Baptist & Reflector

Telling the Story of Tennessee Baptists Since 1835

ERLC NAMES GARY HOLLINGSWORTH INTERIM PRESIDENT

By Jennifer Davis Rash
The Baptist Paper

Gary Hollingsworth (center) poses with Miles Mullin (left, executive vice president and chief of staff) and Scott Foshie (chair of ERLC’s board of trustees) following his election as interim president Sept. 16. – ERLC photo

WASHINGTON — The board of trustees for the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission named an interim president today (Sept. 16) during their regularly scheduled September meeting, held this year in Washington D.C. — longtime denominational leader and pastor Gary Hollingsworth. The vote was unanimous.

Now living in the Birmingham, Alabama, area, Hollingsworth retired from full-time ministry in 2023, at that time serving as executive director of the South Carolina Baptist Convention since 2016. He is pastor emeritus of First Baptist Church Trussville, Alabama.

Miles Mullin, executive vice president and chief of staff, has been serving as acting president since previous ERLC president Brent Leatherwood stepped down July 31. [Read more…]

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TRUMP TASK FORCE RELEASES REPORT ON ANTI-CHRISTIAN BIAS

By Scott Barkley
Baptist Press

WASHINGTON D.C. (BP) – A task force commissioned by the Trump Administration earlier this year has issued a preliminary report containing examples where Christians’ “political, social, and humanitarian contributions [were] devalued, their beliefs marginalized, and their communities unlawfully targeted” by the White House’s previous occupants.

The “consistent and systemic pattern of discrimination against Christians during the Biden Administration” was outlined in a report dated June 6, but only recently released. The president announced the formation of the task force at this year’s National Prayer Breakfast.

“If we don’t have religious liberty, then we don’t have a free country. We probably don’t even have a country,” he told attendees on the same day he signed the executive order on eradicating anti-Christian bias. [Read more…]

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AFTER STRING OF TRAGEDIES, SBC PRESIDENT RALLIES CHURCHES TO PRAY FOR THE NATION

By Brandon Porter
Baptist Press

Clint Pressley. – Screengrab

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (BP) – SBC President Clint Pressley calls on pastors and churches to spend a dedicated time in prayer for the nation this Sunday (Sept. 14) in a video released on Sept. 11.

“Our nation needs us to ask God to help,” Pressley said, “God has providentially placed us where we are at this time in history.”

The call is delivered in a video posted to social media.

Reminding viewers that “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble” (Psalm 46:1), Pressley referenced the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the recent killings of Charlie Kirk in Utah and Iryna Zarutska in Pressley’s native Charlotte and last month’s Catholic school shooting in Minneapolis. [Read more…]

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‘CHAOS AND PANIC’: EYEWITNESS TO KIRK ASSASSINATION RECALLS AFTERMATH

By Scott Barkley
Baptist Press

Scott Harding, a member of Risen Life Church in Salt Lake City, took this photo moments before the start of Charlie Kirk’s kickoff to The American Comeback tour at Utah Valley University.

OREM, Utah (BP) – Celebratory poppers. That’s what Scott Harding thought he heard before seeing Charlie Kirk, seated about 25 feet away, go down to the floor.

Harding had become a fan of Kirk’s method for engaging others through his Christian faith, using dialogue and debate as a way to bring about change. It’s why he had arrived with thousands of others at the campus of Utah Valley University Wednesday (Sept. 10), the first stop of Kirk’s “The American Comeback” tour.

Kirk’s Prove Me Wrong table had become a central point of his visits to college campuses. His points were encouraging to people like Harding, who had grown familiar with Kirk primarily through videos shared on Facebook. [Read more…]

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BAPTIST LEADERS RESPOND TO CHARLIE KIRK DEATH

By Brandon Porter
Baptist Press

Charlie Kirk. – Wikimedia Commons

OREM, Utah (BP) – Conservative advocate Charlie Kirk was killed by a gunman at Utah Valley University Wednesday (Sept. 10). President Donald Trump paid tribute to the leader via social media calling him great and legendary.

Kirk is the co-founder and president of Turning Point USA, a non-profit aimed at spreading conservative principles on high school and college campuses.

