Monday, April 30, 2018

• GuideStone, ERLC defend ministerial housing allowance

  by Tom Strode, posted Monday, April 30, 2018 (6 years ago)

  

  Image: iStock/license purchase required.

  WASHINGTON (BP) -- Two Southern Baptist entities have urged a federal appeals court to uphold the constitutionality of the ministerial housing allowance.

  GuideStone Financial Resources and the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) signed on to a friend-of-the-court brief filed April 26 that asks the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago to reverse a lower court decision invalidating the exemption. Read More

• Patterson clarifies domestic violence stance

  by David Roach, posted Monday, April 30, 2018 (6 years ago)

  

  SWBTS photo.

  FORT WORTH, Texas (BP) -- Paige Patterson has clarified his view on domestic violence and voiced regret "that the way I expressed that conviction has brought hurt."

  Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, issued a written statement Sunday (April 29) amid discussion on social media of an audio clip from 2000 in which he said the proper response of a wife to domestic abuse "depends on the level of abuse to some degree." Read More

• Mac Brunson concludes 12-year FBC JAX pastorate

  by Joe Westbury/Christian Index, posted Monday, April 30, 2018 (6 years ago)

  

  BP file photo by Bill Bangham

  JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (BP) -- When Mac Brunson, co-senior pastor of 10,000-member First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, stepped into the pulpit Sunday, it began as any other worship experience.

  But by the time the April 29 service ended, Brunson had announced his immediate resignation from his pastorate of a dozen years and left the sanctuary with his wife Deb.

  Heath Lambert, a counseling professor at Southern Baptist Theological ... Read More

• NAAF links with Prison Fellowship to reach community

  by Diana Chandler, posted Monday, April 30, 2018 (6 years ago)

  

  Photo submitted by Darron Edwards

  KANSAS CITY, Mo. (BP) -- Racial disparities within America's criminal justice system are spurring black Southern Baptist pastors to work more closely with the national evangelical Prison Fellowship ministry, a pastors' group told Baptist Press.

  The National African American Fellowship (NAAF) of the Southern Baptist Convention is dialoging with Prison Fellowship to study ways pastors can cooperate with the national prison ministry to better serve congregations, NAAF Executive Director Dennis Mitchell said. Read More

• Family, supporters mourn death of Alfie Evans

  by Lynde Langdon/WORLD News Service, posted Monday, April 30, 2018 (6 years ago)

  

  Screen capture by NBC/Nightly News

  LIVERPOOL, England (BP) -- Alfie Evans, the sick toddler at the center of a legal battle over his treatment in Britain, died early Saturday (April 28).

  "My gladiator lay down his shield and gained his wings at 02:30," his father, Tom Evans, 21, said in Facebook post. Doctors at Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool, England, discontinued Alfie's life support Monday against his parents' wishes.

  Evans and Alfie's mother, Kate Jones, lost appeal after appeal in court for the ... Read More

• Beleaguered church buoyed by water from 'cursed' land

  by Casey Watson , posted Monday, April 30, 2018 (6 years ago)

  

  BP file photo.

  WEST AFRICA (BP) -- In the Bible, God demonstrates His power through water. Jesus turned water into wine and then walked on top of waves. He even compares Himself to water.

  God still uses water as a conduit for miracles. Last year, He blessed a small well in the desert of West Africa.

  Shadrach Black, West Africa project coordinator for the Baptist Global Response humanitarian aid organization, recounted the miracle a ... Read More

• FIRST-PERSON: Too much is at stake

  by Nathan Lorick, posted Monday, April 30, 2018 (6 years ago)

  Colorado Baptists' Nathan Lorick voices a call for unity as the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting approaches. "There are millions whose eternities hang in the balance of us being united in the mission and task that God has created for us," he writes. Read More