OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Before he became a leading voice for conservative causes on Capitol Hill, U.S. Senator James Lankford spent more than a decade as the director of youth programming at the Falls Creek Baptist Conference Center, a sprawling campground about 80 miles south of Oklahoma City that attracts more than 50,000 campers in grades six through 12 each year.
Religious Americans are deeply divided in their views on abortion, and reactions from faith leaders ranged from elation to anger after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that made abortion legal nationwide.
ANAHEIM, California (AP) — The new president of the Southern Baptist Convention said Wednesday he will accelerate sex abuse reforms in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
ANAHEIM, California (AP) — Bart Barber is a staunch Southern Baptist conservative who would welcome bans on abortion, opposes critical race theory and believes only men should serve as pastors.
Yet Barber, elected Tuesday as the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention, says he has a track record of dialogue with those who disagree on those and other issues.
ANAHEIM, California (AP) — The Southern Baptist Convention voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to create a way to track pastors and other church workers credibly accused of sex abuse and launch a new task force to oversee further reforms in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
ANAHEIM, California (AP) — The newly elected leaders of a top Southern Baptist Convention committee had all supported a more transparent investigation into allegations the denomination mishandled sex abuse reports and mistreated survivors.
A withering report on sexual abuse and cover-up in the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.
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.
Top administrative leaders for the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in America, said Tuesday that they will release a secret list of hundreds of pastors and other church-affiliated personnel accused of sexual abuse.
A blistering report on the Southern Baptist Convention’s mishandling of sex abuse allegations is raising the prospect that the denomination, for the first time, will create a publicly accessible database of pastors and other church personnel known to be abusers.
The Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee — and thousands of its rank-and-file members — now have opportunities to address a scathing investigative report that says top SBC leaders stonewalled and denigrated survivors of clergy sex abuse over two decades while seeking to protect their own reputations.
Ed Litton, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, announced Tuesday he will break with tradition and not seek a second term in the top convention role.
The Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee has offered a public apology and a confidential monetary settlement to sexual abuse survivor Jennifer Lyell, who was mischaracterized by the denomination’s in-house news service when she decided to go public with her story in March 2019.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee pastor Willie McLaurin has been named interim president and CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee, becoming the first African American to lead one of the denomination's ministry entities in its more than 175-year history.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A top Southern Baptist Convention administrator is resigning amid internal rifts over how to handle an investigation into the SBC's response to sexual abuse, a decision that underscores the broader ongoing turmoil in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
A top committee of the Southern Baptist Convention agreed Tuesday to open up legally protected records to investigators who will look into how it handled, or mishandled, cases of sexual abuse within the nation's largest Protestant denomination over the past two decades.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A top Southern Baptist Convention committee is facing mounting pressure from within the denomination to move forward without further delay an investigation into how it handled sexual abuse allegations.
NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) — A top Southern Baptist Convention committee agreed Tuesday to fund a third-party investigation into its handling of sexual abuse allegations but held off on waiving its attorney-client privilege for the probe, delaying for the future a decision seen as a key demand of the thousands of Southern Baptists who set the review in motion.
NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) — The Rev. Marshall Blalock feels the weight of his new responsibility.
The South Carolina pastor serves as vice chair of a recently formed Southern Baptist Convention task force charged with overseeing an investigation into how a top denominational committee handled sex abuse allegations, a review that comes years into the SBC's public reckoning with the scandal.
COVID-19 vaccine refusal rates may be high among white evangelical Christians, but the International Mission Board — which deploys thousands of missionaries — is not hesitant about the shot.
The global agency of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest evangelical Protestant denomination in the U.S., announced this month it is requiring vaccinations for missionaries they're sending into the field amid the pandemic.
(RNS) — The Southern Baptist Convention has trouble with a capital T — and that stands for trust.
The lack of trust was palpable during the SBC’s recent annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, where local church messengers often overruled Baptist leaders from the meeting floor.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Delegates at the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to create a task force to oversee an independent investigation into the denomination's handling of sexual abuse.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Southern Baptist Convention tamped down a push from the right at its largest meeting in decades on Tuesday, electing a new president who has worked to bridge racial divides in the church and defeating an effort to make an issue of critical race theory.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee on Monday quashed a push for an independent committee to lead a probe of its handling of sex abuse cases, but the proposal is almost certain to resurface when the nation's largest denomination holds its biggest and most contentious annual meeting in decades.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — As Southern Baptists prepare for their biggest annual meeting in more than a quarter-century, accusations that leaders have shielded churches from claims of sexual abuse and simmering tensions around race threaten to once again mire the nation’s largest Protestant denomination in a conflict that can look more political than theological.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Race-related tensions within the Southern Baptist Convention are high heading into a national meeting next week. The election of a new SBC president and debate over the concept of systemic racism may prove pivotal for some Black pastors as they decide whether to stay in the denomination or leave.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Releases of leaked letters and secret recordings from within the Southern Baptist Convention intensified Thursday as critics sought to show top leaders were slow to address sexual abuse in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination and worried more about its reputation and donations than about victims.
The president of the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest evangelical denomination, posted a photo on Facebook last week of him getting the COVID-19 vaccine...
Emily Snook is the daughter of a Southern Baptist pastor. She met her husband, also a pastor, while they attended a Southern Baptist university
Yet the 39-year-old Oklahoma woman now finds herself wondering if it’s time to leave the nation's largest Protestant denomination, in part because of practices and attitudes that limit women’s roles.
The Southern Baptist Convention’s executive committee voted Tuesday to oust four of its churches, two over policies deemed to be too inclusive of LGBTQ people and two more for employing pastors convicted of sex offenses.
Divisions over race, politics, gender and LGBTQ issues are roiling America’s largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, ahead of a meeting of its executive committee next week...
For many religious denominations in the United States, there were two shared preoccupations in 2020 beyond the usual matters of faith: How to cope with the coronavirus pandemic and how to respond to tumultuous political events.
PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump attended a music-filled Christmas Eve service at a Southern Baptist Convention-affiliated church before celebrating the holiday with dinner in the ballroom of his private club...
Entangled in a multifaceted sex-abuse crisis, the Southern Baptist Convention is preparing to host a high-profile conference on the topic that has kindled skepticism even among some of the scheduled speakers...
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (AP) — Sharing a stage with tearful survivors of sex abuse, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention apologized Wednesday for the abuse crisis besetting his denomination and outlined an array of steps to address it...
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (AP) — Confronting an unprecedented sex-abuse crisis, delegates at the Southern Baptist Convention's national meeting voted Tuesday to make it easier to expel churches that mishandle abuse cases...
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Stained-glass windows honoring some religious leaders who helped shift the Southern Baptist Convention to a more conservative stance have been removed from a Texas chapel...