Heads of SBC mission boards say they will not fund new abuse reform non-profit
Nashville, Tennessee, US RNS Leaders of two major Southern Baptist mission boards said they will not help fund a proposed independent non-profit meant to implement the denomination’s abuse reforms. Plans for the non-profit were announced on Monday night during a meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee. The headquarters of the Southern Baptist Convention is seen […]
Southern Baptist leaders expel two churches for allegedly mismanaging abuse
United States RNS Trustees of the Southern Baptist Convention voted to cut ties with four churches on Tuesday, two for alleged mismanagement of sexual abuse. One other had failed to give to the SBC’s common fund, while another hired a woman pastor. All four were designated as “being out of friendly cooperation” with the nation’s […]
Southern Baptists lost nearly half a million members in 2022
United StatesRNS The long, slow decline of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination continues. Membership in the Southern Baptist Convention was down by nearly half a million in 2022, according to a recently released denomination report. Nashville-based Lifeway Research reported on Tuesday that the SBC had 13.2 million members in 2022, down from 13.68 million in […]
In the US, search for top Southern Baptist leader fails amid dispute
United StatesAP A powerful Southern Baptist committee was looking to appoint a new leader Monday who could navigate controversies over its handling of sexual-abuse reforms and the ousting of churches with women serving as pastors. Instead, the Executive Committee found itself tangled in yet another dispute, voting down a recommendation to make its own former chairman its president in […]
Memoir: Beth Moore tries to untangle her ‘all knotted-up life’ in new memoir
In a tender, gracious and at times heartbreaking new book, the beloved Bible teacher and former Southern Baptist recalls the people and the God who saved her from the chaos of her childhood. BOB SMIETANA reports…
SBC President Bart Barber says predecessor Johnny Hunt is unfit to return to ministry
United StatesRNS Bart Barber, a country pastor who also happens to be the sitting president of the Southern Baptist Convention, began his Tuesday as he does most days, with prayer and feeding his cows. Before the day was out he would take the rare step of denouncing one of his predecessors. “I would permanently ‘defrock’ […]
Pastors say Johnny Hunt, former SBC president accused of abuse, can return to ministry
United StatesRNS Disgraced former Southern Baptist Convention President Johnny Hunt plans a return to ministry after completing a restoration process overseen by four pastors, according to a video released last week. Hunt, a longtime megachurch pastor in Georgia, was named earlier this year in the Guidepost Solutions report on sexual abuse in the SBC, which alleged that […]
Southern Baptist Convention: New president Bart Barber wants the denomination to regain its rural soul
RILEY FARRELL, of Religion News Service, reports on how Barber, a pastor from rural Texas, has the task of pulling the SBC’s 13.7 million members “back from the brink”…
In the US, Southern Baptists agree to keep list of accused sex abusers
Anaheim, CaliforniaAP The Southern Baptist Convention voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to create a way to track pastors and other church workers credibly accused of sex abuse and launch a new taskforce to oversee further reforms in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. The vote came three weeks after the release of a blockbuster report by an outside consultant […]
The Interview: Vance Pitman, US megachurch pastor, on why he resigned as top leader at his Las Vegas church
BOB SMIETANA, of Religion News Service, speaks with Vance Pitman, who has resigned last December as senior pastor of Hope Church in Las Vegas to take on a new role as president of Send Network, the church-planting arm of the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board…