NASHVILLE (RNS)—Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee struck a hopeful and defiant tone Feb. 17, acknowledging the fiscal woes facing the convention, yet insisting the nation’s largest Protestant denomination remains a force for good in the world.

“Some critics persistently claim we are corrupt, and the entire Southern Baptist enterprise needs to be dismantled,” Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg told committee members in an impassioned speech. “They are wrong.”

The denomination would not fail on his watch, Iorg added, saying he hopes the SBC’s thousands of pastors feel the same way.

Iorg, a former seminary president, had been on his way to retirement last year before accepting the role of president of the Executive Committee.

Convention leaders hope his tenure will bring an end to several years of instability and conflict for the Nashville-based committee, which manages the denomination’s business in between the SBC’s annual June gatherings.

When he was elected president, Iorg became the first permanent leader since 2021 and its third since 2018.

His predecessor, Ronnie Floyd, resigned in October 2021 after a two-year tenure marked by the SBC’s sexual abuse crisis.

Floyd’s predecessor, Frank Page, stepped down in 2018 for misconduct.

An interim leader that followed Floyd also resigned after admitting he falsified his resume.

Taking steps to address sexual abuse

The Executive Committee’s staff had begun to make progress in addressing abuse by hiring Jeff Dalrymple as a national director to oversee several proposed reforms, Iorg reported.

Iorg also outlined five steps the committee planned to take to implement the abuse reforms, including strengthening training materials and working more closely with the denomination’s state conventions to address abuse.

The abuse reforms, including a database to track abusive pastors, have largely stalled over the past three years, in part because there was no permanent funding and because implementing reforms had been left in the hands of a volunteer task force.

Last year, the SBC’s annual meeting charged the Executive Committee with getting the reforms back on track.

Iorg said the committee’s plans for responding to abuse were shaped in part by the response to a hotline set up by the SBC in 2022 for reporting abuse claims. The hotline has received 1,008 contacts since then, said Iorg.

Two-thirds of those contacts—674 in all—had to do with abuse. Of those, 41 percent dealt with alleged abuse of adults, while 59 percent were reports of alleged abuse of minors.

Iorg said those reports suggest sexual abuse is a serious issue for the SBC to deal with—but asserted it is not widespread.

“Abuse is not frequently being reported in Southern Baptist churches,” Iorg said. “We have widely publicized this issue for the past five years and encouraged people to come forward with information and allegations. We now have verified, third-party data.”

Iorg added the hotline call data was not a comprehensive look at the scope of abuse in the SBC and more data was needed.

SBC faces financial challenges

He also laid out the committee’s financial challenges—caused mainly by ongoing legal costs related to a 2021 investigation into abuse.

A report from the investigation found SBC leaders had downplayed the prevalence of abuse in the denomination and had mistreated abuse survivors who tried to raise the alarm.

Two of the leaders named in that report for alleged abusive conduct are now suing the denomination.

Legal costs from the investigation have totaled more than $13 million, Iorg told the committee, draining the committee’s reserves.

To defray those costs, the committee is marketing its Nashville office with a $35 million price tag, hoping to bring in an influx of cash.

Leaders are also proposing to set aside $3 million in the SBC’s annual budget for legal fees, to be taken out of the SBC’s Cooperative Program, which raises funds for missionaries, seminaries, new church starts and other national ministries.

The proposal was approved by the committee Tuesday morning and now will be presented to messengers at the SBC’s annual meeting, set for this June in Dallas. Leaders would prefer to use Cooperative Program funds for missions and ministry, Iorg said.

But the denomination’s legal bills have come due—and more likely will accrue in the future. The denomination’s churches approved the investigation, said Iorg, and the legal fees are part of the cost that came along with that decision.

“Here’s our present reality,” he said. “Decisions were made by the messengers in 2021. Those decisions have consequences. Those consequences have costs, and those bills are due, and they must be paid.”

Iorg said he believed the SBC’s churches would step up to pay those bills and would rally together to set up the denomination to focus on its mission in the future.

His comments, which were greeted with a standing ovation, came on the heels of a rousing speech by SBC President and North Carolina pastor Clint Pressley, who was elected last year. Pressley urged his fellow leaders to celebrate the good things the denomination does—and to work together to address the denomination’s challenges.

In particular, he pointed to the denomination’s Cooperative Program, which turns 100 this year. That program—which raises hundreds of millions of dollars every year from local churches—was beset by troubles in its early years, which coincided with the Great Depression and were marked by two major embezzling scandals in the late 1920s.

Rather than giving up, Pressley said, Baptists faced their problems head-on and made things better. He called on the committee members and other SBC leaders, including heads of the SBC’s mission boards, seminaries and other entities, to do the same.

“Leaders don’t panic,” he said. “But they do act.”

