Free Republic

NEW YORK — Conservative legal advocates are recruiting pastors nationwide to defy an IRS ban on preaching about politicians, in a challenge they hope will abolish the restriction. The Alliance Defense Fund, based in Scottsdale, Ariz., will ask the clergy to deliver a sermon about specific candidates Sept. 28. If the action triggers an IRS investigation, the legal group will sue to overturn the federal rules, which were enacted in 1954. Under the IRS code, churches can distribute voter guides, run voter registration drives, hold forums on public policy and invite politicians to speak at their congregations. However, they cannot...

"Headstrong in their two faiths, a Mormon and a Baptist squared off recently at the Tempe Institute of Religion at Arizona State University and spent 2 1/2 hours demonstrating they could aggressively question each other's religions but come away with deep respect and love for each other. Actually, some 55 times since 2001, the Rev. Gregory Johnson, founding pastor of Ogden Valley Baptist Church in Utah, and Robert Millet, dean emeritus of religious education at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, have held "A Conversation Between a Mormon and an Evangelical" in the U.S., Canada and England. Between genial ribbing...

Gays, women seeking abortions, couples not married will be includedJust as the Christian church has done many wonderful things throughout history, says the Rev. Richard Mark Lee, it also has done many terrible things, such as targeting, judging and condemning various individuals and groups. On Sunday, Lee plans to apologize for these past wrongs in a sermon at his church, Sugar Hill Baptist, known as The Family Church. Some of the groups Lee said he'll apologize to include gays, women seeking abortions and couples who live together outside of marriage. "For too long, we're been known for the issues we're...

Several dozen leading members of the Southern Baptist Convention, including its current President and several past Presidents, recently released a "Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change." I attended Liberty University, a school affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention and specifically affiliated with Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia. Both the church and the University were founded and led by Jerry Falwell until his death last May. The school and church are now led by Rev. Falwell's two sons: Jerry Falwell, Jr. is the Chancellor and President of Liberty University, and Jonathan Falwell is the senior pastor of the...

Leaders in the new Southern Baptist environmental movement were careful Monday to avoid criticizing fellow Southern Baptists still skeptical of climate change, while at the same time pushing them to have greater concern for the environment. Tue, Mar. 11, 2008 Posted: 14:07:05 PM EST Leaders in the new Southern Baptist environmental movement were careful Monday to avoid criticizing fellow Southern Baptists still skeptical of climate change, while at the same time pushing them to have greater concern for the environment. “This is a journey for each of us and Southern Baptists are at different points in this journey,” said Jonathan...

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Former president Jimmy Carter convened a large assembly of moderate and liberal Baptists in Atlanta a few weeks ago, meeting under the banner of a "Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant," seeking unity for social action across racial and theological boundaries among 30 different Baptist denominations. Ironically, President Carter's appeal to the first century dispute between Paul and Peter as an example of why Christians today should seek unity in spite of theological differences is actually a vivid illustration of the theological danger ahead for this effort and why Southern Baptists cannot be involved. Conspicuously absent from the gathering was...

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Evangelist Billy Graham was recovering Thursday from a surgery to update a shunt that controls excess fluid in his brain, a family spokesman said. The 89-year-old Southern Baptist minister was expected to spend some of the day walking the halls of Asheville's Mission Hospital and to return to his usual diet later Thursday, said Graham spokesman Larry Ross. "He rested well overnight and is in high spirits," Ross said. White House spokeswoman Jeanie Mamo said President Bush placed a call to Graham on Thursday morning. "He wished Rev. Graham a speedy recovery and said that he'd...

The Gaza Strip is home to 1.5 million Muslims - and about 3,000 increasingly frightened Christians. The small evangelical Baptist community has been a principal target of the extremists because of its missionary work, which has been halted. "Christians get killed here, let alone a Muslim who converted," said Ashraf, 36, who did not give his last name. "I stopped going to church even before the coup." And recently, even his church leader, pastor Hanna Massad, has fled to the West Bank. The murder of Baptist congregant Rami Eyad in October sent shock waves through Gaza's Christian community. Eyad's religious...

