NASHVILLE (BP)—In an order issued May 12, Judge William L. Campbell Jr. announced the jury trial in the lawsuit brought by Johnny Hunt against the Southern Baptist Convention and others has been canceled. The trial was set to begin June 17.

Campbell stated his decision was “due to the parties’ pending motions to reconsider.”

The judge issued a summary judgment last month dismissing all but one count in the lawsuit. That lone count concerned a 2022 social media post by then-SBC President Bart Barber, pastor of First Baptist Church in Farmersville, about the allegations against Hunt.

Hunt, a former SBC president, prominent Georgia pastor and North American Mission Board vice president, was seeking more than $100 million, claiming lost salary and speaking engagements, reputational harm and emotional distress.

The case stemmed from Guidepost Solutions’ report in May 2022, which was the result of an independent investigation requested by Southern Baptists at the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting to look into allegations of mishandling cases of sexual abuse within the convention.

An incident involving Hunt and a younger pastor’s wife was discovered during Guidepost’s investigation and included in its report.

In his initial summary judgment, Campbell wrote Guidepost’s report did not intentionally single Hunt out but addressed issues of public concern.

The report “… relates to broad issues of interest to society at large, rather than matters of purely private concern,” he wrote.

“Specifically, the issues the Report highlights—allegations of sexual abuse involving clergy members and how allegations of such abuse were handled—are matters of public import.”

He also wrote a jury could not find “that Guidepost failed to act with reasonable care” in its investigation and Hunt had failed to provide evidence of “mental and emotional injuries.”

The court will set a new trial date and pretrial filing deadlines by a separate order, Campbell wrote.

(RNS)—During their annual meeting in Dallas next month, Southern Baptists will sing, bless missionaries, pass a budget, listen to sermons and engage in lively debate about a host of issues.

Among those issues: what to do with the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

For nearly a decade, the ERLC has been a source of controversy as the SBC has navigated the cultural and political divides of the Trump era.

While Southern Baptists, like many evangelicals, have been strong supporters of President Donald Trump in the voting booth, some of the president’s policy decisions and personal conduct have clashed with Baptist ethics and beliefs.

That’s left the ERLC, which speaks to ethical issues and public policy debates, occasionally at odds with the denomination’s 12.7 million members, leading to three attempts to disband or defund the agency over the past decade.

President says ERLC fate not up to him

Clint Pressley, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, said he has spoken to a number of Southern Baptists about the ERLC—including Pastor Jack Graham of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, a past critic of the agency.

Some like what the agency is doing, he said. Others don’t.

While he suspects there will be a motion to close the agency at the denomination’s annual meeting in June, Pressley said the future of the ERLC is not up to him. Even if he had concerns about it, he has no power to make a decision. Instead, that power rests with church representatives known as messengers.

“I think those concerns about the ERLC will be answered by the messengers,” said Pressley, pastor of Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C. “I can’t do anything about the ERLC.”

Pressley added that his role as chair of the SBC’s annual meeting means he cannot take sides in any debate over the ERLC.

Online dialogue about ERLC heats up

In recent months, both the ERLC and its critics have engaged in an online public relations war over the agency’s reputation and future.

The Center for Baptist Leadership, a startup activist group with ties to American Reformer magazine, has run a series of articles, podcast episodes and social media posts critical of the ERLC, primarily for its stances on immigration reform and lack of close ties to the Trump administration.

The ERLC has promoted its ties to House Speaker Mike Johnson, a former ERLC trustee, and its support for defunding Planned Parenthood, as well as its opposition to gender-affirming care for minors and “radical gender ideology.”

“The ERLC team has been diligently working to advocate for Southern Baptist beliefs in the public square while also providing meaningful resources that help our churches navigate today’s cultural challenges and gospel opportunities,” Scott Foshie, chair of the ERLC’s trustees, told RNS in an email.

“Southern Baptists have supported an ethics and public policy entity for over a hundred years. We need an effective, responsive ERLC now more than ever.”

Discontent dates back several years

Discontent with the ERLC has been festering for years—and much of it dates back to the tenure of former ERLC President Russell Moore, who led the agency from 2013 to 2021.

A popular figure at first, Moore faced intense backlash from Trump allies such as Graham, a former SBC president and megachurch pastor, when he refused to back Trump’s first run for presidency and criticized him instead.

In 2017, Prestonwood and about 100 other churches withheld their donations to the SBC’s Cooperative Program in protest of Moore’s action. A pair of leaders of the SBC’s Executive Committee also clashed with Moore over his criticism of Trump.

While Moore resigned in 2021, tension over the ERLC has remained a constant in SBC life. The agency has also faced internal conflict. Last summer, a former ERLC chair announced the agency’s president, Brent Leatherwood, had been fired after a social media post praising then-President Joe Biden. The following day, that chair was ousted and the entity’s board announced Leatherwood was still on the job.

There have been three votes to defund or disband the ERLC since Trump took office the first time. All of them have failed, but between a quarter and a third of messengers at the 2024 annual meeting appeared to support closing the agency. The SBC’s rules require two votes in successive annual meetings to shut down an entity such as the ERLC.

