Tag Archives: Southern Baptist Convention

Southern Baptist Convention Settles Molestation Suit Against Former Leader, Eight Male Victims Spoke Out

The Texas Tribune reports: The Southern Baptist Convention and others have reached a confidential settlement in a high-profile lawsuit that accused a former leader of sexual assault, ending a six-year legal drama that expanded victims’ rights in Texas, helped prompt a broader reckoning over child sexual abuse in evangelical churches and showed that a prominent conservative activist and Texas House …

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Southern Baptist Leader Resigns Over Faked Resume

The Associated Press reports: Tennessee pastor Willie McLaurin, who leads the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee, resigned Thursday from his position as interim president and chief executive after it came to light that he presented false information about his educational qualifications on his resume. The Executive Committee’s hiring team was considering McLaurin as a candidate to permanently replace former chief …

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Southern Baptists Uphold Ban On Women Pastors

The Associated Press reports: The Southern Baptist Convention has refused to welcome Saddleback Church back into its fold, rejecting an appeal by the California megachurch over its February ouster for having women pastors. Southern Baptist church representatives at their annual meeting here also rejected a similar appeal by a smaller church, Fern Creek Baptist of Louisville, Kentucky, which is led …

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Southern Baptist Leader Axed For “Marital Indiscretions”

The Christian Post reports: The executive director of the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware has resigned after the organization became aware of “marital indiscretions,” also leading to his termination as a vice president with a Southern Baptist Convention’s missions agency. The Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware leadership sent a letter to the network’s member churches Friday informing them that Michael Crawford resigned …

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Southern Baptists Vote To Formally Ban Female Pastors

The Christian Post reports: At their fall meeting last week, the trustees at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, unanimously approved a resolution encouraging the seminary’s administration to continue theologically training both men and women, “but with men alone reserved for the office and function, and thereby title of pastor.” “It is further resolved that this Board encourages …

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Southern Baptists Float Site To Track Abusive Pastors

Religion News Service reports: A Southern Baptist task force has asked the denomination to set up a “Ministry Check” website to track abusive pastors, church employees and volunteers and to spend millions on reforms to prevent abuse and care for survivors. Most of the suggested reforms are voluntary. Some could involve years of study and preparation, prompting a skeptical response …

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Southern Baptists Release List Of Hundreds Of Abusers

The Associated Press reports: In response to an explosive investigation, top Southern Baptists have released a previously secret list of hundreds of pastors and other church-affiliated personnel accused of sexual abuse. The 205-page database was made public late Thursday. It includes more than 700 entries from cases that largely span from 2000 to 2019. Its existence became widely known Sunday …

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Former Southern Baptist President Accused Of Sexual Assault On Pastor’s Wife In Bombshell Abuses Report

Religion News Service reports: A former Southern Baptist Convention leader stepped inside the Florida beachside condo of a pastor’s wife, 24 years younger, pulled down her shorts, pinned her to the couch, got on top of her and pulled up her shirt. The assault on July 25, 2010, is one of the more graphic descriptions of sex abuse in a …

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Details Emerge In Southern Baptist Sex Abuse Scandal

The Washington Post reports: The report describes how key Southern Baptist leaders engaged in a pattern of ignoring, stonewalling and even “vilifying” sex abuse survivors. The report details multiple instances when Southern Baptist leaders shot down requests by survivors and other concerned members to maintain a database of abusers. Publicly, the leaders said they couldn’t because of “church polity,” or …

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Southern Baptist Convention Admits Covering Up Sex Abuse And Lying About Secret Database Of Offenders

The Washington Post reports: Leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention on Sunday released a major third-party investigation that found that sex abuse survivors were often ignored, minimized and “even vilified” by top clergy in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. The findings of nearly 300 pages include shocking new details about specific abuse cases and shine a light on how denominational …

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Southern Baptists Approve Sexual Abuse Task Force

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 …

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Southern Baptists Narrowly Fend Off Far-Right Takeover

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 …

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“Vicious Infighting” May Fracture Southern Baptists

The New York Times reports: Next week more than 16,000 Southern Baptist pastors and leaders will descend on Nashville for their first annual meeting of the post-Trump era. It is their most high-profile gathering in years, with attendance more than double the most recent meeting in 2019, after a pandemic cancellation last year. It caps months of vicious infighting over …

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Southern Baptists Report “Historic” Membership Decline

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 …

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Southern Baptist Convention Votes To Expel Member Churches Accused Of Covering Up Sexual Abuse Cases

The Christian Post reports: The Southern Baptist Convention overwhelmingly voted on Tuesday to expel churches accused of racial discrimination and mishandling cases of sexual abuse. On the opening day of the largest protestant denomination’s annual meeting, held June 11-12 in Birmingham, Alabama, messengers — the delegates selected from SBC member churches to attend the meeting — cast their votes in …

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Southern Baptist Convention To Close All 170 Stores

The Christian Post reports: LifeWay Christian Resources announced today that it will be closing all remaining 170 stores this year and focusing on online sales. Carol Pipes, director of corporate communications for LifeWay, posted the announcement on the company’s website, explaining that it was “a strategic shift of resources to a dynamic digital strategy.” Dates for store closures will vary …

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Southern Baptists Exposed For Widespread Sex Abuse

The Houston Chronicle reports: Hundreds of people who worked or volunteered in Southern Baptist churches have been charged with sex crimes, an investigation by the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News reveals. It’s not just a recent problem. In all, since 1998, roughly 380 Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers have faced allegations of sexual misconduct, the newspapers found. …

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Evangelicals Bash Pence For Inappropriate “Jingoistic” Speech To Southern Baptist Annual Meeting [VIDEO]

The Christian Post reports: Vice President Mike Pence’s speech before the Southern Baptist Convention is being criticized by many as being too focused on politics and President Donald Trump. At a speech before the SBC annual meeting at the Kay Bailey Dallas Convention Center in Dallas, Texas on Wednesday, Vice President Pence gave remarks that centered heavily on touting the …

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Southern Baptist Meeting Gets Hate Group’s Resolution Declaring It “Heresy” To Say God Makes People Gay

The Christian Post reports: A resolution submitted to the Southern Baptist Convention for its annual meeting in Dallas, Texas, has called on the nation’s largest Protestant denomination to reject “homosexual identity politics” and state bans on conversion therapy. Titled “On Ministry and Counseling to Lead People from Homosexuality to Heterosexuality,” the resolution, among other things, asks the SBC to “offer …

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Southern Baptist Leader Fired After Revelation That He Sought To “Break Down” Student For Reporting Rape

The Tennessean reports: A Texas seminary fired a prominent Southern Baptist leader earlier this week for mishandling allegations from two students who said they were raped. Paige Patterson, who was terminated from his top post at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, told the head of campus security that he wanted to meet alone with a student who told him she was …

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