Southern Baptists
Why Christians should support a free press
By Daniel Darling — November 29, 2018
(RNS) — Faithful Christians will never give today’s headlines the same weight we do our Bibles, but we should appreciate the way a free press contributes to a healthy civil society.
Clergy sex abuse: Why a national all-faiths inquiry is needed
By David Clohessy and Christa Brown — November 15, 2018
(RNS) — If we want our children to be safer, we cannot afford the comfortable delusion that this is an isolated problem.
Shuttered houses of worship get a reboot, find new life
By Mark A. Kellner — September 10, 2018
(RNS) — At a time when decommissioned houses of worship are converted into nightclubs, restaurants, or condominiums, a different kind of transformation is preserving churches and synagogues as sacred spaces.
#ChurchToo supporter Karen Swallow Prior builds bridges between the extremes
By Adelle M. Banks — August 20, 2018
WASHINGTON (RNS) — Inside and outside the classroom, the 53-year-old Maine native said her goal is to help all creatures great and small (she’s an animal rights activist too) improve their lives.
Southern Baptists to launch sexual abuse advisory panel
By Liam Adams — July 27, 2018
(RNS) — The creation of an advisory panel marks an early concrete step as the denomination aims to root out sexual abuse and coverups.
Seeking unity, J.D. Greear assumes Southern Baptist presidency
By Adelle M. Banks — July 16, 2018
(RNS) — The first Generation X president of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination said he wants to focus more on what all Southern Baptists embrace than what divides them.
Pence addresses Southern Baptists after debate over whether he should
By Adelle M. Banks — June 13, 2018
DALLAS (RNS) — The day before his speech, a Southern Baptist attending the annual meeting requested reconsideration of the plans to welcome Pence. He was overruled.
Patterson won’t address meeting as Southern Baptists gather amid scandals
By Adelle M. Banks — June 8, 2018
(RNS) — 'The mood of the Southern Baptist Convention right now would be similar to that of the country after Watergate,' said Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
Why weren’t Christians the ones to ‘ruin’ Miss America?
By Mandy McMichael — June 8, 2018
(RNS) — The little known history of how America's Christians got entangled with America's beauty pageant.
Paige Patterson’s role in Southern Baptist meeting in doubt
By Adelle M. Banks — June 4, 2018
(RNS) — He's still listed on the program as giving the sermon at his denomination's annual convention in Dallas on June 12-13.
Frank Page, SBC leader, retires due to ‘inappropriate relationship’
By RNS staff — March 27, 2018
(RNS) — "As a result of a personal failing, I have embarrassed my family, my Lord, myself, and the Kingdom," Page said.
Russell Moore: Southern Baptists feel the horror ‘more viscerally’
By Emily McFarlan Miller — November 7, 2017
(RNS) — Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptist Convention's public policy arm, talks about how Southern Baptists feel the attack on one of their churches personally, and can remain divided on gun control.
Why pastor Robert Jeffress’ interview with Sean Hannity was so maddening to so many
By Jonathan Merritt — October 25, 2017
(RNS) — Who knew that a simple meeting between a preacher and a pundit would be so controversial? But it starts to make sense when you consider the preacher. And the pundit. And the meeting itself. (COMMENTARY)
For Southern Baptists, a sudden awakening and turn on the ‘alt-right’
By Martin E. Marty — June 20, 2017
The Convention, however, had something else first on its mind, namely the issue of race, which it had to take up before its participants headed home. Its leadership had “declined to bring to a vote a Texas pastor’s proposed resolution condemning the ‘alt-right’ movement,” proponents of a white supremacist culture that is attractive to some Southern Baptists and their kin and kind. But—stop the presses!—there came a sudden awakening and turn, “[a]fter a fierce backlash on social media.”
ADL: Southern Baptists did the right thing in condemning the ‘alt-right’
By David Sandmel — June 16, 2017
(RNS) We haven’t always agreed with the Southern Baptists. But in denouncing and repudiating white supremacy, we couldn't agree more.