Consider where ERLC fits into overall mission

Randy Davis, executive director of the Tennessee Mission Board, told Religion News Service in an interview he still believes the ERLC plays a helpful role for Southern Baptists. He said the ERLC, for example, had worked closely with Tennessee Baptists on issues such as sexuality and gender. Tennessee Baptists, like the ERLC, support a state law that bans gender transition surgery for minors.

Davis doesn’t think the convention floor is the best place to decide the future of the ERLC. Instead, he’d rather a commission be set up to discuss the SBC’s ministry as a whole—and where the ERLC fits into that mission.

“I think Southern Baptists would appreciate that kind of careful collaboration and consideration, rather than being divided on the floor of the convention,” he said.

The ERLC set up a church engagement office after the vote at the 2024 SBC meeting—and encouraged staff to abide by a set of guidelines in deciding what issues the entity should speak to.

“We have sent surveys requesting feedback, hosted pastor calls, led groups of pastors to meet with elected leaders in D.C., and intentionally attended events where pastors and other ministry leaders were gathered,” Miles Mullin, an ERLC vice president, said in an email.

Mohler has ‘grave doubts’ about ERLC usefulness

Al Mohler, a former ally of Moore and the ERLC and president of the SBC’s largest seminary, is now among those who have doubts about the entity’s future.

Mohler, a former “Never Trumper” turned supporter of the president, told a popular SBC podcast recently that he had “grave doubts” about the usefulness of the ERLC—and that having an entity that addresses controversial cultural issues is “a risky proposition.”

“Other entities and the churches themselves have grave doubts about the utility of the ERLC,” Mohler told the “Baptist 21” podcast last month. Mohler added as the head of an SBC entity, he could not lead any effort to disband the ERLC.

Pastor Andrew Hebert of Mobberly Baptist Church in Longview said he’d like to see the ERLC limit itself to speaking only about issues that are directly addressed in the denomination’s statement of faith—the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message—or in recent resolutions passed at the SBC’s annual meeting.

He outlined that proposal in a recent article on The Baptist Review, a website that discusses SBC issues and theology. Those boundaries, he said, could help the ERLC from stepping on land mines.

Hebert admits his solution isn’t perfect. For example, the SBC has passed a series of resolutions on immigration that call for both border security and humane treatment of immigrants—praising churches that assist immigrants and refugees—as well as calling for “a just and compassionate path to legal status.”

Yet the ERLC has been criticized for its involvement in immigration reform—as well as for refusing to back legislation that would jail women who choose abortions.

The ERLC will deal with some controversy, Hebert said. But he hopes for the most part, the ERLC will speak on issues where Southern Baptists have a “broad consensus.”

Something has to change for the ERLC to continue, he said.

“I think the writing is on the wall that there is a trust and credibility issue,” he said. “My motion is an attempt to provide a solution without defunding or disbanding the ERLC.”

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (RNS)—Nearly six months ago, Pastor Ben Boswell gave a sermon begging members of his Charlotte, N.C., church not to give up after Donald Trump’s election.

“We may not have been able to stop the darkness from coming,” he told members of his church on Nov. 10. “But that does not mean the fight is over. It has only just begun.”

Two weeks after giving that sermon, he was forced to resign as senior pastor of Myers Park Baptist Church. But just as he urged his flock not to give up the fight, he is now following his own advice.

On June 1, Boswell, 44, will give his first sermon at a new Baptist church he is founding with the support of dozens of his former members.

The logo for the new Collective Liberation Church features a butterfly breaking free of chains locked around its legs. Boswell promises in a promotional website video to build a church committed to “dismantl[ing] systems of oppression and creat[ing] justice, equity, and freedom for everybody—for all people.”

For Boswell, who has a 15-year-old adopted Black daughter, a big piece of that project is becoming anti-racist.

He is proud to advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion, even as the government has shut down DEI efforts in federal offices and pressured businesses and universities to do likewise. He stands for the rights of LGBTQ+ and Indigenous people. He wants expanded economic opportunities for the poor.

“I think the church needs to find itself in deeper and deeper solidarity with the people the empire is specifically targeting and harming: Palestinians, immigrants, transgender people, women in need of reproductive care, people of color,” he said. “I could just go on.”

The new church, with an inaugural service on June 1 on the campus of Union Presbyterian Seminary, is expected to bring together a mix of people.

Its newly appointed associate pastor, Rodney Sadler, a professor of Bible at Union Presbyterian Seminary and director of the seminary’s Center for Social Justice and Reconciliation, is Black.

“We are presenting a welcoming, inclusive, broad-based, justice-oriented, love-focused congregation at a time when our nation is going through intense division, divisiveness and fomenting hatred,” said Sadler. “We want to be a witness to a different way of being.”

Over the past nine years, Boswell led one of the city’s most progressive white churches. Myers Park Baptist, a tall steepled church, was an early leader in the city’s racial integration efforts. It split off from the Southern Baptist Convention in 1998 and has long been committed to LGBTQ+ inclusion.

Focused on racial justice at Myers Park

Boswell, who became senior pastor in 2015, dedicated his pastorate to racial justice and to increasing the church’s nonwhite ranks to about 20 percent.

The Sunday after Trump was first elected in 2016, Boswell invited prominent pastor and progressive activist William J. Barber II to preach a sermon on race.

During Boswell’s time at Myers Park, he developed an anti-racism training called “Confronting Whiteness,” also the name of his book and a conference. Some 1,000 people have participated in those conferences, and Boswell has trained 100 facilitators to continue the work.

