GALLATIN, Tenn. (AP) — A 21-year-old transgender man says his private Tennessee college kicked him out after he got breast reduction surgery.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Rhode Island's oldest black church is set to celebrate its 200th anniversary this weekend.

The Congdon Street Baptist Church opened in 1819 and has had an integral...

NEW YORK (AP) — Many religious leaders have strongly condemned President Donald Trump's disparaging remarks about minority members of Congress. Prominent figures on the religious right have not...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) — When patrons of the food pantry at Harmony Community Baptist Church walk into the basement on Wednesday mornings, many are overwhelmed by the quality and quantity of the...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The Kentucky Baptist Convention Mission Board has chosen Todd Gray to lead the organization.

Kentucky Today reports Gray was confirmed as executive director-treasurer...

MADISON, Miss. (AP) — The former pastor of a Mississippi church accused of stealing $332,000 of his church's money has been indicted on multiple counts of embezzlement.

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — A house fire spread to a house of worship next door, all but destroying the First Metropolitan Baptist Church of Savannah, Georgia.

CORBIN, Ky. (AP) — For nearly 20 years, one Corbin woman has faithfully helped to clothe the community, volunteering countless hours of service.

FOUR OAKS, N.C. (AP) — A pastor at a North Carolina church is accused of engaging in sexual acts with an underage girl.

Johnston County Sheriff's officers charged 61-year-old Stephen Arthur...

NORMAN, Okla. (AP) — After 100 years, Etowah Baptist Church is still standing with 60 active members and upcoming celebrations around the corner.

WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) — Calbert R. Brantley was just 5 when he read his father's sermons aloud, pretending to preach the Gospel to the faithful crowds. At 7, he promised God he would someday...

MARSHALL, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina authorities say they caught two people vandalizing a Baptist church with caricatures of the devil and the phrase "Satan rules!"

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Cracker Barrel said it won't host an event by a Tennessee church whose pastor was a detective who preached that the government should execute gay people.

HOUSTON (AP) — A former Southern Baptist pastor who supported legislation in Texas that would have criminalized abortions has been arrested on charges of child sex abuse, accused of repeatedly...

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (AP) — Sharing a stage with tearful survivors of sex abuse, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention apologized Wednesday for the abuse crisis besetting his...

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (AP) — Confronting an unprecedented sex-abuse crisis, delegates at the Southern Baptist Convention's national meeting voted Tuesday to make it easier to expel churches that...

HOUSTON (AP) — A former minister in Houston has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to what prosecutors call the theft of more than $800,000 from First Baptist...

The Southern Baptist Convention gathers for its annual national meeting Tuesday with one sobering topic — sex abuse by clergy and staff — overshadowing all others.

SUMTER, S.C. (AP) — When he started at Alice Drive Baptist Church, a former pastor there told him "it's a good church to start at, but nobody stayed for too long."

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Convention planners say the upcoming Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Birmingham is one of the city's largest events ever.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The nation's largest Protestant denomination reported its twelfth year of declining membership in an annual report released Thursday.

ATLANTA (AP) — The Westboro Baptist Church protested outside of the country's only all-male historically black college over the school's new admission policy that accepts transgender...

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Stained-glass windows honoring some religious leaders who helped shift the Southern Baptist Convention to a more conservative stance have been removed from a Texas...

BOW, N.H. (AP) — In all the years since Bow Baptist Church was built in 1832, the building has stood strong even as its bones have aged.

Some modifications to the church's interior have been...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — An Anchorage minister whose influence extended beyond the pulpit into Alaska politics has stepped down.

The Rev. Jerry Prevo gave a farewell sermon Sunday at...

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A global Baptist figure and the mayor of Jackson are saluting graduates of Belhaven University.

Broadcaster, pastor and speaker Billy Kim spoke to students receiving...

OPELOUSAS, La. (AP) — Vice President Mike Pence praised the parishioners of three African American churches Friday for the inspiring way they responded to the destruction of their sanctuaries by...

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A member of an African American church in Mississippi admitted setting the church on fire but never took responsibility for the words "Vote Trump" that were spray painted on...

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A longtime treasurer for a rural Baptist church near Hannibal has been sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison for defrauding the church out of around...

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A beloved pastor at a Baptist church in Utah has announced his retirement after 45 years of service.

The Deseret News reports that hundreds attended a celebratory...

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — The Rev. Raymond Burt Sr. recollected the history of the Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church as one that has grieved, but holds on to an optimistic future for the...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A crowdfunding drive to help rebuild three African American churches gutted by arson fires in Louisiana has surpassed its original $1.8 million goal.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A crowdfunding campaign for three African American churches in Louisiana recently gutted by arson was climbing Tuesday after social media posts urging the public not to forget...

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — A former youth pastor at a Vermont Baptist church who admitted exploiting a teenage girl in a youth group will avoid jail time and not be placed on the sex offender registry...

OPELOUSAS, La. (AP) — Members of three historically African American churches that burned in recent weeks in Louisiana say fires won't stop them from worshipping.

OPELOUSAS, La. (AP) — Authorities in southern Louisiana are investigating a string of "suspicious" fires at three African American churches in recent days.

DALLAS (AP) — Arkansas Pastor Ronnie Floyd has been elected president and CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention's executive committee after the man previously in the role resigned due to an...

OPELOUSAS, La. (AP) — Two historically black Baptist churches have been destroyed by fires in one week in a Louisiana parish.

News outlets report that the Greater Union Baptist Church in...

SACRAMENTO, Ky. (AP) — Ken Frizzell wears a badge daily as McLean County sheriff, but he also keeps his Bible close as the pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Sacramento.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A member of a black church in Mississippi has pleaded guilty to burning the church, which was also spray painted with the slogan "Vote Trump," a week before the 2016...

ATLANTA (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is set to speak Sunday at the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Martin Luther King Jr. once occupied the...

BEAUREGARD, Ala. (AP) — The pastor of a church that became a center for shelter, help and grieving when a tornado killed 23 people in eastern Alabama said in his first Sunday service after the...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — President Donald Trump was just doing what he could to raise spirits when he signed Bibles at an Alabama church for survivors of a tornado outbreak, many religious leaders...

BEAUREGARD, Ala. (AP) — With nearly two dozen people killed in a tornado outbreak that shattered a rural community in east Alabama, notifying the families of the dead was a huge, gut-wrenching...

California Baptist (15-13, 6-8) vs. Texas Rio Grande Valley (18-14, 9-6)

UTRGV Fieldhouse, Edinburg, Texas; Thursday, 8 p.m. EST

BOTTOM LINE: Texas Rio Grande Valley goes for the...

SHREVEPORT, La. (AP) — The pilot and passenger of a small private plane pulled from the Red River over the weekend will be laid to rest this week.

Incarnate Word (6-23, 1-15) vs. Houston Baptist (11-16, 7-9)

Sharp Gymnasium, Houston; Wednesday, 8 p.m. EST

BOTTOM LINE: Houston Baptist looks to extend Incarnate Word's conference...

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — An initiative aimed at recruiting more foster and adoptive parents in Kentucky plans two meetings in March for interested parties to get information.