News

Every church has adjusted some aspects of ministry since the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic. But some congregations are already turning from the question of how to shift from the current moment toward changes for the long-term future.

Disaster response and state/regional leaders of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship gathered in Lake Charles, Louisiana, to assess damage wrought by Hurricane Laura and plan for long-term recovery efforts in collaboration with the National Baptist Convention of America and its president, Samuel Tolbert.

More than two dozen people joined the brightly colored flotilla for Kayak Church on Sunday (Aug. 30) as Faith UCC, like so many other churches across the country, dips its toes into meeting together in person after months apart during the novel coronavirus pandemic.

French President Emmanuel Macron criticized Friday what he called “Islamic separatism” in his country and those who seek French citizenship without accepting  France’s “right to commit blasphemy.”

Joe Biden told residents of Kenosha, Wisconsin, that recent turmoil following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, could help Americans confront centuries of systemic racism, drawing a sharp contrast with President Donald Trump amid a reckoning that has galvanized the nation.

A devoutly Catholic husband who refused to grant his wife a divorce on religious grounds urged Nebraska’s highest court Sept. 3 to overturn the state’s no-fault divorce law in a case that could leave Nebraska as the only state without a law that lets couples end their marriage without assigning blame.

A group of 17 churches met Aug. 27 at Harbor Park in Kenosha, Wisconsin, to pray for the city and cry out to God for restoration, as well as to pray for Jacob Blake’s family and those directly affected by the violence.

Buckner International, a Baptist charitable organization based in Texas, recently learned 160-year-old records show its long-revered namesake founder, R.C. Buckner, was a slaveholder. The 1860 “slave schedule” for Lamar County, Texas, revealed Buckner as the owner of an enslaved 16-year-old Black female.

This past Sunday (Aug. 30), John MacArthur, the senior pastor of Grace Community Church in Los Angeles, California, made a startling statement as he holds in-person services in violation of coronavirus restrictions. But there are three problems with MacArthur’s claims.

The longer COVID-19 rages on, the more the United States appears to be hanging its hopes on the development and rapid mass distribution of a vaccine. But stopping the virus’s spread will only happen if enough people choose – or are required – to get vaccinated. Will religious objections be allowed?