Monica X. Thompson, a psychotherapist who moved from New York City to Charlotte two years ago, attended the Confronting Whiteness conference and within a week joined Myers Park Baptist.

“I was not a churchgoer at all,” Thompson said. “But I was really inspired by the work of the Confront Whiteness conference, and I was like, oh, so there’s a church that’s a part of it.”

Thompson has since quit Myers Park and is now on the leadership team of Collective Liberation Church. She said she was put off by the church’s decision to let Boswell go.

“Many times when people are going against systems of oppression, they tend to be removed forcefully outside of whatever system they’re working in, so it was really disheartening,” Thompson said.

Myers Park attendance declined significantly

Publicly, church leaders said Boswell’s removal had nothing to do with politics or his preaching. Two weeks after his passionate sermon decrying Trump’s election, and four days before Thanksgiving, the deacon board called a meeting over Zoom and voted to ask Boswell to resign.

In a recording of the meeting obtained by RNS, Chairwoman Marcy McClanahan defined the problem as declining membership and revenues. Attendance at Myers Park had shrunk to 150 from a high of 350 before Boswell arrived, she said. She was also hearing dissatisfaction from church staff about his leadership.

But another deacon hinted at an underlying problem with Boswell’s preaching.

On the recording, Robert Dulin is heard saying: “A lot of these people left the church … in the last few years. If any of you talked to them, you heard the same thing over and over again: I’m tired of being indicted because I’m white. I’m tired of being banged over the head every week about immigrants and LGBTQ, and I just want to come to church and be encouraged. … I think what we need is 80 percent comfort and 20 percent social justice.”

The vote to ask for Boswell’s resignation was 17-3.

‘More than enough work for all of us’

Tim Emry, one of the three dissenting deacons who has since resigned to join Collective Liberation, said the older deacons were increasingly feeling uncomfortable with Boswell’s critique of whiteness.

“They didn’t want to transform the core of the church because they believed they are liberal and progressive and accepting of all. So why do we need to change?” said Emry, a white man married to a Black woman.

“We’re the good white people, right? We want different people to come in, but we want them to learn how to do it our way.”

Boswell, a graduate of Duke Divinity School and St. Paul School of Theology, said he never imagined starting a new church. But people around him gradually convinced him he should try.

Six months after his firing, his old church supports his efforts.

“We wish him success on his new endeavor as I’m sure he wishes us continued success in our efforts,” wrote Scott Crowder, the new deacon board chair, in an email. “There are many ways to fight injustice and help underserved and overlooked communities—there is more than enough work for all of us!”

The first service for Collective Liberation will be in the afternoon, at 4 p.m., so as not to conflict with those attending morning church services elsewhere but still interested in checking out the new church.

The congregation will be affiliated with both the American Baptist Church, a historically Black denomination, and with the Alliance of Baptists, a small progressive denomination of about 140 congregations.

But as much as Boswell wants to be strategic and accommodating in shaping his new church, he is clear that he will not deviate from his critique of what he calls “American Empire.”

“A lot of folks will imagine you only say what the congregation has ears to hear,” Boswell said. “I have come from a different way of thinking.”

Instead of compartmentalizing social justice as just one of many offerings within the church, he wants to make it the heart and soul.

“When we compartmentalize (social justice), we kind of make it into the stepchild or the forgotten part of what it means to follow Jesus, when actually it’s the core of what it means. Justice is primary. If any of those other things take the place of justice, we’ve lost the gospel.”

PHILADELPHIA (BP)—From a global vantage point unique to its study of the Bible’s impact on U.S. adults, the American Bible Society said Americans revere Scripture, faith and church more than others in a geographical cluster described as the “Secular West.”

The United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand are included in the secular west cluster.

The American Bible Society said only 37 percent of secular west residents say the Bible is personally relevant. The United States is the outlier, with 51 percent of adults affirming Scripture’s relevance to them personally.

This mirrors a Lifeway Research study released May 13 showing 51 percent of American adults have read at least half of the Bible.

The American Bible Society includes the findings in the second chapter of its 15th annual State of the Bible, relying on data from the 2025 Patmos World Bible Attitudes Survey, with permission, with Gallup as the source research agency.

“These insights, made possible by invaluable contributions and expertise among our partner organizations, give us an unprecedented view of worldwide attitudes toward and engagement with the Bible,” said John Plake, chief innovation officer at the American Bible Society and State of the Bible series editor.

“This study helps us see where God’s word is spreading and his church is growing. We also see vast opportunities to share his word with the world.”

The American Bible Society draws on its membership in United Bible Societies, a fellowship active in more than 240 nations, in releasing the data.

In partnership with the British and Foreign Bible Society, the United Bible Societies and Gallup, the Patmos World Bible Attitudes Survey polled 91,000 people in 85 countries on Bible attitudes and practices.

The initiative draws from John’s letters to the seven churches in Asia Minor as recorded in Revelation, identifying seven geographical clusters and putting the United States in the fifth cluster described as the secular west.

Americans view Bible more favorably

In the secular west, the vast majority of adults do not find the Bible personally relevant, researchers said. Only 40 percent of residents in the cluster said religion is an important part of their daily life, compared to 69 percent of the global population.

