Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee
Southern Baptists elect Jeff Iorg to lead Executive Committee
By Bob Smietana — March 21, 2024
(RNS) — Iorg is best known for his long and steady leadership at Gateway Seminary in California. His election ends a two-and-a-half-year-long search for a new Executive Committee leader.
Department of Justice closes investigation into SBC Executive Committee’s handling of abuse
By Bob Smietana — March 6, 2024
(RNS) — The investigation was launched after a major report found Southern Baptist Convention leaders had mistreated abuse survivors and had long sought to stonewall attempts to address abuse.
Southern Baptist leaders expel two churches for allegedly mismanaging abuse
By Bob Smietana — February 20, 2024
(RNS) — The committee also voted out a church in Kentucky for having a woman pastor.
Will the Southern Baptist Convention’s Cooperative Program crumble?
By Bob Smietana — February 19, 2024
(RNS) — For nearly a century, Southern Baptist churches have banded together to raise funds for mission in the US and around the world, raising more than $20 billion through their Cooperative Program. But the trust that once held the program together is fraying.
Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee faces more abuse lawsuits
By Bob Smietana — February 7, 2024
(RNS) — A pair of new lawsuits, including one that includes civil RICO claims, come at a time when the SBC Executive Committee faces a fiscal and leadership crisis.
Latest candidate to head Southern Baptists’ Executive Committee withdraws
By Bob Smietana — January 23, 2024
(RNS) — The Executive Committee, which oversees the SBC's operations between meetings of the convention's governing body, has been without a permanent leader since 2021.
Chaos erupts over SBC legal filing in Louisville abuse lawsuit
By Bob Smietana — October 26, 2023
(RNS) — A friend-of-the-court filing has led to questions of whether the Southern Baptist Convention has changed its ways in dealing with abuse.
Executive Committee names temporary leader, deals with fallout from McLaurin deception
By Bob Smietana — August 18, 2023
(RNS) — Howe is the Executive Committee's fifth top leader in five years.
Rick Warren campaigns for Southern Baptist reinstatement of Saddleback Church
By Adelle M. Banks — June 5, 2023
(RNS) — Warren argues that the debate is far larger than what might happen to the church he founded.
Saddleback Church appeals Southern Baptist Convention ouster over woman pastor
By Adelle M. Banks — May 16, 2023
(RNS) — It is one of three churches appealing decisions recently made by the denomination’s Executive Committee to remove eight congregations from official affiliation.
SBC Executive Committee rejects nominee Jared Wellman and restarts search for CEO
By Bob Smietana — May 2, 2023
(RNS) — Critics of the Texas pastor questioned his role in the search process as former Executive Committee chair and wondered why interim President Willie McLaurin, who is Black, had been passed over.
Who will pay for the SBC’s abuse reforms over the long term? No one knows.
By Bob Smietana — February 28, 2023
(RNS) — The SBC’s Executive Committee announced it had lost $6 million over the past fiscal year, mainly due to the cost of responding to the sex abuse crisis.
Southern Baptists plan to hire Guidepost Solutions to run abuser tracking database
By Bob Smietana — February 21, 2023
(RNS) — The ‘Ministry Check’ database will be the first step toward putting in place a series of reforms meant to address the issue of sexual abuse after years of delay.
Southern Baptists’ abuse report is no call for reform. It’s a repudiation of the past 40 years.
By Jonathan Merritt — May 23, 2022
(RNS) — Scapegoating a handful of leaders won’t bring the transformation the SBC needs.
Willie McLaurin, interim Executive Committee leader, is SBC’s first Black entity head
By Adelle M. Banks — February 1, 2022
(RNS) — ‘My prayer is that this season will bring healing and unity to our Convention,’ said the new interim president of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee.
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