AUSTIN (BP)—The Supreme Court of Texas issued a ruling Feb. 14 on two questions raised in a case brought against former Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President Paige Patterson and the seminary by a plaintiff known as Jane Roe.

On May 3, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit certified two questions for the Supreme Court of Texas:

• Can a person who supplies defamatory material to another for publication be liable for defamation?
• If so, can a defamation plaintiff survive summary judgment by presenting evidence that a defendant was involved in preparing a defamatory publication, without identifying any specific statements made by the defendant?

 “We answer yes to the two certified questions,” Justice Jane N. Bland wrote on the high court’s behalf.

“First, a person who supplies defamatory material to another for publication may be liable if the person intends or knows that the defamatory material will be published.

“Second, a plaintiff may survive summary judgment without identifying the specific statements the defendant made in supplying the defamatory material if the evidence is legally sufficient to support a finding that the defendant was the source of the defamatory content.”

Those two questions involve two items—a press release from Patterson’s lawyer and a letter submitted by Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary donors to the seminary’s board of trustees.

The plaintiff, a former Southwestern Seminary student identified in the case as Jane Roe, claims that Patterson and the seminary failed to protect her from rape by another student and defamed her afterward.

The press release stated that Roe “had given … many contradictory statements.” The circuit court agreed the statement could be construed as defamatory, but asked the state supreme court to weigh in on whether a third party (i.e. Patterson) could be held liable for defamation.

In the instance of the letter to trustees, the role of Patterson to his then-chief of staff, Scott Colter, comes into question. At issue is whether Colter was acting as Patterson’s agent and “for the accomplishment of the objective of the agency.”

The case is now returned to the Fifth Circuit to proceed.

“To prove a claim for defamation for an identified publication, a plaintiff must show that the defendant supplied the defamatory content through direct or circumstantial evidence,” Bland wrote.

“That evidence need not establish verbatim the underlying provision of defamatory content so long as the evidence demonstrates that the defendant was a source of the identified statements alleged to be defamatory.

“We answer yes to the Fifth Circuit’s certified questions and leave the application of the law to the facts of this case to that court.”

(RNS)—In late January, North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein announced $30 million in grants to fund his state’s recovery from Hurricane Helene.

Included in that total was $6 million for two faith-based groups helping rebuild homes after the storm: $3 million for Habitat for Humanity, a housing nonprofit based on Christian principles; and $3 million for Baptists on Mission, an auxiliary of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.

The Baptists plan to use their $3 million to buy building supplies to repair as many as 1,000 homes in the coming year, said Richard Brunson, executive director of Baptists on Mission.

Brunson told Religion News Service accepting the grants made sense.

“More than half the cost of building is labor, but with volunteers providing the labor we can double or even triple the number of families that we can get back in their homes,” Brunson said in accepting the grant. He also thanked Stein for a previous state grant of $5 million for disaster relief.

Violation of the Baptist Faith & Message?

But the Baptists’ decision to accept the grant comes as faith-based groups such as Church World Service, Lutheran Services in America, Catholic Charities and World Relief have been under fire for accepting federal funds for helping immigrants and refugees.

President Donald Trump’s political allies have called the grants “money laundering” and “illegal,” while some of the president’s religious allies accuse charities of selling their faith out to liberals.

The Center for Baptist Leadership, run by former Trump administration staffer William Wolfe, claimed that a ministry center run by Send Relief, a Southern Baptist ministry, violated the denomination’s official statement of faith by accepting government funds in a partnership with World Relief to assist refugees.

“The fact that Send Relief took federal grant funding from the Biden State Department, laundered through World Relief, is shocking,” the Center for Baptist Leadership claimed.

To back the claim, the center pointed to a section of the Baptist Faith & Message that opposed any taxes that would benefit churches—a reference to long-held Baptist opposition to state churches.

“The church should not resort to the civil power to carry on its work,” the Baptist Faith & Message states. “The gospel of Christ contemplates spiritual means alone for the pursuit of its ends.”

The criticism is at odds with last week’s announcement that Paula White-Cain, a close adviser to Trump, would head the White House Faith Office, which promotes partnerships between faith groups and the government.

The first such office began in the George W. Bush administration, which built on federal legislation called Charitable Choice that began to loosen restrictions on government grants to faith groups.

Trump’s recent executive order establishing the faith office said faith groups should be able “to compete on a level playing field for grants, contracts, programs, and other Federal funding opportunities.”

Appealing to Baptist history and polity

Texas pastor Bart Barber, an expert on SBC polity, said Baptists have long opposed direct government funding of churches.

Early American Baptists Roger Williams and Isaac Backus clashed with government leaders over state funding to establish a church in New England. In Virginia, Baptist leader John Leland opposed a “general assessment bill” in the 1780s that would have taxed everyone and sent the money to the church of their choice.

