National News

For the past 50 years, in some form or another, I have had the privilege of serving in ministry in the Southern Baptist Convention. While I now serve as interim president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, I have pastored churches in Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky and Virginia, and most recently, retired as executive director of the South Carolina Baptist Convention.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (BP) – A bill that passed the Alabama House of Representatives on Feb. 24 and criminalizes disrupting a worship service is one of several that states are considering after a protest inside a Southern Baptist church last month.

ATLANTA — A key Senate committee unanimously advanced Senate Bill 542, which would add clergy to Georgia’s “improper sexual contact” statute, during a hearing Wednesday evening, Feb. 25.

NEW ORLEANS (BP) – Louisiana and Texas attorney generals can proceed in requiring public classrooms to display the Ten Commandments, a federal court has ruled, as Arkansas and Ohio wrangle over similar laws.

WASHINGTON (BP) – The contemporary revival of American society includes revivals of faith and traditional morality, President Donald Trump said Feb. 24 in his State of the Union address.

NASHVILLE (BP) – The landscape of so-called “gender affirming care” continues to change as hospitals change policies and treatment plans under pressure from the Trump administration.

JAMAICA, Queens, N.Y. – Jabez Chakraborty, 22, was arraigned from his hospital bed last Friday (Feb. 13) where he is still recovering from being shot four times in his home Jan. 26 by New York City Police Officer Tyree White. (See original Baptist Press article here.)

NASHVILLE (BP) – In a wide-ranging interview with Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution, former U.S. senator and former university president Ben Sasse minced no words and even used some colorful ones when talking about the gravity of his condition and of the country’s challenges.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – Former CNN host turned independent journalist Don Lemon pleaded not guilty to federal civil rights charges Friday (Feb. 13), following a protest at a Minnesota church where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official is a pastor. Four others also pleaded not guilty in the case.

PANOLA, Ala. – More than 100 people from Alabama and Mississippi gathered recently at Galilee Missionary Baptist Church in Panola to mark the 20th anniversary of what Pastor Bob Little calls “a blessing in the blaze.”