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On March 27, 2023, a mass shooting occurred at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, which resulted in multiple fatalities. The attack was carried out by a transgender leftist who had written a “manifesto” which has currently been withheld due to public records requests made by the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department as well as the activism of Southern Baptist Convention ERLC head, Brent Leatherwood. Brent Leatherwood, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), is calling on TN lawmakers to back a proposal by Governor Bill Lee for an extreme risk protective...

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FLOWER MOUND, Texas (BP) – The Village Church announced Sunday (Aug. 28) that lead pastor Matt Chandler will take a leave of absence from teaching and preaching following his admission to “inappropriate messaging” with a woman on Instagram. Chandler admitted the messaging was “unguarded and unwise” though the messages were neither “romantic nor sexual” in nature, but the “frequency and familiarity” was not wise for someone in his position. Chandler said the church’s elders determined his “inability to see this for what it was revealed something not right and unhealthy,” adding that The Village “cannot be a place that does...

If you’re Southern Baptist, you should know that the federal government is looking into your organization.As relayed by Fox News, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has announced it’s under investigation by the Department of Justice. And though the Convention is being a bit vague, the revealed reason is particularly disconcerting.Apparently, the DOJ’s probe is related to how the largest Protestant denomination in America has managed allegations of sexual abuse. From the SBC Executive Committee’s statement posted online:[The Committee] recently became aware that the Department of Justice has initiated an investigation into the Southern Baptist Convention, and that the investigation will...

In a video released Sunday, June 12, former Southern Baptist Convention President Jack Graham endorsed current presidential candidate Tom Ascol — a move shocking to some convention insiders and a potential game-changer in this week’s contest for leadership. Ascol and Graham hold divergent theological views, with Ascol being a staunch Calvinist and Graham being a more traditional conservative evangelical. And by endorsing Ascol, who is a Florida pastor, Graham bypassed another candidate, Bart Barber, whose church is located 37 miles away from Graham’s. Barber, pastor of First Baptist Church of Farmersville, Texas, is considered the institutionalist candidate in this year’s...

Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in America, stonewalled and denigrated survivors of clergy sex abuse over almost two decades while seeking to protect their own reputations, according to a third-party investigation sought by the church's leaders. These survivors, and other concerned Southern Baptists, repeatedly shared allegations with the SBC's Executive Committee, 'only to be met, time and time again, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility from some within the EC,' said a 288-page investigative report revealed on Sunday. The seven-month investigation was conducted by Guidepost Solutions, an independent firm contracted by the Executive Committee...

NASHVILLE (RNS)—Anecdotally, clergy have talked about the disruption in worship attendance in this pandemic age. Now, Southern Baptists have statistics to prove it. The average in-person weekly attendance at Southern Baptist Convention churches declined 18.75 percent, from 4,439,797 in 2020 to 3,607,530 in 2021. Christian education saw an even larger decrease of 22.15 percent, with Sunday school, Bible study and small groups reduced from 2,879,130 to 2,241,514. The Annual Church Profile, a compilation from the denomination’s state conventions, was released May 12 by Lifeway Christian Resources, the convention’s data gathering division. Researchers also blamed COVID-19 for the slowdown in baptisms...

The Christian cold war will mean an increase in church splits, takeovers, and other power struggles as people choose sides on existential questions, including theology.Along with the rest of the country, American Christianity is in the middle of a cold war. As this war heats up, it will mean church splits, takeovers, fights over denominational resources, and other power struggles as the Donald Trump era has increasingly brought clarity and pushed people to choose sides on existential questions.The Southern Baptist Convention, the United States’ largest Protestant denomination, is one key example of this dynamic affecting American Christianity as a whole....

Someone once said, "Be grateful for the doors of opportunity — and for friends who oil the hinges."That's how I feel about a recent magnanimous offer made to Southern Baptists by apologist Alex McFarland about six weeks ago. In the wake of their previous president, Russel Moore's departure from the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), Onenewsnow.com reported McFarland offered to fill the position pro-bono. "I would like to give back to the denomination that invested itself in me. It will not cost the SBC a penny, and I can virtually guarantee giving to the Cooperative Program will go...

This year, the nation’s largest Protestant body focused on three interrelated issues: the aftermath of Russell Moore’s resignation, the denomination’s presidency, and critical race theory.The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and other outlets published major articles previewing the 2021 annual Southern Baptist Convention. Now that the convention is over, here’s a more detailed overview of what happened from an insider’s perspective. As a lifelong Southern Baptist, a graduate of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and an observer of Baptist politics over the last decade, I offer the following thoughts.The 2021 SBC was essentially a family squabble worked out...