Videos posted to social media from Utah Valley University showed Kirk speaking into a handheld microphone while sitting under a white tent emblazoned with the slogans “The American Comeback” and “Prove Me Wrong,” The Associated Press reported. A single shot rings out and Kirk can be seen reaching up with his right hand as a large volume of blood gushes from the left side of his neck. Stunned spectators are heard gasping and screaming before people start to run away. [Read more…]

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ERLC FILES LETTER URGING VETERANS AFFAIRS TO END ABORTION COVERAGE

By Diana Chandler
Baptist Press

WASHINGTON (BP) – The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) should not pay for abortions nor counsel expectant mothers to end their unborn babies’ lives, Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) Acting President Miles Mullin said in a letter to the department Sept. 3.

“Under statutory requirements, the VA medical benefits package may only include services ‘needed to promote, preserve, or restore the health of the individual’ as determined by appropriate healthcare professionals,” Mullin wrote. “From its inception in 1999 until 2022, the VA medical benefits package prohibited abortion because it is not a ‘needed’ service for beneficiaries.”

On behalf of the ERLC, Mullin submitted comments supporting the approval of the VA’s proposed rule to end abortion coverage both he and the VA said was enacted expressly in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. [Read more…]

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MANY CHURCHES PRIORITIZE DISCIPLESHIP, BUT HAVE NO PLAN

By Aaron Earls
Lifeway Christian Resources

Pastors have a lot of thoughts about discipleship, but they aren’t sure it’s happening in their churches.

In the first part of the State of Discipleship study from Lifeway Research, U.S. Protestant pastors shared their understanding of what discipleship means and how it best occurs. The full State of Discipleship will be released over the next year, providing the perspectives of both pastors and churchgoers.

“Making disciples was the Great Commission Jesus gave His followers before He returned to heaven,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research. “This biblical priority warrants that church leaders regularly take a careful look into a mirror to see the state of discipleship in their congregations. This study provides a view of the state of discipleship across all Protestant churches in the U.S.” [Read more…]

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MISSISSIPPI CHURCH PAYS IT FORWARD 20 YEARS AFTER KATRINA

By Scott Barkley
Baptist Press

First Baptist Gulfport’s building was a total loss after Katrina. – BP photo

GULFPORT, Miss. (BP) – The people of First Baptist Church are very familiar with what it feels like to have your world swept away.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina took a hard right in the Gulf and barreled north, eventually making landfall along Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Extensive flooding killed many and left slabs where homes once stood. The destruction came at a level that deserves documentaries and commemorative articles, even two decades later.

Chuck Register was the pastor at First Baptist Church in Gulfport. Any other time, the church’s location caused oohs and ahhs, with the Gulf of Mexico close enough that you could reach it with a 9-iron.

But on that night of Aug. 29, waves ripped away the lower walls of the sanctuary and other buildings, leaving a skeleton. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: SBC

FEDERAL JUDGE BLOCKS DISPLAYING OF TEN COMMANDMENTS IN TEXAS

From the Baptist Paper

SAN ANTONIO — A federal district judge in San Antonio blocked implementation of a law mandating the display of a prescribed version of the Ten Commandments in every Texas public school classroom.

U.S. District Court Judge Fred Biery issued the preliminary injunction Aug. 20 in Rabbi Mara Nathan, et al, v. Alamo Heights Independent School District, et al.

Biery ruled SB 10, due to take effect Sept. 1, violates both the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and “crosses the line from exposure to coercion.”

[Read more…]

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CHURCH BRANDING: IT’S ABOUT MISSION, NOT JUST LOGOS

By Scott Barkley
Baptist Press

Cracker Barrel Old Country Store restaurant in Victorville, Calif. – Getty Images

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (BP) – The brouhaha over a certain country-themed restaurant/store’s brand redesign touches on a topic that churches encounter at some point.

Words like “branding” and “marketing” can cause ministers to flinch, because there is no greater example of either than the work of the Gospel in a person’s life. But a logo is often the first visual associated with a church, and there’s a pretty simple way to know if it’s a good one.

“Someone in your congregation should want to get a cap or t-shirt with your logo on it, and wear it,” said Mark MacDonald, founder of BeKnownForSomething.com and author of the book by the same name. “It actually represents them, since they are the church.”

It goes much deeper than a shirt, though, and expands beyond the church’s walls. [Read more…]

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