From the ERLC news office
MAJORITY OF AMERICANS SAY ABORTIONS SHOULD BE ILLEGAL AFTER FIRST TRIMESTER
By Diana Chandler
Baptist Press
NEW YORK — At least 65 percent of Americans believe abortion should be illegal in most cases after the first three months of pregnancy, according to a new poll designed to be representative of the national population.
A full 80 percent of Americans believe it should be illegal in the last three months of pregnancy, said the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released a week ago.
Along political party lines, 41 percent of Republicans said abortions should be legal in the first trimester in all or most cases, compared to 81 percent of Democrats. By the second trimester, only 11 percent of Republicans said abortions should be allowed, compared to 52 percent of Democrats.
Among born-again or evangelical Christians, 67 percent said abortions should be illegal in all or most cases, while 33 percent said abortions should be legal in all or most cases, the poll said. Included in the latter are a 10th of born-again and evangelical Christians who said abortions should be legal in all circumstances. [Read more…]
FIRST HURRICANE OF 2021 SEASON ARRIVES AS SBDR, SEND RELIEF GEAR UP FOR ACTIVE SEASON
By Brandon Elrod
Baptist Press
ALPHARETTA, Ga. — The first hurricane of the 2021 season has been named, and it’s already a record-breaker. Tropical Storm Elsa became a hurricane on July 2 in the Atlantic Ocean near Barbados, the easternmost Caribbean Island.
The storm, which had been fast-moving, was projected to arrive near the shores of the Dominican Republic and Haiti by July 3. The National Hurricane Center was projecting Elsa would weaken to a tropical storm by July 4 before hitting Cuba and making U.S. landfall in Florida on July 6, though hurricanes are notoriously unpredictable.
“We are tracking and monitoring Hurricane Elsa. Currently, it is moving at a speed of about 28 mph with winds of 74 mph and gusts up to 86 mph,” said Coy Webb, Send Relief’s crisis response director who oversees national and international disaster responses.
Webb joined Send Relief in 2020 after leading Southern Baptist Disaster Relief (SBDR) in Kentucky for 13 years.
“The greatest current potential impact appears to be Haiti and Cuba with heavy rains and potential flooding,” Webb said. “The hurricane season started early this year, and it is looking like it will be an active year. We stand ready with our SBDR partners to respond when needed.” [Read more…]
LITTON, GREEAR SAY LITTON HAD PERMISSION TO BORROW FROM SERMON
By Scott Barkley
Baptist Press
NASHVILLE — Following the release of a video showing similarities in a sermon, SBC president Ed Litton and his predecessor J.D. Greear said Litton had sought and received permission to use material from a sermon earlier preached by Greear.
The video, which was released Thursday (June 24), contains six minutes, 57 seconds of interwoven clips from a sermon delivered by Greear in January 2019 and another by Litton in January 2020. Both messages, based in the book of Romans, addressed homosexuality. Greear’s sermon lasted 53 minutes, 31 seconds; Litton’s was 40 minutes, 45 seconds in length.
In a statement released Saturday (June 26), Litton, senior pastor of Redemption Church near Mobile, Ala., said although he had received permission, he apologized for not crediting Greear. Greear confirmed Litton’s account in a statement issued the same day, writing:
“I told him whatever bullets of mine worked in his gun, to use them!”
Litton was elected SBC president June 15 at the SBC Annual Meeting in Nashville, succeeding Greear. After the election, he described the SBC as “a family” that sometimes seems dysfunctional but said he hoped to build bridges during his tenure, and that Southern Baptists would “leave this place focused … with a direction – and I believe a better direction – for the future.”
In the statement, Litton described a sermon preparation process involving a preaching team of eight men from the Redemption congregation and staff who “meet weekly to discuss study insights, outlines, and approaches to the text” in addition to consulting commentaries as well as other books and individuals. According to Litton, as the team met to plan a series on Romans, their process led them to Greear’s message on Romans 1, which Litton found “insightful, particularly his three points of application.” [Read more…]
SUPREME COURT DENIES NAMB PETITION, CASE REMANDED TO DISTRICT COURT
By Jonathan Howe
Baptist Press
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court of the United States denied a petition by the North American Mission Board (NAMB) to review its ongoing case involving a lawsuit filed by a former Southern Baptist state executive director.
Originally filed in 2017 by Will McRaney, former executive director of the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware (BCMD), the lawsuit alleges NAMB had intentionally defamed him and wrongfully influenced his 2015 termination by the BCMD after a dispute over collaborative missions efforts in the region. NAMB legal counsel George McCallum called the allegations “unfounded” in a statement to Baptist Press in November of last year, adding that NAMB has “consistently denied” McRaney’s claims.
NAMB is represented pro bono by First Liberty Institute, the largest legal organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to defending religious liberty. Jeremy Dys, special counsel for litigation and communications at First Liberty Institute, expressed disappointment at the decision not to hear the case. First Liberty contends that an earlier decision by the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which in 2020 reversed a 2019 dismissal of the case by the U.S. District Court Northern District of Mississippi, undermines the doctrine of church autonomy. [Read more…]
PAST PRESIDENTS DISCUSS FUTURE OF DENOMINATION
Baptist Press
NASHVILLE (BP) – The SBC’s future hinges on a reemphasis on evangelism and missions, four former presidents agreed during a panel discussion before the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting.
Former SBC presidents Steve Gaines, Johnny Hunt, James Merritt and Fred Luter, who gathered for a session on the Vision Stage in the exhibit hall of the Music City Center on June 14, one day before the annual meeting opened, found agreement on the convention’s greatest needs.
