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  Advisory team seeks to avert SBC split on Calvinism

  Growing disagreements over the role of Calvinism will make the Southern Baptist Convention stronger, not weaker, as long as its focus remains on evangelism, members of an advisory team commissioned to study the topic told hundreds in Houston June 10.

  06/11/2013 - By John Rutledge

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  Abuse activist says Houston minister chastised her

  A woman who advocates on behalf victims of clergy sex abuse says she was sidelined by her Houston megachurch for planning an awareness event at this week’s Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting.

  06/10/2013 - By John Rutledge

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  Are Southern Baptists predestined to fuss over Calvinism?

  Nearly 35 years after a schism began in the Southern Baptist Convention, a new divide is emerging—this time over the teachings of 16th-century Reformer John Calvin—that threatens to upend the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

  06/06/2013 - By John Rutledge

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  Baptisms in SBC down to lowest number in 64 years

  Southern Baptist churches reported declines in baptisms, membership, average attendance and total giving in 2012.

  06/06/2013 - By John Rutledge

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  ‘Bootleg preacher’ Will Campbell dies

  Will Campbell, an author, activist and iconoclastic Baptist minister who described himself as a “bootleg preacher,” died June 3 from complications following a stroke suffered in 2011. He was 88.

  06/05/2013 - By John Rutledge

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  SBC Calvinism study calls for trust, dialogue

  An ad-hoc task force appointed to study Calvinism’s impact on the Southern Baptist Convention says the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message is a sufficient guide for orthodoxy.

  06/03/2013 - By John Rutledge

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  Joplin tornado survivor ministers in Moore

  Gary Hunley had seen it all before. As he surveyed the damage left behind from a tornado in Moore, Okla., he saw an all-too-familiar scene of overturned cars, metal signposts bent to the ground and houses reduced to rubble.

  05/30/2013 - By John Rutledge

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  Oklahoma disaster response breaks down denominational barriers

  If the deadly Oklahoma tornado had a silver lining, it may be the ecumenical spirit that blew in with the response and recovery efforts of local churches, ministers say.

  05/24/2013 - By John Rutledge

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  Spiritual formation growing online

  Ministers of spiritual formation are turning to the Internet to counter the interference hectic schedules, frequent traveling, social media and other demands of modern life can have on healthy discipleship.

  05/23/2013 - By John Rutledge

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  Baptist Briefs: R. G. Puckett dies

  R. G. Puckett, editor emeritus of the North Carolina Biblical Recorder and a founding director of Associated Baptist Press, died May 12, months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

  05/17/2013 - By John Rutledge

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  Baptist Briefs: Judge green-lights settlement

  A federal judge ruled a Baptist child-care agency at the center of a long-running legal dispute between Kentucky lawmakers and citizens represented by the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State cannot block a settlement of the lawsuit agreed upon by the involved parties.

  05/10/2013 - By John Rutledge

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  Baptist Briefs: First woman elected to Missouri post

  Churchnet—ministry network of the Baptist General Convention of Missouri—elected both its first layperson and its first woman as president.

  04/28/2013 - By John Rutledge