WASHINGTON (RNS)—A disgraced former Southern Baptist president is suing the denomination he once led, saying he was defamed by allegations he assaulted another pastor’s wife.

In a complaint filed in the federal court for the Middle District of Tennessee, lawyers for Johnny Hunt, a long-time Georgia megachurch pastor, admit Hunt “had a brief, inappropriate, extramarital encounter with a married woman” in 2012. But Hunt claims the incident was consensual and was a private matter that should not have been made public in a major 2022 report.

“Some of the precise details are disputed, but at most, the encounter lasted only a few minutes, and it involved only kissing and some awkward fondling,” according to the complaint.

The complaint said Hunt sought counseling and forgiveness for the incident, which the complaint said was “a sin.” However, Hunt never disclosed the incident to First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Ga., where he was the pastor for three decades, or to the SBC’s North American Mission Board, where he was a vice president until resigning in 2022.

The incident became public in May 2022, after it was discovered by investigators at Guidepost Solutions, a consulting firm that had been hired to investigate how SBC leaders had dealt with the issue of abuse.

Guidepost’s investigators included the incident as part of their report and described it as a sexual assault. Those investigators said they found the allegations against Hunt credible. The former SBC president at first denied the allegations, then claimed the incident was consensual.

Claims Hunt made a ‘scapegoat’ for SBC

The complaint alleges the SBC and Guidepost engaged in defamation and libel, that they invaded Hunt’s privacy and intentionally caused emotional harm.

“The decision to smear Pastor Johnny’s reputation with these accusations has led him to suffer substantial economic and other damages,” according to the complaint.

“He has lost (his) job and income; he has lost current and future book deals; and he has lost the opportunity to generate income through speaking engagements.”

Hunt also claims he was made a scapegoat to pay for the SBC’s past sins. He said current SBC leaders and Guidepost were engaged in damage control to repair the 13-million-member denomination’s reputation.

“By focusing on the allegation against Pastor Johnny—an allegation by an adult woman that involved noncriminal conduct—and by then taking aggressive action against Pastor Johnny, the Defendants sought to create the appearance that the SBC has learned from its previous mistakes and is now working to protect victims of sex crimes,” the complaint claims.

Alleges Hunt named to ‘deflect attention’

The complaint accused current SBC leaders and Guidepost of intentionally causing him “personal anguish and harm.”

“Defendants’ decision to feature the allegation against Pastor Johnny in their public report was a strategic decision to deflect attention from the SBC’s historical failure to take aggressive steps to respond to reports of child sex abuse and other sex crimes in its past,” the complaint claims.

A spokesperson for the SBC’s Nashville-based Executive Committee said SBC leaders are aware of the suit.

“We are reviewing the complaint and will not be commenting on active litigation at this time,” the spokesman said in a statement.

Guidepost Solutions declined to comment.

Return to the pulpit

Hunt made a defiant return to the public in January at a Florida megachurch, after a group of pastors announced that Hunt had been through a restoration process and was fit to return to ministry after a brief hiatus.

During that sermon, Hunt said “false allegations” had ruined his life. But he told the congregation that if God calls someone to do something, that calling can’t be undone—and God called that person, knowing the person might sin and fail.

“Anybody can quit,” he said. “That’s why so many do. It’s easy. I mean, it hardly takes any energy whatsoever.”

Hiland Park Baptist Church in Panama City, Fla., which hosted Hunt and whose pastor oversaw Hunt’s restoration, could face consequences at the upcoming SBC annual meeting in June.

The church has been reported to the SBC’s credentials committee for hosting “an individual who has been credibly accused of sexual abuse, according to the standards adopted by the convention.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—A year after ousting its founders, the Preemptive Love Coalition announced March 16 that it has merged with the international peace-building nonprofit Search for Common Ground.

Search for Common Ground CEO Shamil Idriss called the merger a “strategic leap forward” that allows the work of Preemptive Love to continue while expanding the broader goals of the joint organizations.

“Preemptive Love’s rapid response capabilities and community development experience, paired with the established history and experience of Search, will greatly expand the ability of both organizations to serve the communities with whom we work,” he said.

Year of turmoil at Preemptive Love

The merger brings an end to a year of uncertainty for Preemptive Love.

Founded in 2007 by a pair of ex-missionaries living in Iraq, the group grew rapidly by rallying young supporters to provide funding, first for heart surgeries and then expanding to broader relief work in the Middle East and beyond.

Founders Jeremy and Jessica Courtney had a knack for convincing supporters they could play an active role in responding on the ground and were especially gifted at video storytelling and the use of social media.