“They thought it would make Baptists, Methodists, everybody happy,” said Barber. Instead, Baptists sank the bill.

“We’re just not in favor of tax money being used to support ministry objectives,” said Barber, past president of the SBC.

Barber felt so strongly about separation of church and state funding, his North Texas church, First Baptist Church in Farmersville, did not apply for a Paycheck Protection Plan loan during the COVID-19 pandemic, which would have been used to pay the salaries of pastors. For Barber, that was out of bounds.

First Baptist did allow the local city to build a parking lot on a property the church owns. The city needed more parking, Barber said, and the church would be able to use the lot on Sundays or for special events.

The difference, said Barber, is that the parking lot was a secular amenity that the church also supported, while the PPP loan represented government funding for a purely religious purpose.

Barber also said many Baptist charities, such as children’s homes or hospitals, have received grants from the government for the work they do for the community. That, he said, is not seen as a violation of the SBC’s statement of faith or of Baptist principles.

What about Baptist institutions?

Al Mohler, longtime president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said until recently, there had been a consensus among leaders of national entities on the issue of government funds.

“When I was elected president, there was an absolute consensus among SBC leaders that SBC institutions should not take government money of any kind,” he said.

That consensus was so strong, SBC seminaries only accepted funds under the G.I. Bill because they paid for the tuition of specific individuals. Mohler said that by the same logic, Baptist colleges and universities eventually began to take government funds, like Pell grants and federal student loans.

His seminary, however, decided not to accept federal student loans, foregoing millions. Nor did the seminary take out a PPP loan.

“I believe it’s a simple principle of maintaining our independence from the government and our ability to be absolutely free from government interference,” he said. Other seminaries, he added, have made their peace with taking the loans.

When it comes to other charitable work, such as health care or disaster relief, government funding and oversight are difficult to avoid, but Mohler said such payments don’t compare to theological education or pastors’ salaries.

He also believes the Baptist Faith & Message assumes a strict line between the church and the government.

“It definitely wants the church to be free from the interference of the state and Southern Baptist institutions, to follow the very same … principles,” he said. “I have colleagues who hold different positions, but, you know, they’re the ones who moved.”

The Center for Baptist Leadership did not respond to a question of whether it objects to Baptists accepting funding like PPP loans.

The SBC Executive Committee, which handles day-to-day operations of the denomination, did not respond to a question of whether accepting government grants violated the Baptist Faith & Message.

The Executive Committee, like a number of SBC state conventions, institutions and churches, did take a PPP loan.

“Because of our partnership with more than 47,000 churches, Southern Baptists’ generosity and gifts from thousands of private donors, the North American Mission Board and Send Relief are not dependent on government funding,” a spokesman for the SBC’s North American Mission Board told RNS.

“There are times, in relief settings, when we collaborate with other nongovernmental organizations that have received government grants. Sometimes, those organizations provide food, funding or other material goods that we utilize for our response. We would never accept any assistance that would require us to compromise our faith and ministry in any way.”

In North Carolina, Brunson said Southern Baptists will help rebuild after disasters whether the government provides funding or not. If Baptists on Mission can get a family back in their home by doing what he called “essential rapid repairs” for about $20,000 while using volunteer labor, he said, “as far as I am concerned, God is providing these funds.”

DALLAS (BP)—The National Hispanic Baptist Network has elevated its executive director, Bruno Molina, from a part-time role to a new full-time role to oversee the organization’s diverse offering of support to Hispanic churches and leaders across the Southern Baptist Convention.

“I’m thrilled that, after two years of serving in this role on a part-time volunteer basis, I can focus full-time on reaching the Hispanic community and through them realizing our vision ‘that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God (1 Kings 8:60),’” Molina said.

Jesse Rincones, chairman of the network’s board of directors, said he is glad the network now has Molina serving as executive director on a full-time basis.

“He not only had the vision of what [the National Hispanic Baptist Network] can and will become, but his life-long service to Hispanic Baptists will serve him well as he serves Hispanic Baptists all across the United States,” said Rincones, who also is the executive director of the Convención Bautista Hispana de Texas and the pastor of Alliance Church in Lubbock.

“The work of the National Hispanic Baptist Network is needed now more than ever. The 3,400 Hispanic churches in the SBC need a network like this at the national level. It’s exciting to see how God is already working to bring unity, collaboration, and culturally contextualized resources and experiences that is so needed in our churches,” Rincones said.

Molina added: “I’m grateful to God for a grant from the Lilly Foundation, in collaboration with the Hispanic Baptist Convention of Texas, that has made my full-time service possible, along with our communications coordinator, David Inestroza, Hispanic consultant for the Alabama Baptist Convention.”

