Telling the Story of Tennessee Baptists Since 1835
Baptist Press staff
Concern over Baptist work in Utah and Idaho, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission were voiced during an Executive Committee open forum Sept. 18. Photo by Morris Abernathy
NASHVILLE — An initiative by Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear to address sexual abuse in the church will be funded by the first $250,000 in Cooperative Program overage for 2017-2018, by a vote of the SBC Executive Committee. [Read more…]
Editor’s Note: Visit baptistandreflector.org for complete coverage of the SBC annual meeting.
By Lonnie Wilkey
Editor, Baptist and Reflector
lwilkey@tnbaptist.org
Messengers at the SBC annual meeting raise their ballots while voting on one of the 20 proposed motions on June 12. — Photo by Matt Miller/Baptist Press
DALLAS — Though an attempt was made to exclude the vice president of the United States from speaking to Southern Baptist Convention messengers, Mike Pence addressed the convention in the June 13 morning session.
Pence’s appearance was one of several highlights during the annual meeting held June 12-13 in Dallas. The meeting drew 9,637 messengers, including 615 from Tennessee. Tennessee trailed only Texas (2,036) and Louisiana (718) in number of messengers. It was the largest attended convention since 2010. [Read more…]
By David Dawson
Baptist and Reflector
ERLC president Russell Moore addresses the crowd at this year’s ERLC national conference at the Opryland Hotel.
NASHVILLE — The lineup of speakers at this year’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission conference was impressive. So, too, was the setting for the event, which was held at the sprawling Opryland Hotel.
But the true appeal of this year’s gathering was the event’s central topic: Parenting.
Touching on subjects that ranged from social media to sports to foster care, the conference examined the guidelines of “Christ-Centered Parenting in a Complex World.” The event generated a sell-out crowd that was estimated around 1,300. [Read more…]
By Todd Brady
Vice President for University Ministries, Union University
My wife and I were in Nashville recently for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission’s annual conference on parenting. Hearing from folks like Russell Moore, Jen Wilken, Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska) and others, we sought to learn what we could to grow in this great work of parenting.
While we were there, the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood finalized The Nashville Statement, a series of affirmations and denials “declaring once again the true story of the world and of our place in it—particularly as male and female.” In a world of squishy ambiguities, vague double-speak and moral menageries, I was glad to read this clear, precise and definitive declaration espousing God’s design for biblical sexuality. You may read The Nashville Statement at www.cbmw.com. [Read more…]
By Diana Chandler
Baptist Press
The alt-right social and political movement is in the spotlight after the Southern Baptist Convention condemned alternative-right white supremacy at its 2017 annual meeting in Phoenix.
What is the alt-right movement?
Many Southern Baptists aren’t familiar with the term, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) President Russell Moore said in the June 14 “The Weekly,” ERLC’s e-mail newsletter on news and opinion from the public square. Speaking from the floor of the annual meeting as a messenger from Grace Church in Nashville, Moore was among those encouraging adoption of the resolution condemning “the anti-Gospel of alt-right white supremacy.” [Read more…]
By Seth Brown
Baptist Press
Phoenix, AZ.
PHOENIX — Messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention proposed 11 motions during two 15-minute scheduled segments of the 2017 annual meeting in Phoenix.
Messengers voted affirmatively on one of the motions, submitted by Kevin Ezell, president of the North American Mission Board and member of First Baptist Church in Alpharetta, Ga., to authorize the convention’s president to appoint a task force to study how Southern Baptists “could be more effective in personal soul-winning and evangelistic preaching.”
Ezell, acting on behalf of SBC President Steve Gaines, commented to Gaines in making the motion, “We must be about sharing our faith.” Ezell added, “You do that. I’m grateful for your heart and I join you in wanting to mobilize pastors to lead their people to have gospel conversations.” [Read more…]
By David Roach
Baptist Press
Jack Graham
PLANO, Texas (BP) — Prestonwood Baptist Church has announced it will resume giving through the Cooperative Program after two months of evaluating its support of Southern Baptist missions and ministries.
“After a time of prayerful evaluation, Prestonwood is renewing our commitment to Southern Baptist missions by giving to the Cooperative Program without designation,” Prestonwood executive pastor Mike Buster told Baptist Press in a statement. [Read more…]
By David Roach
Baptist Press
RALEIGH, N.C. (BP) — North Carolina legislators have repealed a controversial law that required individuals in state buildings to use restrooms corresponding to the gender indicated on their birth certificates.
The repeal of House Bill 2 today (March 30) marked a compromise between Democrats and Republicans and culminated more than a year of contentious debate since the bill’s passage in April 2016.
North Carolina’s senate passed the repeal 32-16 following brief discussion. The house’s 70-48 vote to repeal HB 2 followed more than two hours of debate and came some 90 minutes after a noon deadline set by the NCAA for the Tar Heel State to overturn its restroom bill or lose the opportunity to host championship events in 2018-22. [Read more…]
By David Roach
Baptist Press
ERLC President Russell Moore (right) — pictured here at a 2015 press conference with then-SBC Resolutions Committee chairman Steve Gaines — was commended by Gaines following release of a March 20 extended statement, “Seeking Unity in the Southern Baptist Convention.”
-BP file photo by Bill Bangham
NASHVILLE (BP) — An extended statement by Russell Moore and the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission executive committee, “Seeking Unity in the Southern Baptist Convention,” has drawn praise from SBC President Steve Gaines and former SBC President Jack Graham among others.
Meanwhile, Christian worldview analyst John Stonestreet said in a radio interview that controversy surrounding Moore, the ERLC’s president, gives Southern Baptists an opportunity to “model what it looks like to have deeply held differences … on political issues” yet “keep the main things the main things and move forward in a way that improves the reputation of the Gospel.” [Read more…]
By Art Toalston
Baptist Press
Russell Moore
-BP file photo.
NASHVILLE (BP) — An extended statement, “Seeking Unity in the Southern Baptist Convention,” has been issued by Russell Moore and the executive committee of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
Moore, in a 1,691-word portion of the March 20 statement, clarified criticism he had leveled at Christians who supported Donald Trump for president in the November 2016 election.
The ERLC executive committee, in a 536-word portion of the statement, affirmed Moore’s ongoing leadership as president of the SBC entity. [Read more…]
