Dear Southern Baptist Convention: Welcome to Indianapolis! We Baptists — at least, the “normal” kind, whose pastoral leaders possess no desires of grandeur to elevate themselves to “bishop,” or “prophet,” or “apostle” — frequently joke about who might be bishop…
Both Trump and Pence will speak to SBC groups next week
Both Donald Trump and Mike Pence will speak at auxiliary events during the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Indianapolis next week. Pence already was known to be a speaker at a luncheon hosted by the SBC Ethics and Religious…
The Law Amendment may not be the most important action taken at next week’s SBC annual meeting
The Southern Baptist Convention has been at war with itself for more than 40 years, with each new battle promising uniformity that never materializes for long. This year’s SBC annual meeting, happening next week in Indianapolis, represents another major front…
The Law Amendment is one more SBC backlash against women
Next week, the Southern Baptist Convention will hold its annual meeting in Indianapolis and vote on the second reading of what has come to be known as the Law Amendment. A proposed amendment to the SBC’s Constitution, named after the…
Making sense of denominational decline and church shifting
Evangelical Protestantism continues to be a growing force in American Christianity, as Mainline Protestant denominations continue to decline, but where are these converts coming from? There is very little data showing where Christians go when they convert away from a…
On the Trump trial, the SBC and accountability
What happened in New York City Thursday? For one brief moment, in my 72 years, I saw a nation united around one idea that the rule of law still works as it was intended. Transparency hurts at times. In shortly…
Wine, women and gospel: A perilous inerrancy
In Primitive Baptists of the Wiregrass South, author John G. Crowley writes that for those Appalachian Baptists, “the use of fermented wine, usually made by the deacons” is standard in their celebration of the Lord’s Supper, a biblical mandate they…
This is what support looks like: The Harrisonburg Baptist Church story
When Eli Withers, associate pastor at Harrisonburg Baptist Church in Virginia, found out she was on the infamous list of female pastors a leader in the Southern Baptist Convention circulated in March 2023, she found herself feeling “a little pissed…
Why a Calvinist pastor may be coming to your church
Recently, I heard yet another story of a “centrist” Southern Baptist church calling a pastor who is inevitably going to steer the church sharply to the right. It doesn’t take a Ph.D. in theology to understand this. It only takes…
87-year-old Ed Young steps down at Second Baptist Houston, to be succeeded by his son
When Ed Young became pastor of Second Baptist Church in Houston, Jimmy Carter was president of the United States. Forty-six years later, at age 87, the high-profile pastor is stepping down and has named his 60-year-old son as his successor….
Texas editor says NAMB is willing to take millions from BGCT but won’t continue funding church planting partnerships
The Southern Baptist Convention North American Mission Board is happy to take money from Texas Baptists but unwilling to give money back to shared missions causes, the editor of the Texas Baptist Standard said in a May 23 editorial. In…
Fourteen years later, SBC has implemented only two of seven Great Commission plans, audit shows
Fourteen years after adopting an aggressive plan to advance the Great Commission of Jesus, the Southern Baptist Convention largely has failed to follow its own plan, a blue-ribbon evaluation team reports. “What will likely be the key takeaway from this…