I am disappointed in the tactics and statements of almost all the presidential candidates, both Democrats and Republicans. My grandmother used to say that you can tell just as big a lie with a half-truth and sometimes a bigger one. Take the half-truths said about Mike Huckabee and taxes. I lived in Arkansas when he was the governor. He did away with the marriage tax penalty and the capital gains tax on the sale homes. He doubled Arkansas' standard deduction and the child care tax credit. He slashed the capital gains tax for both individuals and businesses. In 2001, Mike...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee skipped out of campaigning in Florida a day before its primary in hopes of laying claim to Fred Thompson's backers in Tennessee. He also squeezed in some time in a Music Row recording studio, playing bass guitar with a group of country music stars and session musicians. Huckabee said those who backed the former Tennessee senator's presidential run should now turn to him because he's consistently shown he's a conservative — supporting anti-abortion measures and tax cuts while governor of Arkansas. Thompson withdrew from the presidential race last week after a disappointing...

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam (BP)--Vietnamese Baptists met at Grace Baptist Church in Ho Chi Minh City Jan. 10-11 to celebrate the church’s receiving official government recognition and to organize a new national confederation. This historic development is expected to encourage future evangelism and church-planting efforts in the country. The Vietnamese government made this possible by granting a certificate of religious practice to the church. The 400-member group met to create Grace Baptist Southern General Confederation. It adopted a constitution and elected officers for the new organization, which will organize and represent new churches across Vietnam. Bouquets of flowers and...

Candidates from Hope are hip. Bill Clinton had his saxophone; Mike Huckabee plays his electric bass guitar. But when Americans hear the labels "Southern Baptist" or "evangelical," they probably don't immediately think "hip." Next to Mormons, evangelicals are probably regarded as the least cool segment of the American population. How did Mr. Huckabee become a hip evangelical politician?

(ABP) -- Evangelical scholar and seminary president Al Mohler will be nominated for the Southern Baptist Convention presidency next June, but he likely will face opposition for the prominent post. Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., will be nominated by Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas. Jeffress announced his intention to nominate Mohler Jan. 2 through the SBC’s news agency. Prominent SBC blogger Wade Burleson, who earlier predicted Mohler would be nominated -- and lose -- said Jan. 4 that he expects a little-known pastor to be nominated and be elected over Mohler....

Ed Rollins is a nasty, nasty piece of work. Here he was tonight on Fox News: Rollins: The wise men like you who say Huckabee doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in heck - well, he can still go out and take his message to the people. And we’ve seen all the wisdom doesn’t live in Washington, and all the wisdom doesn’t live in the press corps.” Wallace: You can accuse me of a lot of things, but I would note we’ve had Mike Huckabee on Fox News Sunday several times— Rollins: —and we’re very grateful for the opportunity to take...

Baptist of the Year: Al GoreRobert Parham 12-28-07 Al Gore, pictured here from "An Inconvenient Truth," is EthicsDaily.com's 2007 Baptist of the Year. Al Gore is EthicsDaily.com's pick as Baptist of the Year for 2007. He has pressed for the global good with a compelling message about the danger of climate change and a clear call for moral responsibility, knitting together science and faith, reason and passion. He has refused to be distracted by the character-assassins, the fear-mongers, the science-deniers and the merchants of short-term gain. He has remained faithful to his mission of protecting the earth and its inhabitants....

When Mike Huckabee went to Houston on Tuesday to raise funds for his fast-rising, money-starved presidential candidacy, a luncheon for the ordained Baptist minister was arranged by evangelical Christians. On hand was Judge Paul Pressler, a hero to Southern Baptist Convention reformers. But he was a nonpaying guest who supports Fred Thompson for president. Huckabee greeted Pressler warmly. That contrasted with Huckabee's anger two months ago when they encountered each other in California. The former governor of Arkansas took issue then with comments by Pressler, a former Texas appeals court judge, that Huckabee had been a slacker in the war...

