News

NASHVILLE (BP) -- Most Americans -- but significantly less than four years ago -- want more religious meaning to the Christmas season, and for some that includes the seasonal greetings we say to each other.

KIGOMA, Tanzania (BP) -- At the end of a beaten-up road in Tanzania, a small hospital occasionally is filled to capacity with patients -- and then supplies begin to run thin.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (RNS) — Bob Terry, the longtime editor of both The Alabama Baptist and Word&Way, is known for his journalistic excellence, his personal integrity in the midst of church controversies and his unflagging calls for the Christian mission to build God’s kingdom.

But when he retires at the end of this year, Terry’s most lasting legacy in the hearts of Alabama Baptists is likely to be the vulnerable honesty with which he shared his grief after the sudden death of his first wife in 1998.

NASHVILLE (BP) -- According to Genesis, God created everything in six days before resting on the seventh. But around a quarter of churchgoers say they don't follow His example.

(RNS) — During his lifetime, John Wanamaker built two megachurches.

One tried to save souls.

Another sold clothes, jewelry and perfume.

As a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last year in the case Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, In. v. Comer, Missouri taxpayers are footing the bill for new playground surfaces at churches and Christian schools — and that likely means some public schools and city parks did not receive funding.

(RNS) — The Rev. Mark Harris, a Southern Baptist pastor turned aspiring congressman, is facing allegations of election fraud in North Carolina, where authorities are investigating whether an operative for his campaign paid workers to take absentee ballots from voters illegally.

(RNS) — Hanukkah is meant to mark the victory of the Jewish people over religious oppression.

But in the days and weeks leading up to Hanukkah, which began Sunday (Dec. 2), many Jews have felt defeated as a steady wave of anti-Semitic incidents roiled the country.

DEAD SEA, Israel (BP) -- The Dead Sea has been receding for decades, with some experts predicting its total demise by 2050. But a $1.5 billion plan to resurrect the biblically prominent sea is nearing fruition, NBC News reported Nov. 29.

HOUSTON (AP) — George H.W. Bush, a World War II hero whose presidency soared with the coalition victory over Iraq in Kuwait, but then plummeted in the throes of a weak economy that led voters to turn him out of office after a single term, has died. He was 94.