News

Even before the global coronavirus pandemic, Baptists in the South American nation of Venezuela have faced years of economic struggles, lack of resources, political turmoil, and difficulty in travel. And as they’ve done during those other challenges, they’ve continued to minister amid the threat of coronavirus and the difficulties it has sparked.

On Tuesday (April 14), U.S. President Donald Trump announced the U.S. would halt funding to the World Health Organization despite the global role of the WHO in fighting the coronavirus pandemic. Trump’s move echoes political fights decades ago as the son of a Danish Baptist preacher transformed the health arm of the United Nations to adopt a social justice approach to health across the world.

A student at Liberty University has filed a class-action lawsuit against the school alleging that students were put at “severe physical risk” when the campus reopened in March despite the pandemic and accusing administrators of profiting from the health crisis by refusing to fully refund students.

The Justice Department took the rare step on Tuesday of weighing in on the side of an independent Baptist church in Mississippi where local officials had tried to stop Holy Week services broadcast to congregants sitting in their cars in the parking lot.

As the coronavirus pandemic sweeps the globe, it adds to the life-and-death challenges of refugees in eastern Africa already threatened by conflict, lack of resources, and perhaps even devastation from billions of locusts. A Baptist pastor ministering in refugee camps in Uganda — himself a refugee from South Sudan — sees the coronavirus outbreak as the latest danger to those he serves.

Like many other ministry leaders around the world, Air Force Chaplain Dan Thompson has needed to make a number of adjustments to minister to the people he shepherds in Afghanistan. Now, when he counsels people, he sits six feet away.

As most churches across the country shifted to online worship services due to the coronavirus pandemic, a few tried a more low-tech way of worshiping without gathering together in a confined space: drive-in services. However, those drive-in worship services sparked church-state conflicts during Holy Week as some governmental officials view the drive-in services as still covered by bans on mass gatherings.

Already heavy-laden with the turmoil of a global COVID-19 pandemic, residents in several Southern states suffered the added burden of a string of tornadoes Easter Sunday that killed at least 27 people, destroyed hundreds of homes and left more than a million in the dark.

Children who come from hard places need to have the chance to feel safe and loved, said Randy Lee, residential parent with Louisiana Baptist Children's Homes. Other children's homes in Missouri and Alabama report staff and supporters are rising to the challenges.

Christianity in the U.S. is seeing a continued decline in many expressions of faith, according to a Barna Group report published March 3. After rising from 45% in 2000 to 50% in 2009, there was a sharp drop to 31% by 2012.