,...

11/01/2024

By Mark Wingfield

The 2024 presidential election is a head-scratcher. Donald Trump is intentionally violating every canon of American political etiquette. His interminable campaign speeches are aimed at no one outside the MAGA base. Outside of a few washed-up celebrities like Kid Rock and Hulk Hogan, the former presi...

11/01/2024

By Sid Smith III

One of the accusations I hear leveled by evangelical Trump supporters is that people who oppose him do so not out of principle but out of mere hatred of him. Do I hate Donald Trump? I try as best I can to not hate anyone. Am I perfect? No, but I ask God every day...

11/01/2024

By Andrew Manis

A few weeks ago, I attended my niece’s wedding. While my wife and I waited for the service to begin, I found myself in a conversation with the young minister who was conducting the wedding ceremony. Although he had attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, he now led a nondenominational ...

11/01/2024

By Steve Rabey

Donald Trump and many of his loyal foot soldiers won’t face justice for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election before the 2024 election. But for some, including Christian influencers and media personalities who put faith in Trump’s claims and promoted them to their audiences, days of reckon...

11/01/2024

By Jamar A. Boyd II https://bit.ly/3Yu4u5h

Facing the reality of governmental oppression, as a form of imperial reaction and suppression to the revolutionary movement of the church, early Christians anticipated unavoidable suffering. Living within an autocracy, anyone or any movement that stood in contradiction to this empire was poised to e...

11/01/2024

By Joe Westbury

What do Donald Trump, Teletubbies, Starbucks coffee cups and other forms of Christian persecution have in common? More than you might think. As someone raised in a very conservative Southern Baptist church in Orlando, Fla. — I would not go so far as to call it fundamentalist — today I can see a ...

11/01/2024

By Jeff Brumley

Faith-based activists must continue the fight for voter rights if religious freedom and a pluralistic democracy are to survive the 2024 election and thrive beyond it, said Adam Phillips, chief strategy officer for Interfaith America. Members of congregations across the country can participate in tha...

10/31/2024

By Jeff Brumley

The problem with white evangelicals isn’t their close affiliation with the Republican Party but the homogeneity of their political thinking and culture, sociologist of religion Ryan Burge said during a conference hosted by Denver Seminary. “When a religious movement becomes overwhelmingly a poli...

10/31/2024

By Nathan Empsall https://bit.ly/3UzGEEa

Only one Sunday remains until Election Day. With a candidate on the ballot who promises to be a dictator on day one, the stakes could not be higher — for the church or for democracy. The truth is the vast majority of American Christians reject the manipulation and abuse of faith exemplified by ex-...

10/31/2024

By Grady L. Throneberry

In the post-apocalyptic themed movie The Book of Eli, Denzil Washington plays Eli, a nomadic, perhaps divinely appointed prophet and guardian of the last remaining copy of the Bible. His mission is to protect and transport it to a place of safe keeping. Gary Oldman plays the role of Carnegie, a vill...

10/31/2024

By Napp Hazworth

Last Friday, Donald Trump visited Austin, Texas, and promised, “Immediately upon taking office I will launch the largest deportation program in American history.” “January 20 … will be liberation day in America,” he said in front of a background that read “END MIGRANT CRIME” and “DEP...

10/31/2024

By Cynthia Astle

Southern Methodist University in Dallas is headed back to court seeking to free itself from the authority of The United Methodist Church. Most sources trace this conflict back to actions taken by the UMC in 2019, but a tug-of-war between university and church goes back more than a decade further. Ac...

10/31/2024

By Staff

Wake Forest University School of Divinity has received a $6.6 million gift from the Griffin Family Trust, the largest individual donation in the school’s history. Combined with an earlier gift from the Griffin family, that brings their support for the divinity school to $10 million. The gift comes...

10/31/2024

By Randy Shepley https://bit.ly/4e7Zd9k

I like to laugh. I like telling stories of funny real-life situations and laughing with others. I especially like making my wife and children laugh, although the Dad jokes primarily elicit rolled eyes and pained expressions. Sometimes, I make myself laugh in my own sermons. This is not a good thing....

10/31/2024

By Rodney Kennedy

Recent letters published by descendants of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and members of the International Bonhoeffer Society denouncing misuse of the German theologian’s legacy illustrate a much bigger problem: The false conversion of iconic people to suit the needs of modern-day conservatives. It’s not j...

10/31/2024

By Robert P. Jones

Like every other high-quality survey, the topline results of PRRI’s American Values Survey shows the presidential election — both at the national level and in the battleground states — as a toss-up. Moreover, the PRRI data generally confirm earlier Pew polling showing the vote preferences amon...

10/30/2024

By Rick Pidcock https://bit.ly/48qMMUU

Is the United States on the verge of becoming a theocracy? After covering Sean Feucht’s “Kingdom to the Capitol” event in Raleigh two weeks ago — during which Feucht embraced the term “Christian nationalism” and another pastor admitted, “We deny the right of any other kingdom to prospe...

10/30/2024

By Jeff Brumley

A federal judge took Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to school on the First Amendment in siding with a nonprofit organization’s right to air a TV ad promoting an abortion rights measure on the Nov. 5 ballot. Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker included a scathing rebuke of the state in his Oct. 17 tem...

10/30/2024

By Steve Rabey https://bit.ly/3C4SYG2

Luther Rice College and Seminary, a private Baptist school incorporated in 1962, is suing Georgia officials over their decision to exclude the school from student financial aid programs. The school is represented by Christian legal powerhouse Alliance Defending Freedom, which filed the suit Oct. 15....

10/30/2024

10/30/2024

By Rosaly Guzman

In a world increasingly divided by hate and prejudice, the recent remarks by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at a Trump rally in New York City remind us of the urgency with which we must confront racist ideologies. His comments, describing Puerto Rico as a "floating garbage island" and perpetuating harmfu...

10/30/2024

By Alan Rudnick https://bit.ly/48qmQJ4

I have heard many Christians say, “I don’t want to hear politics in the church!” Churchgoers who make such a statement might not want to hear partisan politics in the church. Partisan politics is political activity that advocates for or against a particular party or person. Merriam-Webster def...

10/30/2024

By Kristen Thomason

Filmmaker Errol Morris is known for his probing documentaries. His breakout film The Thin Blue Line (1988) investigated the framing of an innocent man by a corrupt police force. In 2003, Morris won the Oscar for his film The Fog of War, an indepth look at former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNa...