A months-long battle for ultimate control of the Southern Baptist Convention’s agencies and institutions came to light Feb. 21 when a trove of attorney communications exposed a rift between officers of the SBC Executive Committee and leaders of Southwestern Baptist…
State conventions beyond the South question SBC North American Mission Board’s spending and accountability for church planting
A decade-long disagreement over how Southern Baptists fund church planting and missions in North America is coming to a head and threatens the sanctity of the denomination’s spirit of cooperative giving. The result: State conventions outside the South are reducing…
What’s old is new again: Conservatives threaten funding over SBC’s ethics agency
From the Department of What’s Old is New Again: The Southern Baptist Convention’s ethics agency is being accused of liberalism and creating a distraction from the work of evangelism and missions. During the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC that began…
A second SBC pastor in Texas called Vice President Kamala Harris ‘Jezebel’
It turns out that East Texas pastor Tom Buck wasn’t the first Southern Baptist pastor in Texas to call Vice President Kamala Harris a “Jezebel.” Steve Swofford, pastor of First Baptist Church of Rockwall, Texas, located in the eastern suburbs…
Augie Boto, SBC leader who opposed abuse database, set to retire
A denominational worker who functioned as the Southern Baptist Convention’s point man in the ouster of churches for affirming homosexuality and the denomination’s response to sexual abuse is retiring at the end of September. August “Augie” Boto, 68, announced July…
SBC urged to ‘reset spiritually and strategically’ amid continuing declines
There were areas of improvement, too, including an $82-million increase in giving from 2017 to 2018, and a rise in new churches in four states.
SBC leader steps down after newspaper expose about abuse and coverup
Backlash to an investigation by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News about widespread sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention has prompted the resignation of at least one convention leader. Ken Alford, pastor of Crossroads Baptist Church in Valdosta,…