Molina will oversee the network’s daily operations. This includes its 11 current ministry teams: prayer, evangelism, discipleship, missions mobilization, emerging leaders, revitalization, finance, education, women’s ministry, pastoral care and church planting.

He served bivocationally with the Navigators ministry, and for the last 16 years Molina has been the language and interfaith evangelism associate for the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.

In addition to being a former pastor, church planter and human resources manager, he is an adjunct professor of apologetics, theology and world religions at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

He also teaches at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, taught at Louisiana Baptist University, the Baptist Seminary in Havana, Cuba, and Baptist Seminary in Nogales, Mexico.

Molina earned his bachelor’s degree from New York University in International Relations and Spanish, and both his Master of Arts in Theology and Ph.D. in World Christian Studies from Southwestern Seminary.

George Liele, a former slave, not only was the first ordained African American Baptist preacher in America, but also was the world’s first Baptist missionary.

In 1750, shortly after the end of the Great Awakening in America’s British-controlled colonies, Virginia Loyalist Henry Sharp’s slave, Nancy, gave birth to George, a son who took his slave father’s name, Liele.

Baby George became one of Virginia’s 101,000 African slaves, a result of the 1705 Virginia General Assembly Declaration.

Slaves were “real estate” to their Virginia owners, and they suffered a life of cruelty and punishment—whipping, branding, severing ears, maiming and hanging. If a slave’s “correction” caused death, the master was declared “free of all punishment … as if such accident never happened.”

America’s African slave trade proved prosperous during the 1730s and 1740s, a time of spiritual revival encouraged by ministers like Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, David Brainard and others.

The religious movement awakened the colonists’ declining lukewarm faith, bringing them face to face with a living, personal Christ and triggering an avalanche of Baptist growth.

Sometime before 1770, Henry Sharp moved George with him to St. George’s Parish (later Burke County) in Georgia. In 1735, the British prohibited black slavery there, but on Jan. 1, 1750, the House of Commons decided to permit slavery.

In fewer than 30 years, Georgia’s slave population grew from 500 slaves to 18,000. The slaves’ hard work made the Lowcountry’s white plantation owners wealthy.

Answered God’s call

In Georgia, Sharp became a deacon in the Buckhead Creek Baptist Church, a white congregation led by Pastor Matthew Moore, who encouraged George to attend worship services.

During one Sunday service in 1773, God touched the 23-year-old’s heart, calling him to a life of love and ministry to the other slaves on Master Sharp’s plantation. George enthusiastically gave his life to Jesus and answered his call to Christ’s ministry.

Moore baptized George, accepting him into the church. Sharp’s plantation became George’s new mission field. He taught the slaves to sing hymns, share the Bible and explain the gospel’s saving message.

Impressed by George’s innate ministry skills, Buckhead Creek Baptist Church licensed him to preach, and Henry Sharp granted him freedom from slavery.

George soon became a minister and preacher to slaves in Silver Bluff, S.C., south of Augusta, Ga., forming a 30-member congregation of new African American believers. In December 1773, Liele organized the First African Baptist Church in Savannah, Ga., the oldest Black church in North America.

Four of his converts—Andrew Bryan, Hannah Bryan, Kate Hogg and Hagar Simpson—formed the church’s early membership. When Liele was ordained, he became the first ordained African American Baptist preacher in America.

A few years earlier, on March 22, 1765, Britain passed the Stamp Act, imposing unfair taxes on angry colonists. When British troops landed in Boston to enforce the act, their actions resulted in the 1770 Boston Massacre, a deadly incident that triggered America’s rebellion against Britain.

Five years later, on April 19, 1775, the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. The British freed tens of thousands of Black slaves who agreed to fight against the colonists.

Journey to Jamaica

George’s former owner, Henry Sharp, fought with the British, dying of battle-sustained injuries in 1783. Fortunately, Sharp had given Liele his manumission papers, documentation that saved Liele from long-term imprisonment when Sharp’s children tried to re-enslave him.

Moses Kirkland, a British colonel, helped him after his release from prison. A grateful Liele repaid Kirkland by working for him as an indentured servant. When Kirkland escaped to Jamaica in 1782-1783, George, his wife Hannah and their four children accompanied him.

Kirkland and the Liele family landed in Kingston, Jamaica, where George discovered a ripe mission field of hundreds of thousands of African slaves working the sugar cane plantations. The slaves suffered with cruel owners, back-breaking work and little food. Thousands were starving to death.

George planted a church, baptizing hundreds of professing converts in a nearby river every three months. He never accepted payment, supporting his family through farming and hauling goods by wagon.

For “preaching sedition” and “agitating the slaves,” George frequently was imprisoned by Jamaican authorities, once for three years.

