Diana Chandler, Religion Unplugged

Russia seriously violates religious freedom in the land it illegally occupies in Ukraine, Forum 18 said in a new report.

Torturing and killing pastors and priests, prosecuting residents for exercising religious freedom, banning worship and entire religious communities, closing churches, prosecuting missionaries and banning Scripture as extremist literature are among the most egregious atrocities Forum 18 cited in its March religious freedom survey of occupied Ukraine.

When Plains Baptist Church voted overwhelmingly in the 1950s to bar Blacks and “racial agitators” from membership, Jimmy Carter and a handful of his family members were the only ones opposed to the restriction.

Born into a church that taught white supremacy, the first Southern Baptist to serve as U.S. president had learned the truth over time, he said in two notable interviews available for reading as America lays the 39th president to rest.

At Easter, Gaza Baptist Church leader Shady Al-Najjar described those sheltered in the church’s remnants as “too tired to suffer,” living “very difficult” and “useless” days.

Al-Najjar has since fled to Egypt, and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have set up shop in what remains of the church compound damaged in the war, former church pastor Hanna Massad told Baptist Press on May 8.

“Kumbaya,” the Negro spiritual pleading with the Lord to come and bless the oppressed, filled the sanctuary of Parkridge Baptist Church at a prayer service for Haiti, its capital paralyzed by gang violence.