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Bob Smietana

Bob Smietana is a Religion News Service national reporter.

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Background checks, essential for kids' ministry, often remain a mystery

About 10 years ago, when the state of Pennsylvania passed a law requiring a background c...
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For infertile people, the fate of frozen embryos is deeply personal

When Ericka Andersen and her husband started infertility treatment a decade ago, they were hoping for one successful pregnancy....
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Is religion good for you? The answer is complicated, new global Gallup report finds.

A new report from Gallup finds that religious people around the world report being more...
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Giving is up at churches and people are back, but clergy are still thinking about quitting

Three years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, churches have fewer people in the pews, more money in the collection plate and less conflict than they had in 2020....
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SBC leader Willie McLaurin resigns after admitting he falsified resume

Willie McLaurin, the acting president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s executive committee, resigned suddenly on August 17 after admitting he had falsified his resume....
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Many Black SBC churches have women pastors on staff. Will they be expelled next?

Earlier this year, Southern Baptists expelled five churches from the nation’s largest Protestant denomination for having women as pastors....
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Ouster of Saddleback and Fern Creek from SBC over women pastors is affirmed

Delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting affirmed a decision to expel two Southern Baptist churches, including Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in Orange County, California, bec...
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Tim Keller, retired megachurch pastor and bestselling author, dies at 72

Tim Keller, an influential Presbyterian Church in America minister who founded a network of evangelical Christian churches in New York City, has died. He was 72....
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Southern Baptists lost nearly half a million members in 2022

The long, slow decline of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination continues.  ...
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Expelled Tennessee lawmakers find support among clergy

The last time Tennessee legislators tried to make the Bible the state’s official book, a pastor warned them to be careful what...

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After school shooting, protests mount in Nashville

Monday’s shooting at The Covenant School, which left seven dead including the shooter, highlights a dual reality of life in Na...
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Faith-based volunteers show up to help after Mississippi tornadoes

When volunteers show up after a disaster like this past weekend’s deadly tornadoes in Mississippi, some bring chainsaws, tarps...
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Why students at a Kentucky school are praying and singing around the clock

Last Wednesday, students at Asbury University gathered for their biweekly chapel service in the 1,500-seat Hughes Auditorium.<...
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YouVersion Bible app hires former Facebook exec to fuel growth

This past Sunday, more than 12 million people turned on their smartphones to open up the Good Book....
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Federal court dismisses LGBTQ students' class action discrimination suit

There is no legal remedy for LGBTQ students who claim they were discriminated against at their religious universities, an Oreg...
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Church attendance declines as pandemic enters year three

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly every congregation in the United States shut down, at least for a while....

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