By the end of his life, George Liele, referred to as “the Negro slavery’s prophet of deliverance,” helped found three Baptist churches: First Bryan Baptist Church and First African Baptist Church in Savannah, Ga., and the first Negro Baptist Church in Jamaica. He also established schools to educate Jamaica’s slaves.

Liele encouraged and taught his new converts to preach the gospel to the world.

Author David Shannon wrote: “The Christianity practiced by Liele was not limited to one nation, colony, or ethnic group, but was a faith found and spread through interaction with colonists and national leaders in the Americas and England.

“In turn, this broad vision of Christianity shaped and spread a variety of Christian experience that became widespread and influential in black, white and integrated congregations in Georgia, South Carolina, Jamaica, Nova Scotia, Sierra Leone and beyond.”

Liele died in 1828 in Kingston, Jamaica, and is buried there in an unmarked grave.

Baptist missionary William Carey often has been called “the father of the modern missionary movement.”

But George Liele left America to preach Christ in Jamaica a decade before Carey departed from England to preach in India, earning the title of “the world’s first Baptist missionary.”

FORT WORTH (BP)—The loss of a rule that prevented officials from entering churches to arrest immigrants accused of being in the United States illegally has hurt the church’s witness, the National Hispanic Baptist Network said Jan. 29 in calling for the rule’s reinstatement.

The network, a group representing more than 3,300 Southern Baptist churches, released its statement in Spanish and English nine days after the Department of Homeland Security overturned a 14-year-old rule that had prevented such arrests at and near sensitive locations including churches and schools.

Attendance at Hispanic congregations already has declined since Homeland Security revoked the protections Jan. 20, National Hispanic Baptist Network Executive Director Bruno Molina said.

“People are rightly concerned. They think they’re going to get arrested at church,” Molina told Baptist Press. “That’s why we’re asking DHS to revoke the revocation, as it were, because people should be allowed—even if they are considered criminals—to seek spiritual guidance.

“And there’s no reason why, if they are looking to arrest somebody, they can’t wait until they exit the Bible study or church service and arrest them at least a block from the church location.”

Allow churches to fulfill ‘God-given mission’

A statement posted on the network’s website says the National Hispanic Baptist Network recognizes a need for community safety, proclaims a biblical authority of law enforcement and concurrently embraces the religious liberty Southern Baptists also extol.

“We recognize that, on the one hand, government ‘does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil (Romans 13:4).’ On the other hand, we also recognize that God is ‘not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9),’” the statement reads.

“Consequently, it grieves us deeply that our churches are no longer protected and that anyone would be denied their opportunity to receive spiritual guidance in our churches for fear of being arrested. We respectfully and strongly exhort DHS to reinstate the ‘Sensitive Locations Protections’ for churches so that we can fulfill our God-given mission to minister to the least of these and the stranger among us.”

‘Fix the system’ without hindering the gospel

Brent Leatherwood, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, has said that while the immigration system needs revisions, the revocation of the sensitive locations protections causes problems that are best avoided.

“No church that I’m aware of harbors criminal actors, whether they’re here legally or illegally, and no church leader wants that,” Leatherwood told Baptist Press shortly after DHS revoked the protections.

“President Trump is right to fix our broken immigration system—something we’ve long called for—but it must be done so without turning churches into wards of the state or expecting pastors to ask for papers of people coming through their doors.

“The unintended impact of this change will be that many law-abiding immigrants will be fearful to attend our churches, and our central mission of gospel proclamation and biblical formation will be inhibited.”

Leatherwood also offered general remarks on a better way to achieve intended goals.

“The best way to go about this is a comprehensive approach that rids our country of dangerous illegal criminals, sets up strong protections at our borders and welcomes those who are fleeing persecution,” Leatherwood said.

“Not only can this be done in a way that respects religious liberty, it is something that would be strongly supported by our churches.”

Leatherwood described the revocation of sensitive locations protections as “the type of move that leads to more questions and confusion than anything.”

‘It’s a kingdom issue’

Molina appreciates Southern Baptists are hearing the concerns that more adversely impact Hispanic churches.

“We’re all Southern Baptists,” he said. “I think this is something that needs to be brought to the forefront so that, first of all, it’s addressed because it’s a kingdom issue—our ability to get the gospel out—and also so that Hispanic Southern Baptists particularly who are disproportionately impacted by this know that the denomination does have their back.”

Molina described the Homeland Security revocation and the applicable protocol as very fluid, with some national news reports indicating law enforcement officers are looking only for individuals with outstanding warrants for criminal charges, and others indicating they simply are looking for those suspected of being in the country illegally.

Documented immigrants “are also anxious,” Molina said, “because you see the reports on TV, on both English and Spanish networks, where the people who are detained are sometimes even citizens or have legal status, but they get kind of caught up in the dragnet—they ask for their papers and things of this nature—and intimidated, and then they’re let go.

