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NASHVILLE (BP) -- Pastors and other evangelical Christians should speak biblically and live purely to minister faithfully in a sex-saturated culture, speakers said at a Southern Baptist-sponsored summit on the Gospel and sexuality. In addresses during the three-day conference, speakers challenged participants with messages designed to equip church leaders and other Christians to live with purity while aiding people inside and outside the church who are captive to a sexualized society. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission sponsored its inaugural ERLC Leadership Summit in sessions April 21-23 at the Southern Baptist Convention building in Nashville. As sexualized as American culture...

A baptist church that made headlines two years ago for allowing a registered sex offender to preach is now free to allow children in worship services.

A federal judge has dismissed a Georgia Baptist college president’s lawsuit against a blogger who posted video to support allegations that a famous “Jihad to Jesus” testimony is bogus. A U.S. district judge in Fort Worth, Texas, ruled April 17 that Jason Smathers, a Southern Baptist pastor in Arizona who blogs at Witnesses Unto Me, was entitled to post government videos he obtained through the Freedom of Information Act under the “fair use” doctrine of copyright law. Ergun Caner, president of Brewton-Parker College in Mount Vernon, Ga., filed a lawsuit last summer claiming ownership of two videos that Smathers posted...

This Easter Sunday in Ukraine was unlike any other in the history of this nation in crisis. As Ukrainian Christians gathered together at Kiev’s Central Baptist Church to worship and celebrate the resurrection, they heard a special message delivered in person by Alexander Turchynov, the country’s acting president. SGA’s Sergei Omelchenko wrote to tell us about the extraordinary day . . . Turchinov 4-21-14 Acting Ukrainian president Alexander Turchynov proclaims the Gospel at the pulpit of Central Baptist Church in Kiev—a truly historic moment! Pastor Vyacheslav Nesteruk, president of the Ukrainian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (UECB), preached the main message...

Sunday mornings at All Souls Charlottesville are fairly common for an Anglican congregation. The Book of Common Prayer and the Revised Common Lectionary are standard, creeds are spoken together, the Eucharist is the central focus of the liturgy and the minister blesses the congregation before it scatters back into the world. But the Charlottesville, Va., congregation isn’t an Episcopal church. It’s Baptist — in fact it’s a plant of the Baptist General Association of Virginia and is celebrating its fifth anniversary in 2014. This isn’t a Baptist church in the Charleston tradition, a structured expression of worship often distinguished from...

Reports that Fred Phelps, 84, founder of the Topeka, Kan., church known for its anti-gay message and protests of military funerals, is on his deathbed have some looking forward to the Westboro Baptist Church pastor’s passing. The Facebook page Fred Phelps Death Watch was created March 16 and has nearly 1,900 likes. The page states, “While we wait for God to take him, because he hates homosexuals, let’s relive some of his more memorable moments while we wait.”

Fred Phelps Sr., the founder of the Kansas church held in disgust worldwide for its antigay protests of prominent funerals, is in hospice care and "on the edge of death," according to one of his estranged sons. Nate Phelps posted the information on Facebook Saturday night, adding the revelation that his father had been excommunicated from the church in 2013. A church spokesman told the Topeka Capitol-Journal that Phelps was indeed in the hospice but that Nate Phelps "is not well informed." The spokesman also refused to comment on the allegation that the elder Mr. Phelps has been excommunicated. Another...

CHRIS McDANIEL FOR U.S. SENATE FROM MISSISSIPPI Chris McDaniel has a proven record of fighting for conservative principles in the Mississippi State Senate. He has been a champion of limited government, free enterprise, civic participation, reduced tax rates, a strong national defense, and a return to the original checks and balances of the Constitution.

MUSCLE SHOALS, Ala. (BP) -- A Baptist children's pastor in Alabama has pleaded guilty to 16 counts of sodomy, three counts of sexual abuse of a child under the age of 12 and one count of child pornography. Jeffrey Dale Eddie, the children's pastor and administrator of Highland Park Baptist Church in Muscle Shoals, was arrested Feb. 4. Eddie, who was released from his duties upon arrest, had served on the Highland Park staff for 16 years. Eddie was charged with two counts of child pornography, 31 counts of second-degree sodomy and three counts of sexual abuse of a child...

Some church leaders in Kentucky say guns can be an effective way to beef up the flock. Organizers of a Baptist church convention said it will use guns giveaways across the state to attract nonbelievers who are more prone to go duck hunting than sit in a church pew, The Courier-Journal reported. The goal of the Kentucky Baptist Convention's "Second Amendment Celebrations" is to "point people to Christ," the report said.