But also in the secular west, Americans outpace other nations in key areas of biblical engagement, and judge the Bible more favorably.

While an average of 18 percent of adults in the cluster use the Bible “a few times a week or more,” 28 percent of Americans do so, compared to 18 percent of the Irish, the nearest ranking country in the cluster, and 8 percent of the French, the lowest use found.

While an average of 19 percent in the secular west attend church at least weekly, 28 percent in the United States do so, followed by 26 percent of Irish and 21 percent of Italians, with the lowest weekly attendance, 10 percent, found in France.

More than half of Americans, 53 percent, said religion is an important part of their daily lives, outpacing the average of 40 percent in the cluster who said so. Comparatively, 50 percent of Italians also said so, with Norwegians least often saying so at 17 percent.

When asked whether “It’s difficult to trust the Bible because it clashes with the scientific worldview,” the United States was the only nation with more respondents who said, “It’s not difficult to trust the Bible,” the American Bible Society noted.

“The U.S. is the only nation in this group with more disagreement (41 percent) than agreement (31 percent)—more who say it’s not difficult to trust the Bible,” researchers wrote. “The level of ‘strong’ disagreement in the U.S. (23 percent) more than doubles that of nearly every other nation in the cluster.”

Still, some U.S. responses varied.

When an average of 48 percent of respondents in the cluster disagreed or strongly disagreed that the Bible is a source of harm in the world, 55 percent of Americans said the same, outpaced by 65 percent of Italians.

And while 23 percent of Americans said the Bible is indeed a source of harm in the world—outpacing the secular west average of 22 percent—only 12 percent of Italians said so.

Other clusters in the Patmos Initiative are:

• The “Majority Muslim” cluster 1, West Africa, Chad, Sudan, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
• The “Majority Christian” cluster 2, Russia, Eastern Europe and Portugal, citing a historical connection to Orthodox Christianity.
• The “Majority Muslim” cluster 3, North Africa, Middle East, Turkey and Central Asia.
• The “Majority Christian” cluster 4, Latin America, Caribbean, Philippines.
• The “Religiously Diverse” cluster 6, India, China, Indonesia, Japan.
• The “Majority Christian” cluster 7, Sub-Saharan Africa.

Fieldwork details for all countries can be found in the methodology chapter of The Patmos Survey report, available here.

The American Bible Society will release additional chapters of the State of the Bible monthly through December, focusing on trust, flourishing, identity and church and Bible engagement.

Constance “Connie” Gayle Billinger Davis of Abilene, teacher and social worker, died May 8. She was 70. She was born in Darnall Army Hospital at Fort Hood on Dec. 20, 1954. After she graduated from Killeen High School, she went on to Baylor University in Waco, graduating in 1975 with a degree in psychology. She married John Norman Davis on April 24, 1976, in Killeen. She later completed a master’s degree in education from Southwest Texas State University and a master’s degree in counseling from East Texas State University. She spent much of her adult life as an advocate for women and children in her various professional positions. She was named director of the newly rejuvenated YWCA in Paris, and she instituted many programs there, including girls’ softball and other girls’ sports and rebuilt an annual art fair that brought talent and visitors to the Northeast Texas town. While in Paris, she began working for Texas Child Protective Services, working her way up to supervisor and program director in Lubbock, and capping her 25-plus year career as program administrator in Abilene. She considered her work with and for children to be a calling from God. She was preceded in death by her father, Major (Ret.) Elmer Billinger. She is survived by her husband, Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) John N. Davis of Hardin-Simmons University; son Jeffrey Davis and his wife Morgan; daughter Sara Klooster and her husband Andrew; five grandchildren; brother Jeffrey Billinger; sister Kathy Renz; and mother Vera Billinger. A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. on May 16 at Pioneer Drive Baptist Church in Abilene. Memorials may be given to the Foster Care and Adoption Ministry at Pioneer Drive Baptist Church.

The Texas lawmaker who authored a bill to abolish the Texas Lottery filed alternative legislation May 13 that would dissolve the Texas Lottery Commission and move regulation of the lottery to another state agency.

 “If there isn’t enough of an appetite to get rid of the lottery outright, then this bill represents the next best thing,” Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, said as he presented SB 3070 in a Senate Committee on State Affairs hearing, where the bill was left pending.

Hall briefly reiterated ways key leaders of the Texas Lottery Commission failed to abide by state laws.

“You already understand the Lottery Commission’s long list of wrongful and illegal acts,” Hall told members of Senate Committee on State Affairs.

“The Lottery Commission changed its administrative rules to help criminals rig the lottery. Most of these changes were made in direct contradiction to existing law.”

Give TDLR authority to oversee the lottery

The Texas Lottery Commission needs to be abolished, Hall insisted.

His new bill, SB 3070, would dissolve the Texas Lottery Commission and transfer the administration of the lottery—as well as licensing and regulation of charitable bingo—to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.

The bill mandates a limited-scope Sunset Advisory Commission review of the state lottery during the next fiscal biennium, ending Aug. 21, 2027. Unless the lottery is continued at that time, it will be abolished Sept. 1, 2027.

SB 3070 places limits on the number of lottery tickets a retailer may sell to one individual in a single transaction and prohibits the purchase of lottery tickets by phone or through the internet. It also establishes a lottery advisory committee and limits the number of ticket-printing lottery terminals any given licensed retailer can have.