“But it has also raised the level of anxiety among legal immigrants.”

Southern Baptist messengers to at least six annual meetings have adopted resolutions on immigration, most recently the 2023 resolution “On Wisely Engaging Immigration.”

While no resolution has necessarily broached the subject of arrests during worship, a clause in the latest resolution states that messengers “commend the good work of Southern Baptists among immigrants and refugees and encourage pastors and their congregations to continue sharing the gospel and providing Christlike care for the countless men, women, and children in harm’s way.”

NASHVILLE (BP)—Jeff Dalrymple of Jacksonville, Fla., has been named to lead the office within the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee dedicated to Southern Baptists’ long-term efforts in sexual abuse prevention and response.

When he is introduced formally at the SBC Executive Committee’s Feb. 17-18 meeting, several sexual abuse prevention and response initiatives will be announced in order for those to be in place by the time of the 2025 SBC annual meeting in June, Executive Committee President and CEO Jeff Iorg said.

“During our multiple interviews, I was consistently impressed with Jeff’s breadth of technical knowledge as well as his calm and reasoned demeanor about these sensitive issues,” Iorg said.

“He has the informational background and strength of character needed to take on this strategic new position.”

Dalrymple, 49, comes to the Executive Committee after serving as executive director of the Evangelical Council for Abuse Prevention, which works to set national standards to protect vulnerable groups. He also is owner and president of The Hospitality Project, a leadership consulting firm.

The SBC Sexual Abuse Prevention and Response Department will be funded in its initial stages by about $1.8 million remaining from the $3 million gift by Send Relief in June 2022 toward the convention’s sexual abuse response.

Iorg cited Dalrymple’s work through the Evangelical Council for Abuse Prevention and his Southern Baptist background as critical to his being named to the position.

“This organization sets national standards and provides certification in sexual abuse prevention and response for all kinds of ministry organizations,” Iorg said. “Through this experience, Jeff has developed a broad understanding of issues related to sexual abuse prevention and response.

Previously, Dalrymple was a vice president at Southern Seminary for nine years and with the Kentucky Baptist Convention for two years, where he led Crossings Camps.

“He understands how to work with and among Southern Baptists—including our polity and denominational structures,” Iorg said.

Southern Baptist Convention President Clint Pressley commended both Iorg and Dalrymple.

“Dr. Iorg is a man of vision and action as evidenced by his creating the office of abuse prevention and response and appointing Jeff Dalrymple to lead it,” said Pressley, pastor of Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, N.C.

“I know Jeff to be a godly and wise leader that will act with discernment and respond with compassion. I’m thankful for Jeff’s willingness to serve the SBC, as I’m certain he will do so with care and professionalism.”

Contextualized  approach

Dalrymple will name an assistant in the coming weeks and become familiar with other SBC Executive Committee staff while beginning work “to expand our sexual abuse prevention and response efforts incrementally and as needed,” Iorg said.

“Our goal—as I have stated repeatedly—is a robust response in this important ministry challenge. While we are moving deliberately, we are also moving consistently and purposefully toward workable solutions,” he added.

Dalrymple credited the SBC’s Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force in “charting a course forward to help Southern Baptists.”

“We’re going to build on that foundation, using the Essentials curriculum and other resources to help Southern Baptists,” he said.

That approach will be grounded in contextualization, as opposed to a one-size-fits-all mentality.

“Context is key, with two areas in particular—programmatic and jurisdictional,” Dalrymple said.

“Programmatic” refers to the types of prevention measures used by an organization such as a church or school. “Jurisdictional” points to laws throughout the country that may vary, even if slightly, in areas such as mandatory reporting.

The Evangelical Council for Abuse Prevention began in 2019 with more than two dozen experts in areas such as child protection, risk management, insurance industries and practitioners serving in Christian schools and churches. Those voices developed the organization’s standards and compliance programs.

“We’ve tried to strike a balance—and I’ll be honest with you, it’s not easy—in a compassionate response and tone towards survivors who have experienced sexual abuse … and at the same time, very real legal and stewardship considerations,” Dalrymple said. “We have worked hard to navigate between those.”

Dalrymple and his wife of 22 years, Kristil, have four children. The innate desire of a father to protect his children is strong enough to champion stronger protocols against sexual abuse, but words from Tom Stolle, executive director of the Maryland/Delaware Baptist Convention, struck Dalrymple personally. Stolle has urged the church to protect individuals with disabilities from abuse.

“I have a special needs daughter who is 17,” Dalrymple said. “From Tom, I learned the shocking statistics of sexual abuse in the disabilities community and was abhorred and appalled.

