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CLAYTON • A Missouri Baptist University student and former missionary has been charged with setting four parked cars on fire on and near campus earlier this month. Andrew Wos, 21, of the 5200 block of Sunflower Drive in Eureka was charged today with four counts of knowingly burning or exploding after Creve Coeur police say he set four cars ablaze on two parking lots at the university on May 1. Two cars were reported burning at about 4:30 a.m. that day at the university near Highway 40 and Conway Road. One of the vehicles was a university-owned Honda Pilot. The...

A U.S. Army officer who tried to access the Southern Baptist Convention's website on a government computer says he instead received a message indicating the site was blocked "due to hostile content." According to a press release from the American Family Association, a group the officer informed about the incident, the message said SBC.net was being blocked by "Team CONUS," the Continental US Theater Network Operations and Security Center and Regional Computer Emergency Response Team. A Defense Department spokesperson said in an email to The Christian Post that the block is not intentional, and the department is working to solve...

The United States Army has blocked the website of the Southern Baptist Convention from government computers, saying the Christian site contains "hostile content." An Army officer assigned to a U.S. base said he tried to access SBC.net from his government computer, but instead, he got a message that said the site was being blocked by "Team CONUS": Team CONUS protects the computer network of the Department of Defense. "So the Southern Baptist Convention is now considered hostile to the U.S. Army...it just corroborates the recent string of events highlighted by AFA," the officer wrote in an email to American Family...

A former pastor of a northwest Indiana mega-church who has admitted having a sexual relationship with an underage parishioner exchanged hundreds of text messages with the girl and told her Jesus Christ sanctioned their relationship, prosecutors say. The messages are quoted in a memorandum from prosecutors as they argue for a 10-year prison sentence for Jack A. Schaap, who has pleaded guilty to federal charges that he took a minor across state lines with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. The memorandum, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Hammond, details how Schaap, 55, "groomed" the girl into...

RIVERSIDE, CA, March 12, 2013 (LifeSiteNews) – A 24-year-old man who has been living as a woman has sued California Baptist University for $500,000 in damages after the school expelled him for lying on his application paperwork. Domaine Javier applied to Cal Baptist’s nursing program in 2011 as a transfer from Riverside City College. When asked to check a box indicating whether he was male or female on the school’s admission application, he marked ‘female’ despite the fact that he is biologically male and only dresses as a woman. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” Javier told The Press-Enterprise during an...

<p>The congregation of the First Baptist Church of Dallas gave their pastor a standing ovation as he began to deliver the Sunday morning sermon – a sign of affirmation for Dr. Robert Jeffress – a man under siege from the national media and gay marriage activists.</p>

New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow is scheduled to speak at a megachurch in Dallas whose pastor has spoken out against Muslims, Jews, Mormons and members of the LGBT community. Tebow is listed as a special guest at one of the First Baptist Church's morning services on April 28, according to its website. The church is led by Evangelical pastor Robert Jeffress, who has previously denounced non-Christian religions such as Islam, Judaism and Mormonism. Leading up to the most recent presidential election, Jeffress warned parishioners that re-electing President Barack Obama would "lead to the rise of the Antichrist," according to...

Many saw Jesus ascend into heaven on the Mount. Before this, Jesus told them to tarry in Jerusalem where they would be endued with power. Not many days afterwards, on the Day of Pentecost, tongues of fire appeared above those who had assembled together, and they spake with tongues as the Spirit gave the utterance. Now, a question that I have asked more than one person is this: were those who spake with tongues saved (believers) before the Day of Pentecost or before the moment they spake with tongues as the Spirit gave the utterance? If these believers were already...

Bishop-designate David P. Talley. Credit: Archdiocese of Atlanta. Atlanta, Ga., Jan 3, 2013 / 10:54 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict XVI has named Atlanta priest Monsignor David P. Talley, a convert to Catholicism, as the newest auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Atlanta. Atlanta Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory said Jan. 3 that he announced the appointment “with great joy.� “The Holy Father has selected a wonderful member of this zealous local presbyterate for the episcopacy and I know that he will bring all of his many gifts and talents to this new office,� he said in a statement. The...