The bill also encompasses provisions in SB 28, a bill Hall introduced early in the legislative session, which bans lottery couriers—third-party vendors who enable buyers to purchase lottery tickets through their websites or mobile apps. The Senate unanimously passed SB 28—a priority bill of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick—in February.

SB 3070 also establishes a department of security within Texas’ Financial Crimes and Intelligence Center to identify and respond to criminal activities associated with the lottery and charitable bingo.

Further reforms to be introduced

As he laid out SB 3070, Hall mentioned several amendments that will be introduced once the bill reaches the Senate floor.

They would increase criminal penalties for illegal ticket sales; restrict where tickets can be purchased; require individuals—not businesses or limited liability corporations—to cash in winning tickets; and deputize the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and speaker of the House of Representatives as authorized inspectors for the lottery.

Rob Kohler, consultant with Texas Baptists’ Christian Life Commission, testified in support of SB 3070.

In a phone interview, Kohler identified SB 3070 as “another option” lawmakers have in this session to prevent the kind of abuses that have occurred under the Texas Lottery Commission in recent years.

“The fact that SB 3070 was introduced and scheduled for hearing the same day indicates there is momentum behind it,” he observed.

If the lottery does continue to operate under the administration of the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, it will “be under a bright light for the next two years,” Kohler said.

“Legislators are taking seriously a lot of the concerns that have been raised by the CLC for years,” he said.

(RNS)—An influential Calvinist pastor who quit the Southern Baptist Convention after claiming it was too woke and liberal has been suspended by his church for causing controversy online, running fake social media accounts that criticized his church’s elders and other pastors from a conference he ran.

Josh Buice, founder of the G3 Conference and pastor of Pray’s Mill Baptist Church in Douglasville, Ga., was placed on indefinite leave last week after church leaders “uncovered irrefutable evidence that Dr. Buice has, for the past three years, operated at least four anonymous social media accounts, two anonymous email addresses, and two Substack platforms.”

“These accounts were used to publicly and anonymously slander numerous Christian leaders, including faithful pastors (some of whom have spoken at G3 conferences), several PMBC elders, and others,” according to a statement from the church.

“These actions were not only sinful in nature but deeply divisive, causing unnecessary suspicion and strife within the body of Christ, and particularly within the eldership of PMBC.”

Buice has also resigned as president of G3, which was founded in 2019 and brought in $2.3 million in revenue for the 2023 calendar year, according to its public IRS financial disclosures.

Annual GC3 Conference canceled

The group grew out of a conference Buice started in 2013. Its name stands for “Gospel, Grace, Glory.” The group claimed its annual conference drew 6,500 people in 2021, according to the G3 website.

The board of G3 has canceled the group’s annual conference, which had been planned for September, and promised full refunds. Organizers of the conference previously apologized for charging nearly $1,000 for a Legacy Pass to the conference, which would have allowed attendees to eat a meal with speakers and have special access.

Buice was an outspoken leader among the so-called “theobros”—a set of often-bearded Calvinist preachers and speakers known for their conservative beliefs, especially about the role of women in the church, and their criticism of other evangelicals whose faith is less strict.

He was one of the organizers of the 2018 “Statement on Social Justice,” which warned liberal ideas about race—in particular, critical race theory—and women’s leadership had infiltrated evangelical churches.

Critic of Russell Moore and Beth Moore

The statement was issued a few months after a number of high-profile evangelical leaders had gathered in Memphis to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of civil rights leader and pastor Martin Luther King Jr. and to denounce racism in the modern church.

Buice especially criticized former Southern Baptist ethicist Russell Moore and Bible teacher Beth Moore (not related) for allegedly promoting liberal ideas in the church, as well as former SBC President Ed Litton for alleged sermon plagiarism.

He also apparently had been running anonymous social media accounts that criticized other pastors from his own movement and elders at Pray’s Mill Church, according to the statement from the church. The church did not give any details about those accounts in their statement.

Buice previously had criticized such anonymous accounts.

“Dr. Buice had been asked on multiple occasions over the past two years whether he had any connection to these anonymous accounts. In each case, he denied any knowledge of them,” the church said in their statement.

Buice also initially denied, at a meeting on May 4, having anything to do with the anonymous accounts, according to the church statement, but then admitted his involvement.

“Since then, Josh has acknowledged his sin, expressed sorrow, and asked for forgiveness,” according to the church’s statement. “His desire is to personally ask forgiveness of every person he has slandered or lied to.”

Leaders of G3 said the ministry would continue to publish material on its website.

“As we look to the ministry’s future, we will prioritize the publication of helpful biblical content that strengthens the church and avoids the dangerous celebrity culture that has unfortunately come to characterize so much of modern evangelicalism.”

(RNS)—The Chicago Board of Education and New York’s David Lynch Foundation have agreed to settle a three-year-long class-action lawsuit that alleged public high school students were forced to practice Hindu rituals through the guise of a meditation program.

The “Quiet Time” initiative of the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace implemented a twice-daily 15-minute meditation session in five Chicago high schools between 2015 and 2019.

The initiative—the late filmmaker’s project to bring Transcendental Meditation to “at-risk populations” around the world, including inner-city students and prison inmates—was part of a study designed to “decrease stress and the effects of trauma” for students living in high-crime neighborhoods.

