Leonardo Blair

Latest

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  Feb 9, 2021

  Kentucky church votes not to resume indoor services until 70% of city is vaccinated

  Leaders at First Presbyterian Church in Lexington, Kentucky, voted Monday to keep indoor worship services suspended until 70% of the city is vaccinated as a more highly transmissible coronavirus variant spreads rapidly around the U.S.

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  Feb 9, 2021

  Some black leaders say there's room for dissent in SBC over CRT

  As a racial and ideological divide over critical race theory continues to roil the Southern Baptist Convention, two of the denomination’s senior black leaders insist the denomination is big enough to accommodate dissent.

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  Feb 8, 2021

  California to revise indoor church guidelines after Supreme Court ruling

  The office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state will soon issue revised guidelines for indoor worship services after the Supreme Court granted an emergency injunction against a public health ban on the practice but kept restrictions on singing, chanting and crowd size in place.

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  Feb 5, 2021

  It’s time for SBC leaders to take racial turmoil to God, Illinois pastors say

  A group of black and white pastors from the Illinois Baptist State Association are urging a return to the Bible and the setting aside of politics to help heal the racial divide in the Southern Baptist Convention that has erupted over politics and theology in recent months.

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  Feb 5, 2021

  Cicely Tyson’s pastor remembers her faith as family announces public viewing

  A public viewing for the late award-winning actor Cicely Tyson, who died at the age of 96 on Jan. 28, will be held this month at the famed Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City where she was a member and attended every Sunday when she could, according to her pastor, the Rev. Calvin Butts III.

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  Feb 4, 2021

  Catholic Church amassed billions in PPP aid despite having billions of own money: report

  Catholic churches and their related institutions amassed at least $1.5 billion in funding from the government’s Paycheck Protection Program while sitting on billions of dollars of their own money, a new Associated Press investigation has found.

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  Feb 4, 2021

  JD Greear urges pastors not to call VP Kamala Harris ‘Jezebel,' but to pray for her

  Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear is urging pastors in the denomination to refrain from calling Vice President Kamala Harris “Jezebel” due to the racist connotations of the moniker. He is calling on them to honor and pray for her as an elected leader instead.

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  Feb 4, 2021

  Pentecostal snake handlers now calling on Jesus and doctors after high profile death

  Seven years after snake-handling Pastor Jamie Coots of National Geographic's popular "Snake Salvation" TV show died after he was bit by one of his snakes during a church service, his community of Appalachian Pentecostal snake-handlers are now looking to Jesus and doctors for help with venomous snake bites.

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  Feb 3, 2021

  Dwight McKissic receives letter urging SBC to bid black members 'goodbye and good riddance’

  Outspoken African American Southern Baptist Convention Pastor Dwight McKissic, who threatened to leave the SBC over a dispute about critical race theory, recently received a letter that disparaged blacks and urged the convention to “bid them goodbye and good riddance!”

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  Feb 3, 2021

  Joe Biden says he's leaning on prayer to lead because it ‘gives me hope and centers me’

  President Joe Biden, who is only the second Catholic president of the United States, says he’s leaning on prayer to help him lead the nation through the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and economic crisis.