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Live Nativities, in which visitors drive — and sometimes, especially in warmer climes, walk — through a number of scenes retelling the biblical story of Jesus’s birth, have been popular around the U.S. for years. And it’s an idea whose time has come as the pandemic stretches into the Christmas season.

During their lives they somehow slipped out of sight to the rest of us, and when death came to these 1,547 residents of Los Angeles County, they had become anonymous to the world. But this year’s annual Ceremony of the Unclaimed Dead was livestreamed due to coronavirus.

The unprecedented pace of developing vaccines for COVID-19 has not jeopardized their effectiveness or safety for Americans, the director of the National Institutes of Health said Thursday (Dec. 3) in a webinar hosted by the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. 

The Callaway County Sheriff’s Department announced Thursday it arrested four teenagers for massive vandalism last week to a historic Black Baptist church founded by enslaved persons before the Civil War.

Leaders of BJC (also known as the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty) criticized political attack ads that use snippets of sermons by U.S. Senate candidate Raphael Warnock, who is also a Baptist minister.

The website BibleGateway.com saw unusual spikes in related searches around the first COVID-19 lockdowns last spring, the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the protests that followed in the summer, and the U.S. presidential election this fall.

As its final action, a Baptist seminary that was born in innovation is helping undergird the beginning of two new ventures in theological education. Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond offered its last courses and degrees in spring 2019.

Almost all Americans celebrate Christmas, but most say COVID-19 will cause some changes to their usual holiday habits. A new study from Nashville-based LifeWay Research looks at how Americans plan to celebrate amid a pandemic.

South African liberation theologian and anti-Apartheid activist Allan Boesak recently offered a blistering critique of former U.S. President Barack Obama, comparing the popular politician to biblical tyrants like Pharaoh and Herod. Boesak delivered his comments in response to Obama’s new book.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker is urging those attending services at houses of worship to adhere to COVID-19 precautions, like wearing masks and practicing social distancing, particularly for indoor services.