More than 2,000 students participated in the study, co-run by the University of Chicago’s Urban Labs social and behavioral research initiative on community violence.

The foundation argued TM’s form of mantra meditation—the silent repetition of one word or sound to enter a state of self-hypnosis—was completely nonreligious.

Invocations of Hindu deities

Plaintiffs argued the Sanskrit invocations of Hindu deities and an initiation puja, called a “ceremony of gratitude” by instructors, felt distinctly religious.

“Everybody that I talked to was outraged and angry, particularly the students,” attorney John Mauck, who represented the 200 plaintiffs who filed claims, told RNS.

“They felt manipulated and lied to. TM lies. They say it’s not religious, but it plunges students into a religious ritual.”

More than 700 of the participants, who were under 18 at the time of the program, will be rewarded a portion of $2.6 million. They include students who were part of the control group and did not meditate, according to the settlement negotiation, ruled on by Federal Judge Matthew Kennelly.

Though representatives of the foundation and Chicago Public Schools asserted the program was not mandatory, several students said they were reprimanded or their academic standing threatened if they refused.

Various participants in the lawsuit allegedly were told not to inform their parents of the TM practice, “especially if they were religious,” Mauck said. Some claimed they were told by instructors the Sanskrit prayer in the initiation process “didn’t have any meaning.”

Placing an offering at a shrine

Kaya Hudgins, the Muslim student at the forefront of the class-action lawsuit, told RNS she and her classmates were taken individually to a small room. They were instructed to place an offering of fruit at an altar with brass cups of camphor, incense and rice and a photograph of Brahmananda Saraswati.

Also known as Guru Dev, Brahmananda Saraswati was the master of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the Hindu guru who started the global TM movement in 1955.

Students were asked to repeat the Sanskrit words a representative uttered and, at the end of the ceremony, were given a one-word mantra and told not to repeat it to anyone.

The CEO of the David Lynch Foundation, Bob Roth, testified in the case’s deposition saying instructors never asked the students to participate in the puja ceremony. Roth has also refuted that the mantras have “any deity connection,” despite Maharishi’s statements the mantras “fetch to us the grace of personal gods.”

In another instance, Roth has called the initiation ceremony a “lovely cultural tradition, and not religious in any way,” again contrary to the founder’s views, according to former TM instructor and key witness Aryeh Siegel.

“They (The David Lynch Foundation) consider the puja an inviolable requirement for learning TM, because TM teachers believe the ceremony ties the participant spiritually to the gurus being worshipped,” Siegel, the author of Transcendental Deception, told RNS in an email.

Neither the David Lynch Foundation nor UChicago’s Urban Labs responded to requests for comments. No results from the “Quiet Time” study have been publicly released.

Prior legal troubles for TM

This is not the first time TM has gotten into legal trouble. A New Jersey case from 1979 titled Malnak vs. Yogi found TM in schools to be “unlawful,” after a thorough review of the meanings behind the Sanskrit incantations.

Mauck’s firm has settled two other similar cases, one in which a Christian student was awarded $150,000 in damages after refusing to “kneel before anyone except the Lord God.”

According to Mauck, who used the word “demon” interchangeably with “Hindu deity,” there is “only one God to believers, the monotheists.”

“If you talk to the most knowledgeable Muslims, Jews or Christians, they would agree that all these little gods are not gods at all,” he said.

Mat McDermott, the communications director for the Hindu America Foundation, bristles at the claim Hindu gods are demonic, saying such accusations “show a profound religious bias and lack of understanding about anything related to Hinduism.”

“Calling TM demonic shows an utter lack of understanding about the techniques actually taught in TM,” McDermott said.

TM rests ‘within a Hindu context’

Even so, McDermott and the Hindu America Foundation agree TM sits “within a Hindu context of meditation techniques,” and McDermott said there are other, less religious ways to do meditation in schools.

“(It’s) entirely possible to teach many breath-focused meditation techniques without any religious component to them, and not run afoul of separation of church and state issues,” McDermott said.

“Focusing on the breath alone has powerful benefits for calming and concentration. If that’s all you do, I’d still call it meditating, and that has no inherent religious or spiritual component.”

Retired journalism professor Joseph Weber, who wrote the book Transcendental Meditation in America: How a New Age Movement Remade a Small Town in Iowa, agrees meditation itself should not be demonized.

“The idea of meditation in schools—especially troubled ones—seems like a positive thing,” he told RNS in a written statement. “Anything that helps kids settle their minds seems useful. The problem with TM-oriented work in schools, however, is that it can be propagandistic for the TM organization.”

“One wishes that a secular group untainted by the TM group, would teach the meditation, not the TM folks. It would be like yoga teachers uninvolved with the practice’s history teaching it as a stretching and fitness technique. That would seem fine.”

About 14,000 Afghans who came to the United States to escape the Taliban—including religious minorities who experienced persecution in their homeland—face forced repatriation in less than two weeks.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced April 11 the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Afghan nationals who relocated to the United States, effective May 20.

Homeland Security instructed the Afghans—some of whom assisted U.S. military or western nongovernmental organizations in Afghanistan—to leave the United States.

After the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, more than 1 million Afghans sought refuge in 98 countries.

Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said conditions in Afghanistan no longer merit U.S. protection.