Merritt, pastor at Cross Pointe Church in Duluth, Ga., who served as SBC president from 2000-2002, said evangelism is “for the most part not on our radar on a day-to-day basis.”
“How often do we pray, ‘God put someone in my path today that I can talk to about Jesus?”’ Merritt said. “The two most embarrassing questions you can ask a Christian is when is the last time you led a person to Christ, and when was the last time you tried?” [Read more…]
PEW SURVEY: ALMOST HALF OF TEENS BELIEVE MANY RELIGIONS MAY BE TRUE
By Diana Chandler
Baptist Press
WASHINGTON — The largest portion of teenagers in the U.S. believe that more than one religion may be true, Pew Research said in its latest revelation from a study of the religious beliefs and practices of teens and their parents.
Among 13- to 17-year-old teenagers, 45 percent believe many religions may be true, far outpacing the 31 percent who believe only one religion is true, Pew said. A much smaller portion, 15 percent, believe there is little to no truth in any religion, and 8 percent believe no religion is true.
Pew included a teenager and a parent from each household surveyed, and found that the religious beliefs of teenagers largely mirrored those of their parents. The largest portion, 47 percent, of parents included in the study said many religions may be true, compared to 33 percent who expressed an exclusivist view of religion, and 19 percent who said there is little or no truth in any religion.
When divided by religious affiliation, evangelical Protestant teenagers registered the largest portion of respondents, 66 percent, who believe in one religion, compared to 28 percent of the subset who believe many religions may be true, Pew said.
A majority, 57 percent, of respondents who identified as mainline Protestant told Pew they believe many religions may be true, compared to 28 percent of mainliners who believe only one religion is true. Catholic responders more closely mirrored mainline Protestants, with 54 percent of Catholic teens professing many religions may be true, and 31 percent saying only one religion is true. Among teens in the study who professed no religious affiliation, 6 percent said only one religion is true, and 46 percent said many religions may be true. [Read more…]
2021 SBC ANNUAL MEETING PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS
By Diana Chandler
Baptist Press
NASHVILLE — Saying they faced a defining moment, the “most important crossroads” in a generation, departing SBC President J.D. Greear challenged Southern Baptists to hear the concerns of the entire body while unifying around the one true Gospel and the Great Commission.
“If we believe in the sufficiency of Scripture as the rule for the church, let’s not rush into making the rules for the church we wish God had made had he understood the situation in 21st century America,” Greear charged the overflow crowd of messengers and guests Tuesday (June 15) at the Music City Center. “I am committed to letting the Scripture, and the Scripture alone, be our rule for faith and practice. Anything else is unnecessarily divisive.”
Greear said the moment required courage like he said was shown during the Conservative Resurgence of 40 years ago.
“Our defining moment,” he said, “is about whether we will let the Gospel that our forefathers preserved for us define the identity and determine the mission of our Convention.”
He exhorted Southern Baptists to make clear their disdain of racism and sexual abuse while avoiding characteristics Jesus assailed among the Pharisees in Matthew 23. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for considering their own traditions equal to Scripture, adhering to minutia of the law while avoiding the meat of the law, and ignoring God’s focus on the outsider. [Read more…]
SOUTHERN BAPTIST EVANGELISTS FOCUS ON FAMILY WITH HUCKABEE, PENROD
By Kevin Willoughby
Baptist Press
NASHVILLE — As a musician since the age of 11, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee told Southern Baptist evangelists he knows the first thing he has to do when he picks up an instrument is to tune it so each note sounds like it should.
Huckabee was the guest June 13 of the Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists (COSBE) at that group’s annual Sunday worship service before the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting. The service took place at Hermitage Hills Baptist Church in a northeast Nashville suburb.
Guy Penrod, longtime lead singer with the Gaither Vocal Band, also was a COSBE guest.
Instruments everywhere in the world that are not tuned to an unchanging, rigid, fixed standard are agonizing to listen to, Huckabee said in response to a question posed by evangelist Jerry Drace, a COSBE past president.
“I am deeply concerned that so many children are being raised up in a world where what they think, feel, believe becomes the standard,” Huckabee said. “We need to have our children and grandchildren tune themselves not to a trend, fashion, thought or vocabulary. [Read more…]
EC TO ELECT NEW VICE CHAIR AFTER FAILED MESSENGER ATTEMPT TO RETAIN TOM TUCKER
By Diana Chandler
Baptist Press
NASHVILLE — South Carolina pastor Tom Tucker’s reelection Monday (June 14) as vice chairman of the SBC Executive Committee became moot Wednesday (June 16), when messengers to the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting rejected a motion to nominate him to a second term on the Executive Committee.
The Executive Committee elected Tucker to a second term as vice chair during its meeting Monday with the knowledge that while eligible to serve, his term was expiring and he was not among nominees to the Executive Committee for the coming year, and that he could only fulfill the post if messengers amended the 2021 Committee on Nominations report to include Tucker among nominees.
Messenger Lewis Richerson, pastor of Woodlawn Baptist Church in Baton Rouge, La., offered a motion Wednesday to nominate Tucker, a vocational evangelist from South Carolina, in place of nominee David Sons, lead pastor of Lake Murray Baptist Church in Lexington, S.C. Richerson said it was customary for EC members to be nominated to two consecutive terms.
But Andrew Hopper, chairman of the Committee on Nominations and pastor of Mercy Hill Church in Greensboro, N.C., said in response that the decision to exclude Tucker from the nominees was a unanimous decision made more than a year ago. [Read more…]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- …
- 112
- Next Page »