Religion

The Christian Post reports: Two days after the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee rejected a motion to create a task force to oversee a third-party investigation of allegations SBC leaders mishandled a “crisis of sexual abuse” in the denomination, messengers overwhelmingly approved a motion to do just that on Wednesday. Attorney and abuse advocate Rachael Denhollander, who has spoken freely …

From the National Center for Lesbian Rights: “Properly understood, today’s decision is a significant victory for LGBTQ people,” said Shannon Minter, NCLR Legal Director. “The Court ruled in favor of Catholic Social Services, but on the narrowest possible ground, based on language in the City of Philadelphia’s contract that authorized individualized exemptions for any provider. “The Court did not change …

The New York Times reports: The election of the pastor, Ed Litton , was the result of what was effectively a three-way standoff for the leadership of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. In the first round of voting on Tuesday afternoon, Southern Baptists rejected a prominent mainstream candidate and onetime favorite for the presidency, Al Mohler Jr., who received 26 …

Catholic News Services reports: President Joe Biden’s attendance at early morning Mass with Pope Francis was nixed from an early plan for the first meeting of both leaders, a reliable Vatican source told CNA. President Biden is currently in Europe for several high level meetings, offering a potential opportunity to meet with Pope Francis. According to Vatican sources June 15, …

The Christian Post reports: Days before he was found dead in Alabama of an apparent suicide, Steve Austin, a former youth pastor, suicide survivor and mental health advocate, sought financial help from subscribers to his newsletter as his wife, Lindsey, battled a mental health crisis a week after he publicly came out as queer. Days later, the author, podcaster and …

The New York Times reports: The Vatican has warned conservative American bishops to hit the brakes on their push to deny communion to politicians supportive of abortion rights — including President Biden, a faithful churchgoer and the first Roman Catholic to occupy the Oval Office in 60 years. But despite the remarkably public stop sign from Rome, the American bishops …

The Christian Post reports: Pastor Lewis Clemons of Kingdom Awareness Ministries International in Columbus, Georgia, could have settled a civil case against him for zero dollars if he agreed to acknowledge and record a public apology for allegedly sexually abusing and raping his former congregant, Lequita Jackson. He refused and went to trial. On Wednesday, a jury in the Superior …

Via press release from the Justice Department: Federal prosecutors today filed charges against a now-retired nun who was the principal of a Catholic elementary school in Torrance and who has agreed to plead guilty to fraud and money laundering charges for stealing more than $835,000 in school funds to pay for personal expenses, including gambling trips. Mary Margaret Kreuper, 79, …

Religion News Service reports: Adam Evers created the app he’d been longing for. As a gay Christian, he felt caught between two worlds. In LGBTQ spaces, his faith was often an obstacle, because so many in the community have been hurt by churches that believe same-sex relationships contradict Scripture. So on Thursday (June 3), Evers launched believr, an app that …

The Roys Report reports: Despite having total revenues exceeding $933 million in 2019, the Texas affiliate of Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) — the world’s largest religious television network — received more than $3.3 million in federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans last year. According to The Trinity Foundation, TBN transferred more than $860 million in assets to its Texas affiliate, …

The BBC reports: Nigerian preacher TB Joshua, one of Africa’s most influential evangelists, has died at the age of 57. A post on his Facebook page, which has more than five million followers, said: “God has taken His servant”. He was said to have died on Saturday shortly after conducting a live broadcast, but the cause of his death has …

Salt Lake City’s NBC News affiliate reports: With hot, dry weather in the immediate and long-term forecasts, Gov. Spencer Cox on Thursday called on Utahns to pray for rain this weekend as Utah’s drought conditions continue to worsen. In a pre-recorded video, the governor called on Utahns of all faiths to join him in a “weekend of humble prayer” from …

Reuters reports: One of Roman Catholicism’s most influential liberal figures, Germany’s Cardinal Reinhard Marx, has offered to resign as archbishop of Munich, saying he had to share responsibility for the “catastrophe” of sexual abuse by clerics over past decades. His offer, which Pope Francis has yet to accept, follows an uproar among the German faithful over abuse. Last week, the …

The Associated Press reports: Pope Francis has changed church law to explicitly criminalize the sexual abuse of adults by priests who abuse their authority and to say that laypeople who hold church office can be sanctioned for similar sex crimes. The new provisions, released Tuesday after 14 years of study, were contained in the revised criminal law section of the …

Morgantown, West Virginia’s ABC News affiliate reports: On Apr. 28, members of the Church of God on River Road in Morgantown reported to deputies with the Monongalia County Sheriff’s Department that “a smart phone had been placed upon a ledge above a urinal,” according to a criminal complaint. The phone, which was recovered from the men’s restroom at the church, …

The Christian Post reports: A year after reporting the largest single-year membership decline in more than 100 years, churches in the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, lost more than 400,000 members in 2020 and set a new record for the single-year decline amid the coronavirus pandemic and a bitter culture war. The Annual Church Profile report shows …

The Associated Press reports: An archbishop of Newark groomed a 5-year-old girl by delivering food to her struggling family and regularly babysitting her, then sexually abusing her on multiple occasions in the 1970s, a lawsuit alleges. The suit filed in March is believed to be the first to level sexual abuse charges against the late Peter Gerety, who died in …

The Christian Post reports: Just 26% of Gen X and 16% of millennials believe that when they die, they will go to Heaven only because they confessed their sins and accepted Jesus as their savior, compared to nearly half of the generation before them, a new study has found. The American Worldview Inventory 2021, a survey of the philosophy of …

Deutsche Presse-Agentur reports: The Holy See has accepted the resignation of the bishop of the Polish city of Bydgoszcz, Jan Tyrawa, over alleged negligence in the face of sex abuse accusations against priests subordinate to him, a Vatican diplomat said on Wednesday. Tyrawa tendered his resignation after the end of a Vatican investigation, which looked into accusations of the sexual …

The Christian Post reports: J.D. Greear, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, said the California-based Saddleback Church’s decision to ordain three women was “disappointing,” and urged the denomination to “stand on the bedrock of God’s Word — whether the issue is the role of pastor or any other issue.” In a development described by Saddleback as “historic,” the church, founded …