“Secretary Noem made the decision to terminate TPS for individuals from Afghanistan because the country’s improved security situation and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent them from returning to their home country,” McLaughlin stated.

‘Situation in Afghanistan remains dire’

Less than a month earlier, when the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom convened a virtual hearing on “Religious Freedom Conditions in Taliban-Controlled Afghanistan,” panelists came to a starkly different conclusion.

Human rights and religious freedom in Afghanistan have deteriorated since the Taliban regained control in 2021, and recent executive orders by President Donald Trump could make matters worse, expert panelists testified at the hearing.

On April 28, the commission issued a statement expressing alarm about Pakistan’s “rapid and ongoing repatriation of Afghan refugees,” which has affected 80,000 people. At the same time, the commission expressed concern about Homeland Security’s announcement regarding the termination of TPS for Afghans in the United States.

“The situation in Afghanistan remains dire for those who do not share the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Islam, including Christians, Shi’a Hazara, Ahmadiyya Muslims, and Sikhs,” said Stephen Schneck, chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

“We are deeply concerned that religious minority communities will be in grave danger, especially women and girls, as Taliban officials seek retaliation against Afghans returned by the Pakistani government’s forced and accelerated repatriation efforts.”

Need to ‘protect vulnerable populations’

Legal protections for refugees and asylum seekers need to be strengthened to protect vulnerable groups, including individuals who are persecuted for their faith, said Wissam al-Saliby, president of 21Wilberforce, a human rights organization focused on international religious freedom.

“It is important that the legal and institutional frameworks that protect refugees and asylum seekers are strengthened in the United States, in Europe, in Pakistan where they are repatriating a lot of Afghan refugees, in my home country of Lebanon, and everywhere else in the world,” al-Saliby said.

“These systems that were put in place after the Second World War have very specific definitions for persecution and they are important to protect vulnerable populations including Christians and those who have converted to the Christian faith and would have faced persecution in their home country.

“I experienced this first-hand when, a decade ago, I was assisting asylum seekers who converted to the Christian faith in Lebanon and came from other Arab countries. In addition to protecting their lives, the legal and institutional frameworks gave hope to them and their children.”

In a May 1 news release about the plight of Afghan refugees, 21Wilberforce stated: “Returning religious minorities to a country where they are likely to face systematic repression and possibly extrajudicial punishment runs counter to both international human rights U.S. norms and U.S. commitments to religious freedom.”

 The statement from 21Wilberforce continued: “Protections for religious minorities under U.S. immigration and asylum law are grounded in the recognition that persecution for one’s faith is a fundamental violation of human rights.

“The United States has legal obligations under international and domestic law to process asylum claims and protect individuals fleeing persecution, including those targeted for their religious beliefs.”

Squire Parsons Jr., a native of West Virginia and longtime Southern Gospel singer, died May 5. He was 77.

Parsons’ father, who was a choir director and deacon at his church, taught his son how to sing using shaped notes.

Parsons held a bachelor of science degree in music from West Virginia University Institute of Technology in Montgomery, where he was trained on the piano and bassoon, and received an honorary doctorate from the university in 1999.

After graduating from college, he taught at Hannan High School in Mason County, W.Va., and served as music director of various churches.

He began singing Southern Gospel music professionally when he joined the Calvarymen Quartet in 1969 before he graduated from college. He went on to sing with The Kingsmen, where he served as the baritone for the quartet.

His voice became the standard for several songs, including “It Made News In Heaven,” “Hello Mama,” “The Lovely Name Of Jesus,” “I’ve Got A Reservation,” “Master Of The Sea” and “Look For Me At Jesus’ Feet.”

Parsons focused on a solo ministry in 1979. He is known for writing several songs, including “Sweet Beulah Land,” “He Came To Me,” “The Broken Rose,” “The Greatest Of All Miracles,” “I’m Not Giving Up,” “I Sing Because” and “I Call It Home.”

He was ordained as a minister in 1979 at his home church, Trinity Baptist Church in Asheville, N.C.

Parsons also worked with Squire Parsons & Redeemed (1984–1991) and The Squire Parsons Trio (1995–2009). He appeared during a Billy Graham Crusade in Arkansas and performed with the Gaither Homecoming Choir.

“Sweet Beulah Land” was voted song of the year in 1981 by readers of Singing News Magazine, where he was voted favorite baritone (1986–1987), favorite male singer (1988) and favorite songwriter (1986, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995).

He received a Dove Award nomination in 1999 for contributing to a Dottie Rambo tribute album.

Parsons was inducted in the Southern Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2008. He had also been inducted in the Gospel Music Association’s Hall of Fame in 2000 as a former member of The Kingsmen.

Parsons retired from traveling in 2019 and only made limited appearances after that.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Five faith leaders were arrested while praying in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on May 5.

It marked the second time in as many weeks clergy and others have been handcuffed as they speak out against the Republican-led budget bill.

Among those arrested was Shane Claiborne, a longtime activist and co-director of Red Letter Christians, a Christian social justice group.

Claiborne, who is based in Philadelphia and known for his longstanding opposition to the death penalty and gun violence, prayed side by side with others for several minutes in the Rotunda before eventually being arrested by Capitol police.

‘Stir the conscience of our nation’

“Reorder our moral compass,” Claiborne said, standing near a statue commemorating famous suffragettes and abolitionists.