It appears that there are multiple churches currently affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention located Virginia that are either led by women pastors, or co-led by women pastors. Is the SBC now departing from its formal opposition and starting to quietly tolerate female pastors to avoid a decline in the number of congregations/members ? Virginias BGAV is unique in how it lists who leads the various churches so its not clear if this is unique to Virginia or is a growing phenomena in other states. My understanding of Virginia Baptist is that there are two statewide bodies both affiliated with...

http://rescueattempt.tripod.com/Stille_Nacht_12-23-2012.wma My dear sister Janet, It is 2:00 in the morning and most of our men are asleep in their dugouts—yet I could not sleep myself before writing to you of the wonderful events of Christmas Eve.

http://rescueattempt.tripod.com/Stille_Nacht_12-23-2012.wma My dear sister Janet, It is 2:00 in the morning and most of our men are asleep in their dugouts—yet I could not sleep myself before writing to you of the wonderful events of Christmas Eve. In truth, what happened seems almost like a fairy tale, and if I hadn’t been through it myself, I would scarce believe it. Just imagine: While you and the family sang carols before the fire there in London, I did the same with enemy soldiers here on the battlefields of France!

“How could God let this happen?� That was the question asked of the former Arkansas governor, Mike Huckabee, by Fox News host Neil Cavuto in an interview following the horrific slaughter of innocent school children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, replied:We ask why there’s violence in the schools, but we’ve systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage? Because we’ve made it a place where we do not want to talk about eternity, life, what responsibility means, accountability. That we’re not going...

FULL TITLE: Outrage as Westboro Baptist plans praise gathering outside Sandy Hook Elementary school to celebrate God 'executing his judgement' in horrific shooting rampage that killed 20 children and 6 adults The tight-knit community of Newtown, Connecticut is numb in the aftermath of the heart-wrenching massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary school on Friday when a gunman killed 20 young students, all aged six and seven, in addition to six adults. As families mourn the lives that were cut short in this unspeakable horror, an extremist group has announced they plan to congregate at the scene of the tragedy and...

MOSCOW -- A recent nighttime raid and destruction of an evangelical church outside Moscow raised concerns that religious freedom is fading in Russia. That's because police simply watched as dozens of men with heavy machinery demolished the Holy Trinity Pentecostal congregation. Some fear its part of a threatening pattern against Russia's evangelical Christians. Authorities Raid Church Sveta Romanyuk finds it difficult to talk about what happened the night of Sept. 6, 2012. "What they did was not right. We didn't even have time to save the Bibles," she said. On a recent morning on the edge of Moscow, 12-year-old Sveta...

About 75 North Carolina Baptist Men (NCBM) volunteers are now on site assisting with response efforts after Hurricane Sandy. All three NCBM feeding units are serving in the New Jersey/New York area. The three large feeding units have a combined capacity of 80,000 meals per day. Recovery, administration and chaplaincy volunteers are also on site. The Command Unit, along with large shower units, laundry units, generator units and recovery units, are on the ground and ministering. Recovery teams are already working in some areas and others will be organized as reports come back from assessment teams. With the recovery phase...

Richard Land, a Baptist leader who has been one of the leading pro-life evangelicals for many years has written an opinion piece in which he lays out the case for social conservatives as to why they should vote for Mitt Romney.Land is executive editor of The Christian Post and president of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, but wrote the endorsement piece as a private citizen. The endorsement represents a break from his 24-year-old tradition of not endorsing presidential candidates.“Every four years we have pundits and political gurus tell America, “This is the most important presidential election in a generation.�...

From the days surrounding the American Revolution, Baptists used religious arguments to make political points and political arguments to make religious points, historian James P. Byrd, associate dean at Vanderbilt Divinity School, told a conference at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. At the same time Baptists argued for separation of church and state, they did not hesitate to preach on political topics or embrace patriotic causes with religious fervor, Byrd said, addressing an Oct. 12-13 conference on “Baptists and the Shaping of American Culture.” In a sense, Baptists reflected their culture. Neither Thomas Jefferson nor Benjamin Franklin accepted orthodox Christian...

Further proving that opposition to the Obama administration’s HHS mandate is not limited to Catholic groups, two Baptist-affiliated colleges filed their own lawsuit today against the HHS mandate that promotes abortion.Today, East Texas Baptist University (ETBU) and Houston Baptist University (HBU) filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, asking the court for relief from the Department of Health and Human Services’ “preventative services” mandate, which forces the Christian Universities to violate their deeply held religious beliefs or pay severe fines.“Baptists in America, by virtue of their history, are particularly sensitive to coercive government...