“As a father, I want to do everything I can to help Christian ministries maintain their Christ-centered witness and to continue to do Great Commission work we’ve been called to do, making sure that predators are far, far away from our Christ-centered ministries.”

FORT WORTH—Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary released on Jan. 17 the institution’s most recent Composite Financial Index score of +3.0, which President David Dockery called an “objective” metric that “quantifies the significant progress made in the past 28 months.”

CFI is a “standard measuring tool used by the U.S. Department of Education and almost all accrediting agencies to assess the financial health of higher education institutions,” Dockery said.

An institution’s CFI score can range from -1.0 to +3.0 for private institutions based on primary reserves, expendable net assets, change in net assets, and net revenue from operating activities resulting in a composite score.

Southwestern Seminary’s CFI scores over the last three years have moved from below zero at the end of 2022 to +1.2 for 2023 to +3.0 for 2024, demonstrating the institution has moved from a “place of significant stress” to a “place of institutional responsibility related to finances,” he said.

While noting remaining at +3.0 will not be easy and scores can fluctuate based on various factors, Dockery said the “metric is another sign of God’s amazing faithfulness to Southwestern.”

“We rejoice at this good news and the hopeful marker of real progress from an objective source,” he said.

“The Southwestern community has prayed for God’s favor and blessings, and we continue to live in dependence upon God while offering regular thanks and gratitude to our Lord for his provision and help. Thanks be to God.”

Accreditation warning subject to review

In 2023, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges placed the seminary on accreditation warning, due in part to financial issues. The accrediting body extended that warning for the seminary last year, but it is subject to review this summer.

Under SACS Principles of Accreditation, an educational institution is required to have “sound financial resources and a demonstrated, stable financial base to support the mission of the institution and the scope of its programs and services.” The institution also is expected to “manage its financial resources in a responsible manner.”

A financial overview released by the seminary’s board of trustees in June 2023 revealed from 2002 to 2022, annual operating expenses at Southwestern Seminary rose 35 percent, while full-time-enrollment figures dropped 67 percent, resulting in a cumulative $140 million operating deficit.

The seminary ran an operational deficit 19 years during the period from 2002 through 2022, spending an average $6.67 million more than it received in revenue those years.

“Due to the timeline of financial reporting and the need to demonstrate positive trends over multiple fiscal years, it was our expectation that a full review of financial progress would not be possible until June 2025,” Dockery said last summer.

With additional reporting by Managing Editor Ken Camp.

LOS ANGELES—Southern California churches have been praying in the midst of the devastating fires in their area, and the answer to a specific Sunday evening prayer has been noticed and appreciated by others in the community.

Rand Jenkins, Texans on Mission’s chief strategy officer, participated in the Sunday evening prayer service at Highlands Church, north of downtown Los Angeles.

“On Sunday, the weather forecast anticipated winds topping 70 miles per hour through Wednesday,” he said. “The high winds never came, and forecasters canceled the warning.”

Pastor David Johnson shared about the prayer service on Instagram.

“On Sunday night we rebuked the wind in Jesus’ name,” the pastor said. “We contended for our city and its people. … While we aren’t out of the woods, … we are certainly praising God for his faithfulness.”

After the social media post, Johnson received a “thank you” text from a neighbor who doesn’t go to church.

‘Glimmers of hope rising from the ash’

“In the midst of this tragedy, people are noticing that Christians are both praying and working to help,” Jenkins said. “Prayer is our first job, but it’s also important for someone who is hurting to see we care about them.”

Johnson said the prayers and helpfulness are “so consistent with the gospel.”

“We’re just starting to see those glimmers of hope rising from the ash,” he said.

Los Angeles-area Christians believe “God is going to do an amazing work of calling the city back to himself,” he added.

Texans on Mission is partnering with churches to provide respite centers for fire victims. These are places where volunteers will do people’s laundry in special units provided by Texans on Mission.

“Volunteers are going to wash their clothes while the people, the homeowners, can sit and have a cup of coffee and their children will be entertained,” Jenkins said. “It will be time to breathe, to rest and to recover.”

‘Ash out’ ministry likely in weeks ahead

Fire recovery efforts—typically known as “ash out”—will follow in the weeks to come.

In that next stage of relief, volunteers will “sit down with a homeowner and find out what mementos they hope to recover,” Jenkins explained. “What are they trying to find that ties them back to their history?

“We sit next to them and scoop the ashes and then sift, hoping you find that memorabilia. It could be wedding bands. It could be photos. It could be Christmas ornaments, something that ties you back to your house. Those things don’t have a monetary value, but they have so much meaning to people. They connect you back to who you are.”

Texans on Mission shower/laundry units left Dallas for California Jan. 15. Other volunteer disaster relief leaders are expected to arrive in Los Angeles Jan. 19 to establish incident command centers for coordinating relief efforts.

