Over the past six years, we have spilt buckets of digital ink here bringing you the saga of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. I’m writing today not in the format of a news story but in the…
Law Amendment will be resurrected at this year’s SBC meeting
The Law Amendment is not dead yet. The controversial amendment to the Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention — which failed to get a two-thirds vote on second reading last June — would enshrine a prohibition on SBC churches allowing…
Our debate ultimately is about the dignity and humanity of women
A conservative friend on social media recently admitted that some of the storylines around Donald Trump’s second term have been extreme but concluded this is simply the way the pendulum swings. In one sense, what he said was true. Since…
SBC Executive Committee can’t cover expenses, seeks extra $3 million
This story was updated Feb. 19 to include a clarification on staff compensation at the SBC Executive Committee. The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee cannot meet its financial obligations this year and needs $3 million in “priority funding” from…
By FTEs, this SBC seminary is now the largest
There’s a new largest seminary in the Southern Baptist Convention. According to just-published comparative data for the six SBC seminaries, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kanas City, Mo., has jumped to first place in FTE enrollment of SBC-qualified students. The…
Please, no more hollow words on sexual abuse reform
Dear Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee: Please stop with all the talk-talk-talk about abuse reform. All the promises. All the posturing. All the platitudes. Just stop. Until you have at least 1,000 names of clergy sex abusers in a database…
SBC pastor opposes ICE raids in churches and gets labeled ‘woke’ by far right
A Southern Baptist pastor in Tennessee who told his congregation of his concerns about President Donald Trump’s wide-ranging immigration crackdown has been labeled a woke Leftist by a far-right advocacy group. Matt Crawford serves as senior pastor at Trinity Baptist…
Basham and others link criticism of Budde to threat of female preachers
Conservative outrage over Episcopal bishop Mariann Budde’s appeal to President Donald Trump to show mercy is symptomatic of the heresy afflicting the Southern Baptist Convention, according to social media influencer Megan Basham. In response to Budde’s Tuesday sermon on unity…
New date set for Johnny Hunt trial
A new trial date has been set for Johnny Hunt’s lawsuit against the Southern Baptist Convention in which he seeks more than $100 million for damages to his income, reputation and livelihood. That new date falls one week after the…
Anita Bryant, dead at 84, remembered for what she opposed
Upon her death at age 84, Anita Jane Bryant was remembered most vividly for her harsh stance against homosexuality in the 1970s and not for the successful music career that preceded her advocacy. A native Oklahoman, she won the 1958…
SBC can’t admit its problem with sexual abuse, Boz Tchividjian says
The only solution for the Southern Baptist Convention to solve its sexual abuse problem is to dismantle the denomination entirely, according to Boz Tchividjian, one of the nation’s best-known attorneys representing abuse survivors. “They tried to put some Band-Aids on…
‘He’s only the governor of Georgia …’
I stood at the front of the press corps on the White House lawn on Oct. 6, 1979, as President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter emerged from the front door to greet Pope John Paul II, who had…