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After focusing on COVID-19 for nearly a year, international aid groups are bracing for what happens as the world comes out of lockdown. With declining numbers of volunteers and donors, global faith-based aid organizations are looking beyond their traditional sources of support.

Adam W. Greenway, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, attacked Black Southern Baptists who took offense at a statement he endorsed that condemned Critical Race Theory as “incompatible with the Baptist Faith & Message.”

A cross-ethnic group of Southern Baptists released a statement Friday titled “Justice, Repentance, and the SBC” that challenges SBC seminary presidents on the topic of Critical Race Theory.

Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, has blasted Raphael Warnock’s rhetoric and proposals as “radical,” socialist, and out of step with Georgia residents. But for the Black Baptist preacher, he is continuing the tradition of his church.

A Biden transition team official refused to say which church Biden might attend in the nation’s capital or whether he might return to Delaware for services, at least to start. Washington’s COVID-19 measures restrict large indoor services, and many churches have moved services online.

After a weekend of Christmas services earlier this month at First Baptist Church in Hendersonville, North Carolina, at least 75 people contracted COVID-19. The church’s pastor, Steve Scoggins, just finished his tenure as president of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.

Like most Holy Land Christians, Hagop Karakashian’s ceramic shop in the Old City here has always relied heavily on the presence of Christian pilgrims, especially in December. But the narrow alleyways of his shop’s ancient neighborhood are painfully empty this year.

With Joe Biden replacing Donald Trump as president, and with vaccines eventually expected to ease the threat of COVID-19, the challenges for faith leaders in 2021 will shift. Here’s a look at some important storylines to keep an eye on in the coming year for religion in the country.

A six-week war in Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region in the South Caucasus, ended on Nov. 9. But the rich architectural heritage of the region is still at risk as historic Armenian churches, monasteries, and tombstones may face damage or destruction now that they are out of Armenian hands.

The Palestinian prime minister on Thursday (Dec. 17) announced a two-week lockdown in the West Bank that appears certain to curtail Christmas celebrations in the town of Jesus’s birth.