NEWS STORY
RNS-RHE-Book: ’What Is God Like?’ Late author Rachel Held Evans’ first children’s book invites questions
(RNS) — Two years after her death and a week after what would have been her 40th birthday, Rachel Held Evans’ first children’s book finally is on bookshelves, completed with the help of friend and bestselling children’s author Matthew Paul Turner. “Rachel wrote the children’s book that she wanted to pick up off the shelf,” Daniel Jonce Evans, who wrote the foreword to the book, told Religion News Service. By Emily McFarlan Miller. 1,200 words. (category: a)
NEWS STORY
RNS-NIH-Collins: NIH director: We asked God for help with COVID-19, and vaccines are the ‘answer to that prayer’
WASHINGTON (RNS) — National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins sat down with Religion News Service to discuss the Biden administration’s new partnerships with faith groups to vaccination Americans, the intersection of religion and science, and his own evangelical faith. By Jack Jenkins. 1500 words.
NEWS STORY
RNS-Greear-Gavel: Gavel named for slaveholder replaced with one recalling missionary at SBC meeting
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (RNS) — As outgoing Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear prepared to open his final annual meeting in that role, he determined to follow through on his plans to change the way he officially got it started. In most years, the meetings have featured the Broadus gavel, named for John A. Broadus, who was a slaveholder, a believer in white superiority and a founding faculty member of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. By Adelle M. Banks. 450 words. (category: a)
NEWS STORY
RNS-SBC-Founders: At Founder’s event, Southern Baptists urged to choose Bible over ‘paganism,’ CRT
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (RNS) — Critics of the current leadership of the 14-million member Southern Baptist Convention, warn the denomination has “forgotten God.” Speakers at a meeting of Founders Ministries, a conservative group, urged attenders to fight back against liberal forces in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, which holds its annual meeting in Nashville starting Tuesday (June 15). By Bob Smietana. 1,000 words. (category: a)
NEWS STORY
RNS-SBC-BlackBaptists: Leader urges fellow Black Southern Baptists to stay the course
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (RNS) — The outgoing president of the National African American Fellowship of the Southern Baptist Convention has given a full-throated defense for why Black members of the predominantly white denomination should continue their affiliation. “I want to encourage you before you do anything, seek the will of God,” he said at the group’s annual meeting. By Adelle M. Banks. 870 words. (category: a)
COMMENTARY
RNS-Burge-Oped: Who are the Southern Baptists and why is their 2021 annual meeting so divided?
(RNS) — The Southern Baptist Convention is gathering in Nashville, Tennessee. It’s not an exaggeration to say that it may be the most consequential denominational meeting for any Protestant denomination in the last 30 years. But who are Southern Baptists, and why is their vote on a new president and a series of resolutions reverberating so loudly across the entire American religious landscape? By Ryan Burge. 1,072 words. (category: k)
COMMENTARY
RNS-Cole-Oped: In this crucial moment, Southern Baptist chief executive Ronnie Floyd is over his head
(RNS) — At the center of the SBC tumult is the Rev. Ronnie Floyd, the denomination’s chief executive, who finds himself not only ill-equipped but increasingly hearing calls for his resignation. On Floyd’s watch, the 15 million member SBC has been convulsing and hemorrhaging from a series of self-inflicted wounds and circular firing squads. The denomination’s numbers continue to decline, as does its political and cultural clout. By Benjamin Cole. 962 words. (category: k)