“Stir the conscience of our nation. Let justice rise up on these very steps, let truth trouble the chambers of the Capitol. Let there be no peace where there is no justice. Let there be no comfort for those who legislate cruelty.”

Claiborne added: “Let those of us gathered here rise not with fear but with fire, because as long as the details are still being worked out in committee…”

The group of Christian and Jewish activists responded in unison: “You can work a miracle.”

Shortly after an officer gave multiple verbal warnings, roughly two-dozen officers surrounded the group and began arresting them one by one. Members of the group prayed and some sang “This Little Light of Mine” as they were led away from the Rotunda.

According to organizers, also arrested were Alvin Jackson and Hanna Broome, both affiliated with the activist group Repairers of the Breach; Ariel Gold, USA director of the interfaith The Fellowship of Reconciliation; and Joel Simpson, pastor at First United Methodist Church in Taylorsville, N.C.

Police cleared the Capitol Rotunda to make the arrests but allowed press to continue documenting the scene as they placed the five people in handcuffs. At a similar protest a week before, members of the press were steered into a section with a closed door and then instructed to leave the floor entirely.

In an email to RNS on Monday, Capitol Police confirmed they arrested five people after warning them multiple times, charging them with “crowding, obstructing and incommoding.”

‘Bear witness nonviolently’

Reached by phone after he was released from police custody several hours after the demonstration, Claiborne said his interactions with officers were largely positive but he felt protest was necessary.

He cited inspiration from Martin Luther King Jr.’s civil rights advocacy and argued the GOP-led budget constituted an emergency for the poor, comparing the legislation to an out-of-control fire.

“We think that these are extreme times, and they warrant extreme measures,” Claiborne said. “So, we’re going to bear witness, nonviolently.”

The demonstrators initially approached the U.S. Capitol steps to stage their prayer, but police erected barricades as they approached and temporarily closed off the area on the east side of the Capitol.

The protest is the latest in an ongoing Monday protest effort launched last month by William Barber, a prominent pastor, anti-poverty activist and founder of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School.

The campaign is focused on countering the proposed Republican budget, with organizers protesting potential cuts to Medicaid and other programs designed to help low-income Americans.

Last week, Barber and two others were arrested while praying in the Rotunda.

“It is a sad day in America when you can be arrested in the people’s house for merely praying because the congresspeople in a party in that house are choosing to prey—P-R-E-Y—on the most vulnerable of this nation, along with the president of the nation,” Barber told RNS in a phone interview, referring to the latest arrests.

“But we will not bow. We will not stop. We have to raise moral dissent.”

The arrests both weeks followed rallies earlier in the day in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, where faith leaders repeatedly decried the bill.

“We are gathered here in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, and in the shadow of the Capitol, to stand up and to speak out about a federal budget that seems to have emerged like a phoenix from the very pit of hell,” said Leslie Copeland-Tune of the National Council of Churches on May 5.

Claiborne also railed against the bill and criticized those who have invoked faith to defend President Donald Trump’s policies. He held up a version of the four biblical gospels that had all verses relating to the poor, love and compassion redacted to make his point.

“It’s called the Gospel of Donald Trump,” he said.

Organizers say they plan to continue the demonstrations over the next few weeks as Congress continues to debate the budget bill, which Trump has described as a “big, beautiful bill.”

Claiborne said even as he and the others sat in the back of a police van on Monday, the group was already planning future demonstrations.

“We were doing two hours of organizing with Rev. Alvin (Jackson) in there,” Claiborne said, laughing. “One less Zoom call.”

Freddy Mason of Carthage, who served the same rural Panola County church as pastor more than five and a half decades, died May 5. He was 79. He was born Nov. 30, 1945, in Texarkana, Ark., to Fred and Pansy Joy Woods Mason. After he graduated from Carthage High School, he attended Panola College, where he served as the sophomore class president. He also was choir president, an All-Star Cast Member and participated in one-act plays. He was a one-man show on stage and performed in many one-act and two-act plays throughout his career, notably for playwright Ben Z. Grant in a play about Caddo Lake. He went on to earn his undergraduate degree at East Texas Baptist University before continuing his education at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He was pastor of Cedar Grove Baptist Church in Panola County’s Snap community for 57 years. During his tenure at Cedar Grove, he pastored generations of Panola County families, officiating countless numbers of baptisms, weddings and funerals. He married Suzanne Treadwell on June 15, 1990, in Clayton. He taught at Panola College, where he also served many years as director of the Baptist Student Ministry. At the time of his retirement, he was dean of the Liberal Arts Department. He was a longtime member of the Carthage Noon Lions Club and served with the 100 Men of East Texas. He is survived by his wife Suzanne; daughter Staci Self and husband Toby; daughter Katrina Randall and husband Tuff; three grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and sister Janie Cromer. A funeral service will be held at 2 p.m. on May 7 at Cedar Grove Baptist Church. His family will receive friends for a visitation beginning at 12 noon prior to the funeral service. Memorial gifts may be made to Cedar Grove Baptist Church, 1050 CR 108, Carthage, TX 75633 or to the Panola College Foundation, “Freddy Mason Scholarship,” Attn: Institute of Advancement, 1109 W. Panola, Carthage, TX 75633.