The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) might be the most public-facing and visible group within the entire Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). For about a decade and a half now, hyperconservative SBC leaders have publicly bristled at the ERLC and its leaders’ decisions. This week, though, the friction between the Read more
Especially when evangelicals like Matt Chandler get their grubby hands on real power, I really wish that they had some real accountability in their broken system. It’s hard even to imagine how this schmuck has a job still, after all the terrible things he’s done to his congregation. And yet Read more
On June 7th, Paul Pressler died (archive). For many decades, he’d functioned as the Kingmaker of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). But he died in near-obscurity. Nobody quite seemed sure of what to do about his so-called legacy: the Conservative Resurgence of the SBC that turned it forevermore ultraconservative. You Read more
Paul Pressler, possibly the most influential evangelical in modern times, recently died. As evangelicals are wont to do when their leaders die, they are already hard at work analyzing his legacy. Well, sort of. One official Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) site seems eager to forget he ever existed. But they Read more
The 2024 Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), or #SBC24, just ended. Its attendees, called messengers, had a full plate this year: drilling down harder on the red herring of fetal personhood, condemning churches that dare to hire women as pastors, and generally posturing at each other about Read more
The 2024 Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) looms right around the corner. Officially, it begins tomorrow. However, SBC leaders have been busy setting the stage for it for the past week. The day beforehand, as well, Southern Baptists hold a very special magic ritual. In Christianese, they Read more
Yet again, Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) leaders have revealed that with their sex abuse crisis, the rot goes all the way down to the roots and all way up the ladder of power. Recently, federal prosecutors discovered that several SBC seminary leaders deliberately concealed information about one of their students Read more
Recently, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) released a long report that functions as a referendum on their Conservative Resurgence. Most SBC-watchers already knew it was a failure, but now it’s official knowledge. Here’s why it was a slap in the face to that hijacking movement—along with some speculation about why Read more
Evangelicals like to pretend that evangelism is just a formality they perform. They think their god strong-arms people into belief, merely utilizing the evangelist as a conduit. But nothing could be further from the truth, as one denomination reveals in a lengthy writeup. Southern Baptists talk a big game about Read more
Because I’ve been following the SBC’s doings for years, I can spot places where things don’t line up at all. And this year, something is definitely not lining up.