Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention are taking seriously threats to withhold funds by churches dissatisfied with recent positions on public policy taken by some of the convention’s agencies. During its board leadership meeting Feb. 20-21, the SBC Executive Committee…
Southern Baptist leaders, others, oppose laws battling LGBT discrimination
More than 75 religious conservatives, including several leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention, have signed a public document opposing policies that ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Charter signers of the “Preserve Freedom, Reject Coercion” proclamation coordinated…
Chapel speaker terms Calvinism ‘Trojan Horse’
A Southern Baptist seminary president said Nov. 29 that Baptists who adopt Calvinistic theology and practice ought to consider joining another denomination. “I know there are a fair number of you who think you are a Calvinist, but understand there…
The Walking Dead (aka Night of the Living Evangelicals)
Many evangelicals actually denounced the GOP candidate in this election cycle, and yet the evangelical voting bloc elected Donald Trump. Trump had more support from white evangelicals than John McCain in 2008 or Mitt Romney in 2012. Trump garnered five…
‘Locker room banter’: Nightmare for the Religious Right
“You can’t endorse me … but I endorse you and what you are doing.” That memorable phrase, delivered by presidential candidate Ronald Reagan at the Religious Roundtable National Affairs Briefing in Dallas in August 1980, highlighted the public beginnings of…
Common missionary and military lives prepared Baptist chaplains for marriage
As a couple, Jim and Jo Kirkendall take the concept of “having things in common” to a whole new level. Both grew up overseas as children of missionaries with the then-Foreign Mission Board. Both became Navy chaplains – and met…
Protesting injustice is the modern Baptist’s evangelism, activists say
Like many who grew up Southern Baptist, Betsy Sowers fervently believes evangelism is the answer to the most pressing issues of the day. “I am very Baptist about that,” the Massachusetts resident said. But Sowers doesn’t define evangelism only as talking to…
Three-in-10 schools on ‘Shame List’ identify as Southern Baptist
Campus Pride, an advocacy organization for LGBT students at colleges and universities, identified 102 campuses said to openly discriminate in the group’s 2016 “Shame List” released Aug. 29. Last year’s inaugural Shame List identified 57 campuses that had applied for…
Where do Southern Baptists go when they leave? The answer in one chart
Most of the decline in the Southern Baptist Convention is coming because SBC churches are not holding onto those who were raised in their congregations.