In the meantime, Texans on Mission supporters are asked to pray and give toward the effort.

Chief Executive Officer Mickey Lenamon has asked people to pray specifically for:

• A swift end to the fires.
• Those who have been affected by the fires.
• Strength for the firefighters who are serving valiantly.
• The churches serving with Texans on Mission to minister to people impacted by the fires.
• The clear proclamation of the gospel.

To learn more about financially supporting the effort, visit TexansOnMission.org/wildfires or call (214) 275-1100.

APEX, N.C—Evangelist and author Daniel Ritchie will be nominated for first vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention during the 2025 SBC annual meeting in Dallas.

Matt Capps, lead pastor of Fairview Baptist Church in Apex, N.C., told the Biblical Recorder he plans to nominate Ritchie.

“Daniel Ritchie is among the most faithful, consistent, and passionate witnesses for Christ that Southern Baptists have seen raised up in this generation,” Capps said.

“I am eager to see our convention recognize this gospel servant and unapologetically champion the vital ministries of vocational evangelists like Daniel by electing him to serve as first vice president.”

A native of Greensboro, N.C., Ritchie previously served as a student pastor at churches in North Carolina and Arizona before answering a call to become a vocational evangelist and speaker.

For the past 20 years, Ritchie has traveled the country speaking to churches, schools, camps, conferences, colleges, corporations, sports teams and more, according to his website.

Ritchie also preached during the 2022 SBC Pastors’ Conference in Anaheim, Calif.

Ritchie has written two books—My Affliction for His Glory: Living Out Your Identity in Christ and Endure: Building Faith for the Long Run. He also has been a contributing writer to other online ministry outlets and publications.

In My Affliction for His Glory, Ritchie shares his life story, which includes being born without arms and struggling with a sense of value and worth while growing up. After placing his faith in Christ during a church youth event at age 15, Ritchie discovered God had a plan and purpose for his life.

“A man with no arms was never going to fit in a world where everyone has two arms,” Ritchie wrote. “But God had more in store for me than to be a victim of a life defined by the things that I was never going to be.”

Ritchie’s life story and testimony have been featured on Fox News, Focus on the Family and other media outlets.

Ritchie holds a bachelor’s degree in biblical studies from the College at Southeastern, now known as Judson College. He currently is pursuing a master of divinity degree from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Ritchie has been married to his wife, Heather, 18 years, and they have two children. The Ritchies reside in Raleigh, N.C., where they are members of The Summit Church, a multisite congregation in the Raleigh-Durham area.

According to the most recent data available, The Summit Church reported an average worship attendance of 7,891 and 448 baptisms in 2023. The church reported $810,000 (2.45 percent) given through the Cooperative Program based on $33,061,224 in undesignated receipts. The church also gave $368,500 to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and $154,000 to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering.

“As a model husband, father, ministry leader, and church member, Daniel Ritchie lives the gospel he preaches, calling hundreds of thousands every year to follow Jesus by both his life-changing testimony and his determination to make Christ known through a bold preaching ministry,” Capps added.

The 2025 SBC annual meeting is scheduled June 10-11 at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas.

DALLAS—Trucks and trailers rolled out of Texans on Mission headquarters in Dallas early on Jan. 15 to support California churches responding to devastating wildfires.

Shower/laundry units are on the way. A semi-truck load of supplies also left Dallas with masks, water filters, Tyvek suits, Bibles, cots and gloves.

A Texans on Mission team already is in California meeting with church partners to determine how best to respond.

The churches have asked Texans on Mission to help establish on-site services, thus “creating a respite for people that don’t have another place to go to get away from the stress, be encouraged and have someone pray with them,” said Chief Strategy Officer Rand Jenkins.

“Their children will have a place to play,” Jenkins said. “They’ll have their clothes washed for them. They’ll get a hot cup of coffee and be able to talk to some of our volunteers and some of the local pastors.”

While Texans on Mission focuses now on helping churches provide respite for weary residents, fire recovery efforts—commonly called “ash out”—likely will emerge in the coming weeks.

“As with the 2023 fires in Maui, authorities have to keep sites secure for a time,” said Texans on Mission Chief Mission Officer John Hall. “And, in this situation, fires are still blazing and battling the flames is a top priority.

“Recovery time will come, and Texans on Mission will continue to work with churches in how best to be of support. As we like to say, we’re bringing help, hope and healing now, and we will need to do so for quite some time.”

In a video for Texans on Mission supporters, Jenkins said: “Thank you for what you’re doing. Thank you for the prayers you’re sending this way. This is an amazing need, and you are an amazing group of people that come together every time.”

To give financially to support Texans on Mission disaster relief, click here.