The sprawling Dunwoody Baptist Church campus is usually brimming with activity, from their childcare center to the many daytime activities that usually take place on their campus. Driving onto an empty and quiet lot almost seems off-centered.

As I entered the chapel area, it was clear that things had changed at Dunwoody. A sign hung on the door indicating that church services would be recorded from the sanctuary, but in-person services would not be held.

Like many churches across America, Dunwoody Baptist has been closed for weeks amid the COVID-19 outbreak and has shifted all of its activities online. 

As I waited for my time to interview praise and worship artist Al Denson and minister of music Robert Comeaux, I sang aloud in the empty chapel and thought about how much our world had changed in the last 7 weeks. 

Denson, who lives in Houston, was in town to record three worship services for Dunwoody, which Comeaux couldn’t be more thankful for.

“Before COVID-19, having Al come in and do three weeks for us would have been next to impossible,” Denson shared with Christian Headlines. 

It’s not unusual for Dunwoody, or other churches, to record music for upcoming weeks. 

When asked what it has been like leading without an audience in front of them, Comeaux shared that he misses the congregation’s energy and participation. He also noted, however, that leading alone can have some…

Minor league baseball star Blake Bivens has opened up about the death of his wife and young son. Speaking at The River Church in Danville, Virginia, Bivens, who plays in the Tampa Bay Rays’ organization, revealed how he found out about his family’s deaths via social media while waiting for a flight.

“First headline I see is two females and a small child were gone,” Bivens said, according to ESPN. “I immediately knew that was them. I found out my family was gone over a Facebook headline. I just immediately began to scream in the middle of the airport.”

Blake’s wife Emily Bivens and his 14-month-old son, Cullen Bivens, had been shot dead, along with his mother-in-law Joan Bernard. Emily’s brother, 19-year-old Matthew Thomas Bernard is accused of murder, though he is unfit to stand trial at this time due to mental illness.

Speaking candidly to the church congregation, Blake recalled the raw shock that followed such brutal and life-changing loss. “I think the hardest moment for me was when I got home and I walked in my son’s bedroom for the first time and realized I was never going to see him on this Earth again,” he said. “That was the worst moment in my life. Nothing ever will come to being, to feeling the way I felt at that moment. Then again, I know I will see him again one day, and it won’t be long.”

Incredibly, the Christian baseball…

(RNS) — It’s been a year since beloved progressive Christian author and speaker Rachel Held Evans died unexpectedly — and in that year, a common refrain sounded again and again online among her many readers and friends.

“I wish Rachel was here,” they would say, when her closest friends and collaborators release books she had encouraged.

“I wonder what Rachel would say about this,” they would mourn, as theological and political divides deepen and a pandemic sweeps the globe.

Matthew Vines has had those moments, too.

“Let me count the ways,” Vines said.

The author of “God and the Gay Christian” said he finds himself spending less time on Twitter now that Evans is no longer there.

Evans had a way of shaping the conversation online, he said. She provided a “grounding center in conversations and discourse” for all kinds of people — those on similar journeys from conservative evangelical Christianity to progressive Christianity, those who were beginning to doubt or ask hard questions about their faith, those who had walked away from church years ago or who were made to feel unwelcome there and never looked back.

“She was threading a lot of needles that are very difficult to thread, and in so doing, she was a bridge and a bridge who was able to reach a very broad spectrum of people,” Vines said.

He misses that.

But, he said, Evans put so much of herself…

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — After nearly 50 days of a strict lockdown in their homes, Italians flocked to parks and strolled the streets on Monday (May 4), the first day of “Phase Two,” when the Italian government loosened some of the restrictions put in place to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

Over the weekend, the Italian Catholic bishops, after a prolonged and sometimes strained debate with local authorities, also secured a deal with the government with the hopes that by the end of May, Italian Catholics will also be able to attend Mass.

“It feels like a dream,” a woman told Religion News Service on Monday, her voice muffled by a protective mask as she enjoyed a walk around the grounds of the Villa Pamphili in Rome.

After nearly three months of staying indoors, the cohesion that marked the worst of the pandemic had begun to wear off. As the “curve” of rising coronavirus cases flattened, fewer and fewer Romans joined to sing from their balconies in the evenings with neighbors, and more and more of them attempted to leave their homes, testing the boundaries of the ever-changing decrees and regulations.

Catholics, many of whom were disappointed to have been denied in-person services since before Easter, have also begun to raise questions about religious freedom as the government refused to allow them to attend Mass in the first wave of openings.

In Italy, which still has…

In a video released by ChinaAid, Chinese government officials appeared to raid a church service in the Fujian province of China.

The video showed officers dragging a man away from the other church attendees while the church members tried to help the man, CBN News reports.

“In a video taken at the scene, officers and attendees of Xingguang Church shout as they engage in a physical altercation,” ChinaAid said in a statement. “As they block the entrance, officials drag a Christian to the door, with other congregants fighting along with him.”

It’s unclear why the officials apprehended the man, and ChinaAid says it is expecting more information.

This is the latest persecution and violence against Christians in the country. In April, a Protestant pastor was arrested in China and charged with “subversion.” Police raided Zhao Huaiguo’s home and arrested him.

Zhao’s wife says she thinks police detained her husband because “he had posted or forwarded something from overseas to do with the coronavirus epidemic.”

Zhao’s church, the Bethel Church in Cili, is not affiliated with the state-mandated denomination, the Three-Self Patriotic Association.

A 2020 report from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom says China is one of the worse places for religious freedom.

The USCIRF report, released on April 28, said that “the state of religious freedom in China has continued to…

President Trump said Sunday he believes a vaccine will be available by January, a timeline that is months ahead of what some experts have said is possible.  

“We are very confident that we’re going to have a vaccine at the end of the year,” Trump said during a Fox News virtual town hall.

Trump’s comments came several days after Bloomberg reported the Trump administration had launched a project known as “Operation Warp Speed” to expedite the normally slow vaccine research and production process. 

The goal, according to Bloomberg, is to have 300 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine by January. To accomplish that, the government will shoulder much of the financial risk of drug companies and pay for the research and production of multiple vaccines, knowing that several might fail. 

The manufacturing of the vaccine candidates would begin before it’s known if they work. The result could be millions of unusable doses but — hopefully — at least one successful candidate.  

Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told NBC’s Today Show he believes it’s possible to have hundreds of millions of doses ready by January.

“I’m obviously part of the team that’s involved in that,” Fauci said. “… I think that is doable if things fall in the right place.” 

Fauci emphasized the importance of getting “a vaccine that is safe, and…