Nearly two years after a motion to defund the Southern Baptist Convention’s Russell Moore-led Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission was rejected by messengers, a new report from a task force commissioned to study the denomination’s public policy arm has found it to be a major threat to the funding of the $15 billion Protestant Christian organization’s Cooperative Program. The ERLC, which currently has an operating budget of $4.3 million, is funded through the SBC’s Cooperative Program, which also provides funding for the North American Mission Board, International Mission Board, and the six Southern Baptist seminaries in America — Southern, Southeastern,...

Leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention are steadily removing the “Southern” part of their name in an effort that Convention President J.D. Greear said is essential following a summer of Black Lives Matter protests and increased calls for racial justice reform. In an interview with The Washington Post published Tuesday, Greear said there has been more support to adopt the new name “Great Commission Baptists,” both because of the changing climate in the U.S. and because many have long believed the “Southern Baptist” title no longer adequately encompasses the approximately 50,000 churches that now exist around the globe. “Our Lord...

While the number of churches in the Southern Baptist Convention has increased slightly, total membership in those churches suffered the largest single-year decline in more than 100 years, according to recent measures from LifeWay Christian Resources. In the Annual Church Profile prepared by the publishing and distribution division of the SBC based in Nashville, Tennessee, data show that the denomination lost some 287,655 members, nearly 2% of its adherents from 2018 to 2019. Current membership stands at 14,525,579. While the number of churches in the denomination increased by 74 for a total of 47,530 churches over 2018, it did not...

Crisis and upheaval have brought out the best in some (think of Ulysses Grant) and the worst in others (think of Vidkun Quisling).  This holds true of Christian churches and the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).  In previous columns, my colleagues and I have raised red flags about the SBC, including corruption and leftward drift.  One sees this in executive leadership (see this about president J.D. Greear), in missions (see here and here), in the management of seminaries (see here), in the workings of the SBC's publishing company (see here and here), in its political advocacy (see here), in its gatherings (see here),...

There;s a lot of America's heartland that's been gutted out by the forces of Big Government and Big Business but some Americans still have that good vision for the farmlands and ranch lands of our country under federal government control. The Republicans moving the Bureau of Land Management office to Grand Junction, Colorado doesn't change the principle of federal control that strangles the use of the land and put people like Dwight and Steven Hammond in jail. When Ammon Bundy brought his peaceful protest..... In our world today much rage obviously in the spirit of anarchy and Marxism-Leninism manifesting itself...

Vice President Mike Pence's speech at the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting Wednesday has left some Christians unhappy, especially the newly chosen leader of the SBC.

A denominational leader’s claim that abused women should remain in their broken marriages is forcing Southern Baptists to pick sides. Over the past 20 years, the Southern Baptist Convention has weathered an onslaught of controversies, from renaming the denomination to repudiating the Confederate flag. But in the end, all it took to potentially rend the organization in two was a single quote about domestic violence from a solitary leader that most Americans have never even heard of. Paige Patterson is the 75-year-old president of Fort Worth’s Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, which claims to be one of the largest schools of...

Hidden from the media narrative of Russian cyber sabotage is the content of the DNC leaks, and how the leaks revealed the arrogance and corruption of the Democratic Party elite. Amidst the blame Russia hysteria, the actual content of the the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hacks has been consigned to the memory hole. In a veritable tidal wave of false narratives, the mainstream media has succeeded in drowning the legacy of the leaks in (not terribly convincing) accusations of Russian culpability. Erased from this narrative is the fact that the highest levels of the Democratic Party—supposedly neutral arbiters of the...

As Hurricane Irma leaves behind a trail of destruction and pain, the nation again turns its eyes to disaster relief. Just a few weeks ago, Hurricane Harvey brought out the best in many of us. Desiring to aid victims in Texas, celebrities traded on their popularity to encourage donations and volunteers. Average citizens opened up their wallets, gave of their time, and expended energy as they rushed to help fellow citizens. Local non-profits and large multi-national corporations alike demonstrated that compassion is a universal trait of humanity. No doubt, the response to Hurricane Irma will be just as compassionate and swift.As people and organizations rush to Florida to aid...

PHOENIX, Arizona, June 15, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – The largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. officially denounced abortion giant Planned Parenthood as “immoral” at their annual convention this week and called on Congress to “immediately and completely” defund it. “We denounce the immoral agenda and practices of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliates, especially their role in the unjust killing each year of more than 300,000 precious unborn babies, its use of particularly gruesome illegal abortion methods, and its profiteering from harvesting unborn babies’ tissues and organs,” the resolution of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), which took place in...