News

On Thursday, faculty, staff, and students at Hannibal-LaGrange University, a Baptist school in Hannibal, Missouri, gathered together to pray for a miracle amid financial woes threatening the school’s existence.

One of the nation’s largest Black Protestant denominations has stopped making payments to retired ministers on its pension plan, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.

In this edition of A Public Witness, we offer a brief history course detailing the background of the ministerial exception and the specifics of the lawsuit against GC. We conclude our class session by considering the value and role of the ministerial exception in a democratic society. 

Missouri’s GOP-led House on Wednesday passed a bill that would allow guns in churches and on public transportation. The House voted 101-40 in favor of the measure, which now goes before the Republican-led Senate for approval.

Hannibal-LaGrange University is holding a 10-hour “time of prayer, fasting, petition, and repentance” on Thursday (March 10). But the Missouri Baptist Convention with which the school is affiliated, put out different reasons for the event — and they raise questions about the financial state of HLGU.

The response of Catholic moral theologians to the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been universally negative. Where Catholic moralists begin to disagree is on what means are appropriate in responding to the invasion.

Andrew Young is marking his birthday with a four-day celebration from March 9–12, starting with a livestreamed “Global Prayer for Peace” worship service at the Atlanta church, followed by a peace walk, debut of the book The Many Lives of Andrew Young, and a sold-out gala.

In this edition of A Public Witness, we revisit one of the most famous quests for political absolution in recent history. We then go to church with Andrew Cuomo to consider his plea for mercy. Finally, we meditate on the larger, troubling pattern of our unapologetic political culture. 

Since 1997, 13 men have served as president of the Southern Baptist Convention. But during that time, only one person has held another important position for the nation’s largest Protestant denomination: Recording Secretary John Yeats. However, that will change in June.

More than 275 Russian Orthodox priests and deacons from around the world have signed an open letter expressing their opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, challenging the Russian government and breaking with the tacit support of the military action by church leadership in Moscow.