When Mike Huckabee went to Houston on Tuesday to raise funds for his fast-rising, money-starved presidential candidacy, a luncheon for the ordained Baptist minister was arranged by evangelical Christians. On hand was Judge Paul Pressler, a hero to Southern Baptist Convention reformers. But he was a nonpaying guest who supports Fred Thompson for president. Huckabee greeted Pressler warmly. That contrasted with Huckabee's anger two months ago when they encountered each other in California. The former governor of Arkansas took issue then with comments by Pressler, a former Texas appeals court judge, that Huckabee had been a slacker in the war...

WHEN Mike Huckabee went to Houston Tuesday to raise funds for his fast-rising, money-starved candidacy, a luncheon for the ordained Baptist minister was arranged by evangelical Christians. On hand was Judge Paul Pressler, a hero to Southern Baptist Convention reformers. But he was a non-paying guest who supports Fred Thompson for president. Huckabee greeted Pressler warmly. That contrasted with Huckabee's anger two months ago when they saw each other in California. The Arkansas ex-governor took issue then with comments by Pressler that Huckabee had been a slacker in the war against secularists in the Baptist church. Warmth in Texas and...

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Republican Fred Thompson, Hollywood celebrity and former Tennessee senator, went from hot to not in short order. Now, he's trying to create another popularity burst in the presidential race, this one perfectly timed. His voice and expression serious, Thompson told Iowa voters this past week: "I would ask people to think of one thing _ when our worst enemy's thinking about what he can do to the United States of America, who do you want sitting on our side of the table representing you? That's probably the guy you ought to elect president." It was Thompson...

Negotiating the dicey waters of presidential diplomacy would be easier than resolving differences between various Baptist groups, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said in a recent campaign appearance. This is the same Mike Huckabee who last May accepted -- then rejected -- an invitation to speak at a historic pan-Baptist gathering set to begin in late January. “Being president -- that’ll be a heck of a lot easier job than getting all the Baptists to agree on everything,” Huckabee, a Baptist minister, said at a Dec. 6 political event in Greensboro, N.C., Hendersonville (N.C.) Times-News. The former Arkansas governor said...

Huckabee’s opinion on gay marriage is out there, but we should also be publicizing Huckabee’s opinions on heterosexual marriage. Specifically, what he believes about a women’s role in a marriage. In August of 1998, Huckabee was one of 131 signatories to a full page USA Today Ad which declared: “I affirm the statement on the family issued by the 1998 Southern Baptist Convention.” What was in the family statement from the SBC? “A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ.” Read on… The...

Jason Pratt, novelist, lay theologian and orthodox Christian universalist, notices a peculiar convergence of statistics presented by Ed Stetzer (director of LifeWay Research) during a conference on Reformed theology and the Southern Baptist Convention last week. The statistical anomaly suggests as many as 40 percent of recently graduating SBC pastors may be ready to consider universalism.Dyer, TN (PRWEB) December 7, 2007 -- Last week, the LifeWay Ridgecrest Conference Center hosted a conference on Reformed theology (commonly known as 'Calvinism') and the Southern Baptist Convention, in Ridgecrest, NC. Ed Stetzer, director of LifeWay Research, presented startling statistics in his opening address...

The whole time Mitt Romney was talking this morning, we were thinking: "Is he presidential?" And "his hair looks askew" and "but, is he presidential?" What we heard was: "Blah blah blah" and then the money quote: "Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions. Their authority is theirs, within the province of church affairs, and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin," Romney said. And this: "If I am fortunate to become your president, I will serve no one religion,...

It is very rare, if not unheard of, to catch a presidential candidate, especially a Republican, in the act of saying he or she would be willing to sign any tax increase that lawmakers wished for. But that's what happened to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who has rocketed to a statistical tie in Iowa with Mitt Romney, largely as a result of the former Baptist minister's support from evangelical voters in the nation's first caucus state. The Club for Growth, an effective tax-cut advocacy group, has been on Huckabee's back almost from the beginning of his candidacy, sending out...

