By a unanimous vote of the 60 trustees attending today’s called meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, longtime Gateway Seminary president and one-time Home Mission Board-appointed church planter Jeff Preston Iorg was elected chief executive officer of the Nashville-based administrative arm of the SBC. Today’s meeting marked…
Second vote on Law Amendment will take the spotlight at this summer’s SBC annual meeting
When the Southern Baptist Convention meets in annual session in Indianapolis in June, one vote may be the most consequential in determining the future of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. And it will not be the vote to elect an…
Baptists and the history of American Bible translation
When the earliest Christians began to circulate writings expressing their unique faith, they made no concerted effort to tie the message of those writings in any essential way to the Greek language in which they were written. After all, the…
The evangelical campaign against abortion faces three big pushbacks this year
Abortion presents a profound moral issue on which Americans have hotly contested emotional arguments. When it comes to the 2024 election, a Kaiser Family Foundation poll finds women of reproductive age (18 to 49), Black women and women who live…
How evangelical and Mormon deconstruction is playing out on TikTok and YouTube
Mainline and evangelical churches aren’t the only religious communities losing members these days. According to a new study published in the Journal of Religion and Demography, Mormonism is no longer followed by the majority of residents in Utah. Ryan Cragun, a professor…
Remembering the early days of controversy over IVF in America
An Alabama court’s recent decision deeming frozen embryos “extrauterine children” resulted in the shutdown of several prominent IVF clinics. While many conservative Christians were pleased to see the cessation of invitro fertilization in the state, just as many were left…
The church faces a three-dimensional decision
Three cultural-biblical issues intertwine today to hold the Christian church in knots of conflict. Part of that conflict concerns whether the three cords are cut from the same cloth or not. These strands are race, gender and sexuality. From a…
Boebert and Buck symbolize transformation of GOP, Congress
Many Americans have heard of two-term Western Colorado Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert, a legislative lightweight who has gained fame and plentiful political donations thanks to her antics, social media posts and heckling of President Joe Biden during his State of…
If 2023 was the Year of the Doll, so far 2024 is the year of trying to rip off the doll’s head
Toward the end of last year the phrase “Year of the Doll” became popular officially through a New Yorker podcast and unofficially on many social media platforms as people noticed the massive cultural effect from the Barbie movie and Taylor…