Questions about the morality of birth control increasingly appear in columns and blogs by SBC ethicists and ministers.On the surface, Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists might seem unlikely bedfellows in opposing mandated coverage of contraceptives under Obamacare, but observers say it points to ongoing reconsideration of the morality of birth control among the Southern Baptist Convention’s leading thinkers. “Evangelical leaders are tripping over themselves in the rush to stand with Roman Catholic bishops against this perceived governmental overreach,” Jacob Lupfer, a doctoral candidate in political science at Georgetown University, said in a Religion News Service commentary in December. “At the...

On Tuesday, the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) announced a drastic turnaround on the part of the federal government: The German Romeike family, which sought asylum in the United States to home-school their children, will now be allowed to stay in America. “The Romeikes can stay!!!” the HSLDA announced on its Facebook page. Just one day ago, the Romeikes thought they would be forced to return to Germany, where the state could take custody of their children because of their decision to home-school. At a minimum, they would face increasingly harsh fines for violating Germany’s compulsory attendance law....

Oleksandr Turchynov, a well-known Baptist pastor and top opposition politician in Ukraine, took office on Sunday, Feb. 23, as acting president after the Parliament voted to oust President Yanukovych.... ...... Monday night in Kiev, Turchynov, 49, spoke publicly for the first time since taking office as acting president. According to an unofficial translation, he said, "Unprecedented cruelty and brutality of the dictatorial regime did not stop citizens. They selflessly gave their lives to defend their rights—and won.... "Our first task today is to stop the confrontation, to regain control … to ensure peace and tranquility, to prevent new victims, local...

When First Baptist's Robert Jeffress proclaimed a couple of weeks back that President Obama is "paving the way for the antichrist," we dismissed it as a publicity stunt designed to sell copies of his new book on the end times. Not everyone was so quick to call Jeffress' claim empty bombast. Take this Christian Post piece from over the weekend in which a reporter, apparently keeping a straight face, asks two Baptist biblical scholars -- or rather as the headline suggests "experts" on the Obama-antichrist link -- to weigh in on the controversy. Darrell Bock, a professor at Dallas Theological...

HUNTINGTON, WV - Powerful winds and heavy rain blew through the area Friday. In West Huntington, the winds were so strong, they ripped off a roof and steeple at Open Door Baptist Church on Madison Avenue. Dan Houdyschell said he heard the storm roll through. "Just a lot of wind around 2 a.m.; garbage cans flying and stuff like that," he said. Steve Wayne is a pastor at Celebration Church, which is just across the street from the damage. "I couldn't believe when I saw that their roof is in the road and the steeple; I can't imagine the damage...

The Southern Baptist Convention’s top spokesman for moral and public policy concerns says Russian President Vladimir Putin lacks moral authority to criticize Western countries for abandoning Christian values. “It really kind of makes my blood boil when I hear Vladimir Putin claiming to be pro-family values,” Russell Moore, head of the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission said in a Feb. 19 podcast titled, “Is Russia really a ‘pro-family values’ nation?

Bojangles Blanchard, an ordained Baptist minister in Louisville, Ky., says denying same-sex couples the benefits of marriage treats them as second-class citizens. A Kentucky Baptist minister and gay-rights activist filed a lawsuit Feb. 14 claiming the state’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. Maurice “Bojangles” Blanchard — who with his partner, Dominique James, was fined 1 cent for trespassing in November for refusing to leave a county clerk’s office after being told they could not apply for a marriage license — asked U.S. District Judge John Heyburn to build on his finding two days earlier that Kentucky must recognize same-sex...

EyeOn College Basketball Missouri students block Westboro Baptist protest of Michael Sam By Chip Patterson | College Writer February 15, 2014 4:46 pm ET The Missouri community has shown overwhelming support for Michael Sam since the Tigers' football star announced that he was gay earlier this month. On Saturday a group of students united to drown out the protest efforts of the Westboro Baptist Church. The group was in town for the Tigers' home basketball game against Tennessee, protesting Missouri's support of Sam outside Mizzou Arena. Students blocked the Westboro Baptist protesters from view with a human wall, turned their...

Bob Jones University has fired an independent firm hired to investigate sex abuse reports just one month before the group planned to release its 13-month review findings. The university had contracted with Lynchburg, Va.-based GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment) in November 2012. “Over the last several months, we grew concerned about how GRACE was pursuing our objectives, and on Jan. 27, 2014, BJU terminated its contract with GRACE,” the university said in a press release. “It is BJU’s intention to resolve its differences with GRACE, and we are disappointed a resolution could not be reached before...

ALEXANDRIA, La. (BP) -- God once used a donkey to alert a wayward prophet that he was on the wrong track. Could it be the Lord is using a bear, a Russian Bear, to do the same with the nations of the West, in particular the United States? "Many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from their roots, including Christian values," Russian President Valdimir Putin said in his state of the nation address in mid-December, The Washington Times reported. Putin continued, "Policies are being pursued that place on the same level a multi-child family and a same-sex partnership, a faith in...