According to The Politico, New York Post columnist and FOX News contributor Dick Morris has been secretly advising former client Mike Huckabee on his Presidential campaign. Morris claims he is acting in an entirely voluntary capacity by simply offering free advice. Keep in mind that nationally syndicated columnist George Will was pilloried by the media when it became public that he had secretly and voluntarily helped Ronald Reagan prepare for his Presidential debates in 1980. A prominent national GOP insider tells Politics1 that he believes Morris -- despite his claims to the contrary -- is paid for his services through...

New Iowa Leader Criticized by for Indecision on Federal Student Aid. Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor who backed in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants, hedged Sunday on whether illegal immigrants who have gone to school in the United States should become eligible for federal student aid such as Pell grants and subsidized federal student loans. "I'm not sure that I would support that," Huckabee told ABC News, "it was a different program in Arkansas." Huckabee's failure to take a clear position on federal student aid while appearing on ABC News' "This Week with George...

Editor's note, Sept. 1, 2005: Wayne Dumond, convicted of rape in Arkansas and murder in Missouri, died of apparent natural causes in prison Tuesday. The occasion prompts us to republish Murray Waas' prize-winning article for the Arkansas Times in 2002 about the extraordinary steps Gov. Mike Huckabee took to help win Dumond's freedom. He has since blamed others for Dumond's release to kill again, but his actions over many years demonstrated his support for Dumond and, ultimately, the instrumental role he played in the parole board's decision to free him. Special handling How the Huckabee administration worked to free rapist...

One of the national writers putting together a profile of Mike Huckabee asked how it might be that this preacher showed such an affinity for popular culture. The Chuck Norris alliance, the tailgate party in South Carolina with the wrestler, the pardon for Keith Richards, the playing of bass guitar in a rock cover band offering Lynyrd Skynyrd - isn't all that out of character for a man from the Southern Baptist pulpit? Actually, Huckabee was a radio man before he was a preacher and he has remained more decidedly a media man than a pulpit man. His superficially likable...

With word that the FairTax political operation has run out of money, the talk in Iowa is that a new organization may be coming to former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee's aid. A 501c4 organization is said to be forming to help Huckabee in the 30 or so days leading up to the Iowa Republican caucus. Huckabee has been leveraging the support of two semi-obscure groups in Iowa, the FairTax group, a one-time offshoot of the Church of Scientology, and a second-tier home-schooling coalition, which operates a 501c4 and has been attempting to organize support for Huckabee in Iowa, South Carolina,...

Republican presidential candidates have pulled out their knives for Mr. Nice Guy. A surprising surge of support for Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, who had long seemed a rank outsider in the 2008 presidential race has turned him into a target six weeks before voting in Iowa. The Times of London reports that “running on a shoestring budget as an affable conservative with unrivalled religious qualifications (he is a former Baptist minister), Huckabee has been previously dismissed as an under-funded no-hoper. He is mostly known for a quirky sense of humor and his skills on bass guitar -...

Here are some recent statements on the character and background of recent conservative favorite Mike Huckabee: Phyllis Shlafly, president of Eagle Forum: "He destroyed the conservative movement in Arkansas, and left the Republican Party a shambles ... Yet some of the same evangelicals who sold us on George W. Bush as a 'compassionate conservative' are now trying to sell us on Mike Huckabee." Betsy Hagan, Arkansas director of the Eagle Forum and a key backer of his early runs for office: "He was pro-life and pro-gun, but otherwise a liberal ... Just like Bill Clinton he will charm you, but...

DALLAS - When a pair of Mormon missionaries knocked at the door of Jerry Pierce's home in a north Dallas suburb last month, he marshaled his arguments and stood his ground. "I look forward to encounters like that. I like to talk to them about the nature of Christ and who Jesus is," said Pierce, a staunch Southern Baptist, the biggest Protestant denomination in the United States. Mitt Romney, a Mormon, is running into similar resistance as he tries to win over Southern Baptists and other evangelical Protestants in the race for the Republican Party's nomination for the 2008 U.S....

