Southern Baptists: Russell Moore leaves leadership, but denomination’s troubles remain
BOB SMIETANA, of Religion News Service, looks at the issues facing the largest Protestant denomination in the US…
In the US, Russell Moore, Baptist ethicist and Trump critic, to leave ERLC for ‘Christianity Today’
Nashville, Tennessee, USRNS Russell Moore, the embattled Southern Baptist ethicist and “Never Trumper,” is resigning as president of his denomination’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Religion News Service has learned. Moore will be joining the staff of Christianity Today – the leading evangelical magazine, founded by the late evangelist Billy Graham – as a public theologian. […]
SBC President JD Greear: “God did not call Southern Baptists to save America”
Nashville, Tennessee, USRNS Southern Baptist Convention President JD Greear called out fellow Baptists on Monday who he said were sowing dissension and lies in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. Greear, who pastors The Summit Church, a North Carolina megachurch, defended his three years as the denomination’s president and the convention’s growing diversity. But he said […]
Southern Baptists: Divisions over politics, race, gender and LGBTQ policy roil largest US Protestant denomination
DAVID CRARY, of Associated Press, reports on the issues expected to be on the agenda at an upcoming meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention’s executive committee in the US…
In the US, some Southern Baptist pastors are calling Kamala Harris ‘Jezebel.’ What do they mean?
RNS It didn’t take long after the inauguration of the nation’s first woman vice president for some pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention to start comparing her to the Bible’s most nefarious woman. Two days, to be exact. Then Democratic vice presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event on Tuesday, 27th October, […]
Essay: As the US marked another MLK Day, white evangelicals again have a choice to make on racial justice
In an article adapted from his book ‘The Color of Compromise: The Truth About the American Church’s Complicity in Racism‘, JEMAR TISBY, says Martin Luther King, Jr, “saw an indissoluble link between the Christian faith and the responsibility to change unjust laws and policies”…
Southern Baptist leaders meet after critical race theory document caused controversy
RNS Southern Baptist Convention officials admitted it would have been better if they’d contacted Black leaders of their denomination before issuing a statement decrying critical race theory, which led to the departure of several Black pastors. In response to weeks of reaction to the statement and a request for a meeting from the SBC’s National […]
After turbulent 2020, faith in America faces more big issues
AP For many religious denominations in the United States, there were two shared preoccupations in 2020 beyond the usual matters of faith: How to cope with the coronavirus pandemic and how to respond to tumultuous political events. With Joe Biden replacing Donald Trump as president, and with vaccines eventually expected to ease the threat of […]
The Long Read: Pandemic, loss unite two rural Missouri pastors around faith
LUIS ANDRES HENAO, DAVID CRARY and JESSIE WARDARSKI, of The Associated Press, look at, in something of a microcosm of what’s happening across the US, how the coronavirus pandemic has impacted two Missouri churches…
In the US, Southern Baptists warm to alternate moniker ‘Great Commission Baptists’
RNS Months ahead of their planned annual meeting, some Southern Baptist leaders are embracing an unofficial moniker for their gathering and, in some cases, for themselves: Great Commission Baptists. The name simultaneously distances them from a regional affiliation and focuses on the command of Jesus for his followers to spread his message worldwide, some leaders […]