Baptist Press Archive

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Download All Stories

  • DR 'angels' continue to aid La. flood survivors

    by Carmen K. Sisson, posted Tuesday, August 23, 2016 (8 years ago)

    Photo by Carmen K. Sisson/NAMB
    BATON ROUGE, La. (BP) -- Southern Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers continue flood recovery efforts across south Louisiana, coping with intermittent rain as they tear out insulation, sweep mud from houses and carry buckets of sodden clothing to curbs.

    Few areas were left unscathed last week when nearly 7 trillion gallons of rain fell, killing 13 people and damaging more than 60,000 homes in 20 parishes. State officials estimate the damages will exceed $20 billion, making the 500-year flood event one of the worst disasters to strike the United States since Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Read More

  • Foes of transgender directive praise judge's ruling
    by Tom Strode, posted Tuesday, August 23, 2016 (8 years ago)

    WASHINGTON (BP) -- Opponents of the Obama administration's sweeping transgender directive praised a federal judge's order blocking enforcement of the controversial action that instructed schools to permit students to use the restrooms and locker rooms of their gender identity instead of their biological sex. Read More

  • Right place, right time: 4 professions of faith

    by Alex Sibley, posted Tuesday, August 23, 2016 (8 years ago)

    Photo by Kathleen Murray/SWBTS
    FORT WORTH, Texas (BP) -- Juan was sitting by the baseball diamond in Rosemont Park when a team of seminarians saw him. In need of a job, Juan knew he needed prayer, but on this Friday afternoon an even greater need would be met.

    Five students from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary had gone there that day, July 29, to evangelize.

    When two of the student evangelists happened upon Juan, they broke the ice by asking him for prayer requests, and he answered by sharing his need for employment. Read More

  • Christian persecution rising in India, report says
    by Morning Star News/northern India correspondent, posted Tuesday, August 23, 2016 (8 years ago)

    Image: iStock
    UDAIPUR, India (BP) -- Persecution of Christians in India increased dramatically the first half of 2016 and is on pace to far exceed cases the previous two years, a new independent report found.

    The 134 incidents of violence against Christians in India chronicled Jan. 1-June 30 of this year were "just a fraction of the violence on the ground," the Evangelical Fellowship of India's Religious Liberty Commission (EFIRLC) noted in its report, Hate and Targeted Violence Against Christians in India. Read More

  • FIRST-PERSON: Flooded treasures
    by Doug Parkin, posted Tuesday, August 23, 2016 (8 years ago)

    Soggy, ruined possessions of Louisiana flood survivors remind Doug Parkin, a pharmacist and disaster relief volunteer, of the need for guarding spiritual treasurers for times of unexpected crisis. "Build up your relationship with God and your dependence upon Christ, just as you would build up sandbags against rising waters," Parkin writes. Read More