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his rivals for the Republican nomination will face a tough crowd when they address the religious conservatives at the Values Voter Summit starting Friday. “I think what we can expect is a lot of folks talking about how dissatisfied they are with the choices they have,” former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) said. Giuliani’s positions on abortion and gay rights continue to dog him as he looks for support within the leadership of the religious conservative movement, and those leaders say they want to hear more from the former mayor this weekend than...

One of the most powerful leaders in conservative evangelical Christianity has discouraged his colleagues from supporting Fred Thompson as a presidential candidate. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, sent a private e-mail to many of his fellow religious right leaders criticizing some of the Republican contender's stances and statements, according to the Associated Press. "Isn't Thompson the candidate who is opposed to a constitutional amendment to protect marriage, believes there should be 50 different definitions of marriage in the U.S., favors [the] McCain-Feingold [campaign-finance reform law], won't talk at all about what he believes, and can't speak his...

Presidential hopefuls seeking to win conservative voters were quick to voice criticism of an Iowa county judge’s ruling to allow gay “marriage” in his county despite the state’s ban on same-sex civil “marriage.” Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney was the first to denounce the decision by Polk County Judge Robert Hanson, who last Thursday ruled that the state’s decade-old same-sex “marriage” ban violated the couples’ constitutional rights. Romney even voiced support of a federal ban on same-sex “marriage.” “The ruling in Iowa is another example of an activist court and unelected judges trying to redefine marriage and disregard the will...

ROMEOVILLE, Ill. (ABP) – Despite warnings from a denominational official as well as another church, a Southern Baptist congregation near Chicago allowed a convicted child molester to preach for years. In the end, it took media inquiries for Jeffrey Hannah, 42, to relinquish his leadership positions at, and resign as a member of, First Baptist Church of Romeoville, Ill. The news about Hannah comes at a time when the Southern Baptist Convention is under heightened scrutiny about its role to protect children from sexual predators in the ministry. Unlike in more hierarchical denominations, Southern Baptist congregations have had few methods...

Convinced that God has been erased from public schools, Southern Baptists are now working to open their own schools, where Jesus is writ large and Bible study is part of the daily curriculum. Church leaders are not calling for a wholesale exodus from public schools, which would be a monumental hit, considering that Southern Baptists make up the nation's largest Protestant denomination with 16 million members. Rather, they talk about alternatives to public schools capable of educating a new generation ready and willing to advocate for biblical principles rather than popular culture. "In the public schools, you don't just have...

Upset by Rep. Steve Cohen's support for a recent hate crimes bill, a group of black Baptist pastors criticized the freshman congressman Tuesday and called the bill unnecessary. The Memphis Baptist Ministerial Association, which claims more than 400 members from Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi, issued a statement Tuesday that reads in part: "The Memphis Baptist Ministerial Association stands in total opposition to any legislation that will silence or restrict freedom of speech on the part of the churches. It is our belief that the new Hate Crime Bill is a subtle attempt on the part of the gay community to...

Updated Monday, June 25, 2007The recycle of abuse continues at Baptist churches By Greg Warner Associated Baptist Press JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Secrecy about clergy sexual abuse may protect an abuser's current church from embarrassment but often comes at the expense of his next church - and its children. Like many small, rural congregations that find themselves without a pastor, East Bonne Terre Baptist Church had a small budget and few options. So when church members heard there was a new preacher in the area who was seeking a pulpit, it looked like God's timing. "When somebody comes along who has...

Growing up, Julie Pennington-Russell believed it was wrong for women to lead Baptist churches. At seminary, she would wake up early and pray "for all those poor, misguided women who thought God was calling them to be pastors." Today Pennington-Russell finds herself at the forefront of those challenging sexism in the pulpit. She becomes senior pastor Aug. 19 at Decatur's First Baptist Church —- now the nation's largest Southern Baptist church with a female senior pastor, according to those who track such issues. The Southern Baptist Convention long has said the Bible doesn't allow women to be pastors. But the...