The horror of a Southern Baptist missionary’s death in Jordan is gradually resonating to her childhood home on the rural South Plains this week. Sudan native Cheryll Harvey, 55, a longtime member of College Heights Baptist Church in Plainview, was found stabbed to death late Tuesday night in her apartment in the city of Barha, about 50 miles north of Amman. Harvey’s teaching was in connection with the Jordan Baptist Society, according to a report published by the Baptist Press. Don Robertson, pastor at College Heights Baptist Church, said Harvey had taught English and other subjects in Jordan for 24...

A rally will be held Monday night in Crystal Springs, Mississippi after a black couple wasn’t allowed to get married at their church because of their race. Continue reading The Wilsons were told they couldn’t wed at the town's First Baptist Church because it goes against tradition since a black couple had never been married there in its 129-year history. Charles Wilson and his fiance, Te'Andrea, wanted to get married there, but church members got upset. The paster then asked the couple to take their wedding elsewhere. "This had never been done here before, so it was setting a new...

It was to be their big day, but a Jackson couple says the church where they were planning to wed turned them away because of their race. Now, the couple wants answers, and the church's pastor is questioning the mindset of some of members of his congregation who caused the problem in the first place. … "The church congregation had decided no black could be married at that church, and that if he went on to marry her, then they would vote him out the church," said Charles Wilson. The Wilsons were trying to get married at the predominantly white...

NEW YORK — A long-serving Air Force chaplain has left the Southern Baptist Convention after the conservative denomination publicly questioned his attendance at a same-sex civil union ceremony at his base in New Jersey. The chaplain, Col. Timothy Wagoner, is remaining on active duty and has affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which holds more moderate views on homosexuality and some other issues than the Southern Baptists. "I find very little that is more important and nothing that is more exhilarating than providing for the religious freedoms and spiritual care of all service members and their families — and will...

A statement by a non-Calvinist faction of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has launched infighting within the nation's largest Protestant denomination, and tensions are expected to escalate Tuesday as church leaders descend on New Orleans. ..The May 30 document, "A Statement of the Traditional Southern Baptist Understanding of God's Plan of Salvation," aims "to more carefully express what is generally believed by Southern Baptists about salvation." But both Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Albert Mohler and George W. Truett Theological Seminary professor Roger Olson, in separate blog posts, said that parts of the document sound like semi-Pelagianism, a traditionally heretical...

Grace Community United Church of Christ will close its doors this weekend, but the pastor who says his decision to publicly support gay-marriage rights unwittingly thrust it on a path toward financial ruin plans to find a new home for his small congregation. He has faith that his flock will follow. The Rev. Oliver White, 69, had hoped fundraising would keep the predominantly African-American church on St. Paul's East Side open after a Seattle investor demanded full payment on a high-interest loan. But after a well-publicized Internet campaign raised only about $56,000 of the $200,000 the church needs to pay...

After listening online to a recent sermon on "same-sex marriage" by John Piper. . . . I was surprised to read an article in the Star Tribune ("Key Minnesota pastors opt out of marriage fight," June 21) that misrepresented how Piper is addressing the November vote on a proposed marriage amendment to the Minnesota Constitution. [ . . . ] It's clear that Piper did, indeed, direct his church members to vote to approve the amendment. He did so by explaining how to think through this critical cultural issue biblically and logically, rather than merely telling them what to do...

YUCAIPA (CBS) — The community of Yucaipa is rallying around a soldier’s family. Army Private First Class Nathan Tyler Davis is scheduled to be buried Friday. Members of the notorious Westboro Baptist Church says they will picket the funeral. The group is known for picketing the funerals of soldiers — gay and straight — to protest what they believe is a country headed in the wrong direction when it comes to acceptance of gay rights. The group — which has about 40 members and mostly from one Topeka-based family — is considered a hate group by many.

As Baptists Prepare to Meet, Calvinism Debate Shifts to Heresy Accusation Hundreds, including seminary presidents, have signed a statement on salvation criticized by both Reformed and Arminian theologians. Weston Gentry [ posted 6/18/2012 ] A statement by a non-Calvinist faction of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has launched infighting within the nation's largest Protestant denomination, and tensions are expected to escalate Tuesday as church leaders descend on New Orleans.

