In 2024, the Survey Center on American Life revealed a significant shift: More Gen Z women are disengaging from the formative religion of their youth than are Gen Z men. This marks a notable reversal from the three previous generations,…
SBC’s attack on women as leaders is ‘historic,’ Beth Allison Barr says
The Southern Baptist Convention’s current attempt to put women in their place “is one of the harshest measures against women in ministry” in history, according to Baylor University history professor Beth Allison Barr. “If you follow church history, this is…
Daughter of Adrian Rogers claims her father’s anointing and mantle
On Monday, June 9, Gayle Rogers Foster spoke at the Southern Baptist Convention Pastors’ Wives and Women in Ministry Conference. She is the daughter of Adrian Rogers, the late pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tenn., and one of…
Will the SBC keep Lakepointe after kicking out Saddleback?
Given how often Dallas megachurch pastors have been in the news for abuse scandals or for run-of-the-mill sacralized misogyny over the past year, it’s only fitting that the Southern Baptist Convention would host its 2025 annual meeting in Dallas. When…
Documentary short film on SBC and women now available free online
An acclaimed documentary on the crisis around women in ministry in the Southern Baptist Convention has become available for free viewing just days before the denomination’s 2025 annual meeting in Dallas. The YouTube release of Hold the Line is especially…
Processing a sabbatical reveals life as a mosaic, not a puzzle
It’s been months since my sabbatical ended, and I am still processing. Because of holidays, inclement weather and other hiccups, I didn’t give my official sabbatical report to our church for quite a while. The extra time to process was…
Politics, faith and mission: A conversation with Beth Allison Barr
Beth Allison Barr holds the James Vardaman Chair in History at Baylor University. She is the New York Times bestselling author of the new book Becoming the Pastor’s Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman’s Path to Ministry and…
What I learned when I asked women if church is safe for them
Is the church a safe place for women? Well of course it is, right? I would have thought the church was a safe place, too, until the results came in from my research with more than 2,800 women who worked…
Marshall says ‘scandalous providence’ preserved her life’s work
When she was forced off the faculty of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and accused of heresy, Molly Marshall found “a scandalous providence preserved my vocation and my life’s work,” she recently recalled. Marshall, now president of United Theological Seminary of…
Alaska Baptist leader resigns after supporting autonomy of his church
The quest for conformity in opposing women in ministry is so strong in the Southern Baptist Convention that a state convention executive director has resigned after his own church was expelled from the SBC. Randy Covington resigned as executive director…
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…
Shared struggles: Kamala Harris and women in ministry
I never will forget the day I stood in the middle of the ICU waiting room at the local children’s hospital, embarrassed and a bit enraged. It was my last year of seminary, and I had spent the last four…