Southern Baptists in Arkansas recently endorsed a controversial statement released by a coalition of evangelical leaders in August that says the Bible does not leave room for people to identify as both Christian and gay.
Cross is ‘preeminent symbol’ of Christianity and should be removed from public park, say church-state watchdogs
The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty has joined 13 other religious and civil rights organizations urging a federal appeals court to uphold a lower court ruling finding a cross erected on public land in Pensacola, Fla., is unconstitutional.
Baptist ethicist says ‘egalitarian theology’ a safeguard against abuse
The incoming head of a Baptist ethics agency says church teaching that subordinates women is partly to blame for the rash of allegations of sexual abuse by powerful men in media, business and politics.
Richard Land challenges Roy Moore to take lie detector test
A former Southern Baptist Convention executive and current adviser to President Trump says a lie detector test would clear up questions about whether multiple claims of sexual abuse being made against U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore are true.
Two Alabama clergy groups decry sexual assault, but only one of them names Roy Moore
Five dozen progressive Christian ministers — eight of them Baptists — signed an open letter over the weekend saying U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore is unfit for office, while nearly 100 Southern Baptists in Alabama added their names to a separate missive denouncing sexual abuse and harassment of women without mentioning anyone by name.
After Sutherland Springs, faith leaders urge Congress to act against gun violence
A coalition of 50 faith groups, including the Alliance of Baptists, American Baptist Home Mission Societies and Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America, urged leaders in Congress to take immediate action to curb gun violence in response to the Nov. 5 slaughter of 26 people attending worship at a small-town Southern Baptist church in Texas.
State Baptist body weighs disqualifying CBF churches
A Southern Baptist state convention is considering kicking out cooperating churches that are also aligned with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
Baptist convention in Tennessee boots church for calling woman as pastor
More than 850 Baptists from 390 churches in Tennessee debated 15 minutes before voting overwhelmingly Nov. 14 to shun a historic east Tennessee congregation for calling a woman as senior pastor.
N.C. Baptist convention denounces racism, but not the Confederate flag
The Baptist State Convention of North Carolina denounced racism in a resolution adopted at its annual meeting, but stopped short of endorsing the Southern Baptist Convention’s call to refrain from public displays of the Confederate flag or statements by SBC leaders supporting the removal of Civil War monuments.
Will Sutherland Springs be a tipping point for Southern Baptists and guns?
Southern Baptist leaders have reached out in many ways to survivors of the rampage that killed 26 men, women and children last Sunday. Conspicuously absent is any suggestion that lives might have been saved by laws barring civilians from owning weapons designed to kill as many people as possible in the shortest amount of time.
Gun massacre at Baptist church leaves small Texas town — and the nation — reeling
A typical small-town Southern Baptist church in Texas became the scene of the fifth-deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history Nov. 5, when a gunman interrupted Sunday morning worship with gunshots from a military-style rifle, killing at least 26 people and wounding dozens more.
Tennessee Baptists unfriend church with female pastor
Can a church with a female pastor be Southern Baptist? A Tennessee Baptist Convention committee says “no.”