Nearly five months after the Sunday morning 26 worshippers died and another 20 were injured in a mass shooting, First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas, unveiled drawings of new worship center paid for with donations guaranteed by the Southern Baptist Convention North American Mission Board.
Pressler lawsuit moved to federal court
A lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by a Houston layman active in Southern Baptist Convention politics in the 1970s and 1980s has been moved to federal court.
‘Ministerial exception’ not a shield for wrongdoing, former Baptist leader says in lawsuit
A Southern Baptist Convention entity cannot hide behind the separation of church and state to avoid liability for wrongful termination and defamation, claims the latest argument filed in a dispute in federal court.
Ed Stetzer leaving LifeWay for Wheaton College
Missiologist and researcher Ed Stetzer is leaving after nine years as executive director of LifeWay Research to become executive director of the Billy Graham Center for Evangelism at Wheaton College, the Christian liberal arts school near Chicago announced May 16….
Disaster relief volunteer dies after heart attack
A Southern Baptist disaster-relief volunteer died March 29 while on a flood recovery mission in Leesville, La. Don Fulkerson, 77, a member of First Baptist Church in Galatia, Ill., died from a heart attack while serving on a team of…
State convention ‘saddened and disappointed’ by claims of former exec
Officials of a regional association of Southern Baptists disputed the account of a former executive director who claims he was fired because of interference by the denomination’s North American Mission Board. Shannon Baker, director of communications for the Baptist Convention…
State Baptist exec blames firing on interference from SBC agency
A former Baptist state convention executive says what was reported last June as his resignation was actually a firing orchestrated by state convention leaders under pressure from the head of the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention….
Protestors to SBC: ‘All souls matter’ in campus ministry
By Bob Allen African-American demonstrators gathered Nov. 18 near James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., to protest what they claim is racial bias in the Southern Baptist Convention’s efforts to evangelize students at American colleges and universities. About two dozen…
Quadriplegic NAMB missionary receives $26 million settlement after crash
By Bob Allen A North American Mission Board student missionary paralyzed in a 2009 rollover crash has been awarded $26 million in a settlement with the Southern Baptist Convention entity’s insurers. Lawyers representing 27-year-old Jeremy Vangsnes — an All-American collegiate…