First Baptist Church
Can DeSantis break Trump’s hold on the religious right?
By Jacob Lupfer — March 30, 2023
(RNS) — It’s a time for choosing.
Judge orders church led by CBN spokesman Brad Jurkovich to turn over financial records
By Bob Smietana — June 7, 2022
(RNS) — A group of church members at First Baptist Church in Bossier, Louisiana, has sued the church, claiming the pastor diverted money from missions to a conservative Baptist group. The pastor says Satan is trying to destroy the church.
Remnant of one of the oldest Black churches in US is unveiled in Virginia
By Adelle M. Banks — October 7, 2021
(RNS) — ‘We always hoped this is what we’d find,’ an archaeology director said. ‘Now we can move forward to better understand the footprint of the building.’
Judge: Air Force mostly at fault in 2017 Texas church attack
By Paul J. Weber — July 8, 2021
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A federal judge wrote in a ruling signed Wednesday that the Air Force was ‘60% responsible’ for the massacre at First Baptist Church.
Virginia Senate passes bill to allow guns in churches
By Alan Suderman — January 24, 2018
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The measure comes in response to a deadly church shooting in Texas.
Allowing guns in church flies in the face of tradition and Scripture
By Tom Verde — December 19, 2017
(RNS) — Pistol-packing parishioners may seem like a way to guard against the church shootings that have become so commonplace recently. But there is a long history in Christianity of opposing such strategies.
God and guns: Texas pastors undergo security training a month after Sutherland Springs
By Bobby Ross Jr. — December 5, 2017
PLANO, Texas (RNS) — The Rev. Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church and a former president of the national Southern Baptist Convention, said God put the idea for the free seminar on his heart.
Thousands pack Texas church shooting family funeral service
By Emily Schmall — November 15, 2017
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (AP) — Church member John Holcombe, among the massacre's few survivors, invited the public to attend the funeral of his pregnant wife, three of her children, his parents, a brother and the brother's 18-month-old daughter.
Could it happen here? How churches are preparing for a mass shooting
By Emily McFarlan Miller — November 14, 2017
SCOTTS, Mich. (RNS) – The weekend after the deadliest church shooting in U.S. history, one small church in Michigan had security trainers teach congregants how to respond to an armed intruder.
Texas town holds 1st Sunday service since church attack
By Jerome Socolovsky — November 12, 2017
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (AP) — Members of the First Baptist Church will hold a church service for the first time since a gunman opened fire inside the small church a week earlier in the worst mass shooting in Texas history.
Last Sunday, domestic violence came to church
By Nancy Nason-Clark — November 10, 2017
(RNS) — There is a holy hush that permeates church life when it comes to thinking about domestic violence within and beyond congregational life, writes Nancy Nason-Clark.
The glue that kept Sutherland Springs together before and after the shootings
By Yonat Shimron — November 10, 2017
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (RNS) — Within 24 hours of the mass shooting, another church in town sprang into action, as the coordinating center for the emergency response.
Who decides when we as a country pray and when we act?
By Chloe Breyer — November 9, 2017
(RNS) — 'The dichotomy between prayers and action portrayed in the Twitter feeds of our leaders is a false one and serves neither the dead, the bereaved, nor our nation as a whole,' writes Chloe Breyer. (COMMENTARY)
Pence tells grieving town ‘Faith is stronger than evil’
By Kimberly Winston — November 9, 2017
FLORESVILLE, Texas (RNS) — The memorial service, held in a neighboring town of Sutherland Springs, followed Christian tradition and was replete with Bible readings and prayers to Jesus.
Texas church to be demolished, like other mass killing sites before it
By Yonat Shimron — November 8, 2017
(RNS) — In what is becoming a grim tradition, many mass shooting sites are demolished and then rebuilt. But some churches that have experienced horrific killings have sought to reclaim the existing sacred spaces.
Page 1 of 3
