With an important Supreme Court ruling on foster care and religious discrimination coming any day, a Kentucky Baptist child care agency is fighting its own battle to continue denying same-sex couples from becoming foster or adoptive parents. The pending Supreme…
There’s controversy again, and more people are attending the SBC annual meeting
The Southern Baptist Convention is on track to have its most attended and most consequential annual meeting in 25 years when it gathers in Nashville June 15-16. Ronnie Floyd, president of the SBC Executive Committee, announced on Twitter that pre-registration…
The saga of Southwestern Seminary and the Pattersons just got stranger, and it’s all in the SBC Book of Reports
In an exceptionally rare move, the administration of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has used its annual report to the Southern Baptist Convention to accuse its former president of theft. Although rumors and intimations of the current seminary administration’s displeasure with…
New PRRI study builds a profile of QAnon believers
“Media news consumption is by far the strongest independent predictor of QAnon beliefs,” says Public Religion Research Institute in explaining its latest research into the dominant conspiracy theory network of our day. And not far behind media consumption are political…
New polling finds three views on immigration: Democrats, party-loyal Republicans or Trump-loyal Republicans
Significant divides remain between Democrats and Republicans about United States immigration policy priorities, but significant divides also exist between two types of Republicans: Those more loyal to the party and those more loyal to former President Donald Trump. This is…
Bible use remains steady even as more Americans stop joining churches
Fewer Americans may be joining churches, but about the same number as before are reading the Bible, a new survey finds. The bar for determining who reads the Bible is fairly low by most Sunday school standards — pollsters define…
Tennessee and Arkansas top the list of anti-trans legislation but many bills die in other states
While the 2021 state legislative session has produced more anti-LGBTQ legislation than any previous year — often supported by evangelical Christians — many of the anti-transgender bills have failed in statehouses. The latest setback for anti-transgender bills came in Texas…
It’s not just the SBC banning Critical Race Theory; now state legislatures are joining the fight
Southern Baptist seminary presidents aren’t the only ones up in arms about Critical Race Theory. Their affirmation that the six SBC seminaries will not teach about systemic racism and inherent injustices is sweeping Republican-led state legislatures this year. Bills in…
Three dozen others join NAMB in asking Supreme Court not to allow McRaney case on religious liberty grounds
The case of a Baptist state convention leader fired because of what he considers undue influence by a national Southern Baptist Convention agency is drawing intense national interest — but not for the underlying merits of the case itself. More…
Judson College will close and file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
An urgent fundraising appeal late last year had appeared to save Judson College, but declining enrollment and wary creditors sealed the historic school’s fate. After 183 years of operation, the Baptist-affiliated college will file for bankruptcy protection and will not…
Jeffress warns parents not to send their kids to Baylor’s ‘infidels’
As news of Baylor University’s “possible” sanction of a campus group for LGBTQ students spread across the nation, the Texas Baptist school continued to be criticized from both sides of the debate. The high-profile critique of the Waco, Texas, school…
SBC loses another 435,000 members in 2020
The Southern Baptist Convention has lost 2.3 million total members — or 14% of its membership nationwide — since its peak in 2006. New annual data tracking key metrics for the nation’s largest non-Catholic Christian denomination was released last week,…