A team of researchers believe a knuckle bone found buried beneath a Bulgarian church may belong to John the Baptist, the New Testament prophet who heralded the ministry of Jesus. (Photo Included in article)

Membership in the Southern Baptist Convention dropped again over the last year, according to a new report. The largest Protestant denomination in the country now counts less than 16 million members. This marks the fifth straight year the SBC has lost members. Primary worship attendance has also dropped by 0.65 percent to around 6.16 million. One Southern Baptist and researcher lamented that the denomination is not only experiencing decline but an acceleration of decline. Compared to a 0.15 percent drop from 2009 to 2010, membership fell by 0.98 percent from 2010 to 2011. "Based on the trend of annual percent...

We often like to read from and quote the prophets. But if you’ve ever met a real prophet you know that being in the presence of a real prophet can be very disturbing. Prophets love God’s people, but they love them too much to gainsay the truth.Prophets were famous for goring every one’s ox. No one left the presence of a prophet untouched.So troubling were the prophets of old, including Jesus, that most of them were persecuted, jailed, stoned, exiled and killed. Most of the Biblical prophets were beyond controversial, they were way over the top. Prophets denounced sin and...

Last October, news broke that Shorter University, a Christian college in Rome, Georgia, had decided to ask its employees to sign a controversial pledge that affirms that they are not engaging in homosexuality, among other forbidden activities. Now, after scores of employees refused to sign the document, the college, which is affiliated with the Georgia Baptist Convention, has reportedly received a massive number of resignations

COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) - Johnny Ray Noble is pastor at Second Nazareth Baptist Church in Columbia. He said he wasn't surprised by President Barack Obama's stance on gay marriage. "I was somewhat disappointed," said Noble. In an interview this week, the President said he supported same-sex unions. "At a certain point, I've just concluded that for me personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married," said President Obama. "I thought I'd never hear those words from him being a Christian," said Noble, "Him being happily...

Dr. Robert Jeffress pastors First Baptist Church of Dallas. He admitted that Mormonism is a cult yet backs Romney over Newt when he has a choice between a cultist and a conservative Christian.

ROME, GEORGIA, April 17, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – A 100-year-old Baptist health ministry in Georgia has withdrawn a $42,000 grant from a clinic that dispenses the morning-after pill – but a clinic spokeswoman says she is keeping the money already given.    Georgia Baptist Health Care Ministry awarded the funds to the Women’s Organization for Reproductive and Total Health-care (WORTH) clinic of Rome, Georgia, to support its cervical cancer screenings, with the goal of doubling its 600 patient load. However, an unidentified minister alerted the ministry that the facility distributes the morning-after pill. Local media report that representatives of Women...

This column is in response to requests for insights into the difference between Mormonism and traditional Christianity. I have dear friends who are Mormons. They, like most Mormons, are gracious socially, exceptional family people, and in general good citizens. As such they personally are objects of my regard. Their faith, the Church of Latter Day Saints, better known as Mormonism, has been very much in the news as a result of a prominent member of their faith being a primary candidate for president. I would not deliberately misrepresent any person’s faith so I hope Mormons find the following to be...

So now some Southern Baptists want to be known as "Great Commission" Baptists? Christians, do you have any idea how confusing you are to those of us on the far side of an altar call? For those of you who missed the news: Some Southern Baptists have long been uncomfortable with the name of the denomination, tied as it is to a region and a racist past. A few days ago, the Southern Baptist Commission's executive committee voted to retain the old name but offer an informal alternative. The Great Commission is what many Christians call the admonition from the...

PINEVILLE, La. (BP) -- A Baptist college has joined the list of schools and universities suing the federal government in opposition to the Obama administration's contraceptive/abortion mandate, making it clear the issue is not simply a Catholic one. Louisiana College -- affiliated with the Louisiana Baptist Convention -- filed suit Monday (Feb. 20) in federal court, saying the mandate violates the U.S. Constitution by, among other things, entangling the government in religious matters and forcing the college to violate its "sincerely held religious beliefs regarding abortion." The convention is part of the Southern Baptist Convention. "The time for silence is...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The nation's largest protestant denomination will definitely remain "Baptist," but leaders are thinking about whether it will be "Southern" for much longer.