...When I think of the Exodus story I can’t help but see Charlton Heston leading a cast of thousands out of a movie-set Egypt. One day there are millions of the Hebrew children in Egypt and a few days later, not one. The removal of Christian families from public schools will not be that way. Think instead of an oppressed minority leaving a repressive political regime. A few get out early, others need a more urgent threat, others escape through some kind of underground rescue movement, dogs baying in the background. Some will stay too long. I’m convinced that we’ll...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (ABP) -- Some Baptists in this state say the Florida Baptist Convention is intimidating and demonizing churches that believe in Calvinism -- and doing it with the churches' own money. Convention executive director John Sullivan last week sent recordings of sermons by Sullivan's former pastor Jerry Vines to every church in the state, apparently at convention expense, that identify Calvinism as a threat to Baptist life. A week earlier, Sullivan sent one of his associates to a rural Panhandle county to confront local pastors about alleged "conflict" created by Calvinists in the Holmes Baptist Association. Sullivan's emissary, Cecil...

DALLAS (ABP) -- Rick Warren, heralded as “America’s new people’s pastor,” will speak Oct. 29 at the Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting. David Coffey, president of the Baptist World Alliance, will also speak at the meeting in Amarillo, Texas. Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life, will speak about his PEACE plan, an effort for churches to lead the way in eliminating social ills like illiteracy, poverty and AIDS. His sermon will be the centerpiece of the meeting, themed “Missions -- Together We Can Do More.” Charles Wade, executive director of the BGCT, said Warren’s plan is “very similar...

April 13, 2007 — Sanctuaries are designed to make us feel safe. They provide us peace and a place to pray. Bells call the good to worship and warn the evil to stay away. This is the kind of American church that a young Christa Brown was drawn to. As a teenager in the 1960s, Brown learned to love music and her God. She grew up in the church, sang in the choir and played the piano. But as Brown would find out, churches don't always protect the innocent. Sometimes these sanctuaries shield the guilty and even lure predators to...

Former Presidents Carter and Clinton are leading an effort to forge dozens of small and medium-size, black and white Baptist organizations into a robust coalition that would serve as a counterweight to the conservative Southern Baptist Convention. The giant SBC, with more than 16 million members, has long dominated the political, theological and social landscape among Baptists, often spawning resentment among smaller Baptist groups. It also has been closely aligned with the Republican Party. The new coalition, which is Carter's brainchild, would give moderate Baptists a stronger collective voice and could provide Democrats greater entree into the Baptist community. But...

This brief Associated Press story reveals yet another example of the left's new tactic in dealing with "values voters"; namely, the distortion of biblical theology (while using religious symbol, rhetoric and association) to tempt Christians into aligning with the Democrat Party. In this same approach recently, we've witnessed the surge in the MSM's coverage of "progressive evangelicalism," the cave-in of several Protestant leaders to the unscientific ballyhoo of global warming, and the sidling up of ardent abortion promoters like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama to preachers like Bill Hybels and Rick Warren. And now...this: ATLANTA - Plans are in the...

Former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have proposed the establishment of a broadly inclusive alternative Baptist movement to counter what they called a negative image of Baptists and to address poverty, the environment and global conflicts. Carter and Clinton kicked off their plans with a news conference Jan. 9 at the Carter Center in Atlanta, flanked by leaders of moderate Baptist groups including the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a breakaway group of an unverified number of churches that objected to the election of conservative leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention. Carter and Clinton announced a “Celebration of a New Baptist...

<p>Dec. 8, 2006 — ABC News has learned a Chicago-area man has been charged with plotting a terrorist attack.</p> <p>Sources say the man is accused of planning to use firearms and explosives to attack a specific mall in Rockford, Ill. The alleged plan was to target this mall during the holiday shopping season.</p>

FORT WORTH, Texas - After a Baptist pastor said in a chapel service at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary that he sometimes speaks in tongues when he prays, seminary trustees adopted a resolution Tuesday that states the institution will not tolerate the promotion of the practice of speaking in tongues. The resolution: "Southwestern will not knowingly endorse in any way, advertise, or commend the conclusions of the contemporary charismatic movement including private prayer language. Neither will Southwestern knowingly employ professors or administrators who promote such practices." Speaking in tongues is described in the Bible as a spiritual gift from God that...