News Articles by Brent Thompson

PLANTATION, Fla. (BP)--While Hispanics make up about 13 percent of the U.S. population, they account for 16 percent of the nearly 1 million AIDS cases diagnosed in the nation since the beginning of the epidemic, according to a factsheet released this summer by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

AMARILLO, Texas (BP)--Joy Fenner, a retired missionary and Texas Woman's Missionary Union executive, was elected president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas over David Lowrie, pastor of First Baptist Church in Canyon, Oct. 29.

FORT WORTH, Texas (BP)–Watchman Fellowship, a Texas-based nondenominational research and apologetics ministry, has placed its unique library of materials with Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. The collection will be dedicated during the seminary’s chapel service Oct. 25. Watchman Fellowship focuses on providing Christian information and resources for understanding new religious movements, cults, the occult and the […]

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (BP)--On Sept. 23, 1957, nine black teenaged students -- dubbed the Little Rock Nine -- were secretly taken into Little Rock's Central High School by police through a side door. For a few hours that day, racial integration took place.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (BP)--Fifty years ago, nine teenaged students showed up for their first day of class at Little Rock Central High School. Under orders from Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus, the Arkansas National Guard barred their entrance because the nine "new kids," later dubbed the Little Rock Nine, were black. Central High was a whites-only school.       Two years earlier, the Little Rock School Board had formulated a plan for racial integration that would begin with the 1957-58 school year. The plan complied with the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, which had ruled that racially segregated schools were unconstitutional. The plan's implementation divided the community along philosophical and racial lines: It was integrationists versus segregationists, and the crisis played out on the steps of Central High before a national television and radio audience.       The national guardsmen were successful in keeping the Little Rock Nine out of Central High that day, Sept. 9. Local black church leaders led organized prayer vigils and federal civil rights lawyers obtained an injunction against Faubus.       On the morning of Sept. 23, 1957, some police officers sneaked the Little Rock Nine into Central High and integration was accomplished. But this act of integration was short-lived. When segregationist groups heard about it later that day, they threatened a riot. The police escorted the Nine out again.       U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower granted a request from the mayor of Little Rock and intervened. Eisenhower ordered federal troops to make sure the black students had access to Central High. The Nine went through the school year accompanied by troop escorts throughout the day.

PARADISE, Kan. (BP)--What in the world was a grown man doing in the middle of an empty field in Kansas?

VICKSBURG, Miss. (BP)--When Justin Peters was born in Vicksburg, Miss., in 1973, the doctors knew right away that something was wrong. They decided not to tell Peters' parents, who proudly took their first-born son home. It wasn't long before they, too, noticed something was different about their baby boy. At the age of 1, Peters was formally diagnosed as having cerebral palsy.

SAN ANTONIO (BP)--An insidious false thinking has left the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention vulnerable to defeat by Satan, and the convention's only hope is old-fashioned confession and a Holy Ghost revival, SBC President Frank Page told convention messengers during his presidential address June 12.       Page, pastor of First Baptist Church in Taylors, S.C., preached from Psalm 51:1-3, giving a short history lesson about the infamous Maginot Line formed by the French after World War I to protect France from invasion by Germany. Page said building the system of forts and defense systems along France's eastern border from the south up to Belgium was a tremendous feat and a marvel of technology and engineering at the time.       When World War II broke out in 1939, French generals stood behind the perceived safety of their Maginot Line. Later, however, the Germans exploited a weakness in the line and invaded France through the Ardennes Forest. In less than a year, France had been invaded by Germany and Paris fell into Nazi control.       "We have built our own Maginot Line," Page said. He said Southern Baptists have developed wonderful entities, great programs, tremendous agencies and magnificent churches, "thinking we can stave off the defeat of enemy."

SAN ANTONIO (BP)–While thousands of fans cheered for the San Antonio Spurs basketball team in the Alamodome, several thousand Southern Baptist pastors cheered for Jesus Christ at the Southern Baptist Pastors’ Conference in the nearby Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center. “The issue is not that the Spurs are playing in town in the NBA Finals,” […]

FORT WORTH, Texas (BP)–The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right of every American to worship without government interference, and Southern Baptist leaders want it to stay that way. Baptist statesmen in the late 18th century led the fight to ensure that religious liberty — often referred to as “the First Freedom” — […]