A prophet is not necessarily someone who has a supernatural vision of the future. He may simply be a person who can see certain trends in the present, understand the underlying issues and therefore attempt to predict how things may go in the future. Here are some trends I see in the American Church and how I see the future developing. The first thing is the disintegration of denominationalism. It used to be that the different Protestant groups were distinct in their theology and their style of worship. There were boundaries. You pretty much knew what to expect in a...

This is the first installment of how a former Protestant leader crossed the Tiber. [1]James Tonkowich A little over a year ago my status changed. Having been a Presbyterian minister for over twenty years, I became a Catholic layman. How that happened is a long story.In a nutshell, though, reading a Catholic author here, meeting with a priest or two there, befriending groups of faithful Catholics, and attending lectures, meetings, and (occasionally) Mass all added up. At the same time, my questions about the viability of Protestantism in a post-modern environment became more pointed and my answers more frightening....

When President Obama signed off on the new HHS regulations that demand every Catholic institution in the country not officially designated a "church" either shut down or offer its employees subsidized sterilization, "morning after" pills and all other forms of contraception, neither the president nor his political team recognized the enormity of the mistake they were making. In attacking the Roman Catholic Church in America on the question of abortion rights absolutism, the president and his team had thought they were dividing women from Republicans when in fact they were uniting Catholics of all political persuasions in a single front...

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, February 8, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – One of the most influential evangelical leaders in the United States says Christians should go to jail rather than comply with the Obama administration’s mandate to provide all contraception, including abortion-inducing drugs, in their health care plans. Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), told LifeSiteNews.com “we will not comply” with the Dept. of Health and Human Services’ mandate requiring religious institutions to cover abortifacient products such as Plan B, Ella, and the IUD. “We want the law changed, or else we’re going to write...

February 6 Roy Schoeman- Jewish ConvertMark Shea- Former Baptist, Dr. Scott Hahn- Former Presbyterian, Fr. Ray Ryland- Former Episcopalian

A couple from Texas who moved to a violence-plagued area of northern Mexico to run a Baptist church were found murdered on Tuesday in their ransacked home, relatives said. John and Wanda Casias, originally from Amarillo, Texas, moved to an area outside of Monterrey, Mexico, in the late 1970s or early 1980s to make it their home. Valerie Alirez, the eldest child of John Casias, said one of her brothers found her father and stepmother dead on Tuesday in their home in Santiago, Nuevo Leon. John Casias, 76, was a Baptist preacher and the couple ran the First Fundamentalist Independent...

Jewish leaders are criticizing a ceremony that involved a controversial megachurch leader being wrapped in a religious scroll and exalted as a “king� to the applause of his parishioners. The video from a service last Sunday at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church shows Rabbi Ralph Messer, a Messianic preacher, instructing two men to slowly wrap Bishop Eddie Long in a large scroll that’s purported to be the Torah.“It doesn’t matter where you go, how you try to attack him. He’s sealed,” Messer proclaims, before the scroll is opened to reveal a teary-eyed Long. Moments later, Long was seated in...

LUNDALE - Members of the Lundale Freewill Baptist Church in Logan County are wondering who shot a statue of Jesus in front of their building. They noticed a bullet mark on the forehead of a statue of Jesus. The church is located along Buffalo Creek. The church's pastor Bobby Adkins says he isn't angry, just disappointed that someone would do such a thing. "As far as I know we don't have an enemy in that community or even on Buffalo Creek. If I do I don't know about it," Adkins said. Adkins said he isn't planning to press charges but...

ROCKFORD, Illinois, January 11, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new book from one of the world’s foremost scholars in family issues examines how mid-twentieth-century evangelical leaders followed the mainstream and bought into birth control, and, briefly, abortion. The book, titled “Godly Seed: American Evangelicals Confront Birth Control, 1873-1973,” by Dr. Allan Carlson, comes at a time when some American evangelicals are rethinking their position on birth control. For instance, there are the followers of the Quiverfull Movement who “eagerly accept their children as blessings from God,” eschewing not only artificial birth control, but even natural family planning. In this way, they...

The votes are in and we have a “favoritest” hymn. Congratulations to … I Know that My Redeemer LivesI’m not really surprised this classic hymn won, but I am intrigued with the first runner-up, Come, Thou Fount. It only lost by one percent of the total votes, so clearly it’s a popular hymn. But the funny thing is, it’s not actually in the current hymnbook. Come, Thou Fount was the most requested write-in hymn from round one of voting, so we added it to the list of others. But if it’s not even in the hymn book, why is it...