Jeremy Courtney grew up in Leander as the grandson of a Baptist minister. He attended Howard Payne University and earned his Master of Divinity degree from Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary.

Even though Preemptive Love is a secular organization, its work proved particularly attractive to Christian influencers and young Christians who were disillusioned with politicized religion and wanted to change the world. The founders saw delivering aid as a form of making peace, inspired by the teachings of Jesus.

In 2021, the founders were placed on leave due to concerns about an unhealthy, abusive culture at the organization and allegations they had misled donors. The board cut ties with the Courtneys in early 2022.

Need for organizational changes

Their departure led to a year of self-evaluation and the realization Preemptive Love needed to make significant organizational changes in order to survive. That led its leaders to seek a merger with a more established organization, according to Jen Meyerson, the chief program officer for Preemptive Love.

“We are a peacemaking organization, but we are so young,” said Meyerson. “To be able to partner with an organization that has more than 40 years of experience in this space brings a real sense of excitement and anticipation.”

Founded in 1982, Search for Common Ground works on defusing conflict and peacemaking in 31 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America.

The newly merged organization will have a combined budget of $76.5 million and about 800 staff.

Not all the staff of Preemptive Love will join the new organization, Meyerson said. Preemptive Love is working on transition plans for anyone let go due to the merger. The current board of Preemptive Love has dissolved, though at least one former Preemptive Love board member will join the Search for Common Ground board.

For now, Preemptive Love will still operate under its original name and most of its programs will remain intact, even though the two groups are now legally merged.

Importance of trust

Idriss said it will take time to communicate the changes in the organization to donors and the communities that Search for Common Ground serves.

“Trust is going to be No. 1 for us on all fronts,” he said. “Trust with the PLC staff who are coming over as well as those who will be transitioning. Trust with the donor base. Trust with the communities we work with on the ground.”

Idriss said that Search for Common Ground has been involved in direct aid in the past, though mostly working with partners. Adding the Preemptive Love staff will give the group added expertise.

He also hopes Search for Common Ground will benefit from Preemptive Love’s ability to engage with donors. Most of Search’s past funding has come from larger donors, such as governments, rather than individuals.

“On average, Search for Common Ground leverages every dollar we get from individuals to about $20 of funding from larger institutions,” he said. “But to be frank with you, it is a lot harder for us to raise that single dollar than it is to raise the institutional funding.

“For the PLC community of supporters, I think it’d be really exciting for them to know that not only is their contribution, financial and otherwise, going to go toward building peace, but we actually have a system for leveraging that into much more significant support.”

He said the two groups also have programs that complement each other. Preemptive Love has the ability to respond quickly in a crisis. Search for Common Ground has a long-term plan for community impact.

“PLC has this brilliant and motivating and inspiring way of coming in at the front end. And we have a very well-established way of continuing that sustained change across entire societies,” he said. “I don’t know any organization that brings both these things together right now in the peace-building sector.”

LAKE FOREST, Calif. (BP)—Saddleback Church is considering whether to appeal a vote of being found not in friendly cooperation with the Southern Baptist Convention, but regardless plans to “continue our 43-year partnership with our local association and state convention,” Lead Pastor Andy Wood told Baptist Press.

“If we choose to appeal this decision it will be based on a desire to help serve other SBC churches,” he wrote in an email.

Saddleback recently released a video featuring Wood explaining the church’s position on women in ministry.

He explained that while the church believes women can be empowered with spiritual gifts, including preaching, those gifts are exercised under the authority of the elders of the church, a role he says is limited to men at Saddleback.

At their February meeting, the SBC Executive Committee affirmed a recommendation by the SBC Credentials Committee to deem Saddleback “not in friendly cooperation with the Southern Baptist Convention.” The Credentials Committee cited the role and function of Stacie Wood, the pastor’s wife, as teaching pastor at Saddleback for its recommendation.

Saddleback was one of six churches voted for disfellowship. Action was taken against five of the churches because they have women in the role of senior pastor or teaching pastor.

SBC Bylaw 8 states that a church may submit a written appeal “at least 30 days prior to the Convention’s annual meeting.” Such an appeal this year would need to be submitted before May 14.

Saddleback’s approach to women in ministry

In the recent video, Wood pointed to the church’s interpretation of Scripture as the basis for Saddleback’s approach to women in ministry.

However, the word “complement” or a variation thereof isn’t used in the video. When asked by email if that was intentional, Wood said: “The intended audience for my recent video is the Saddleback Church family. In the video, I stated our beliefs without using terms that could be unnecessarily confusing or divisive.”

In the video, Wood said it is important to look at God’s original design versus the dangers of sliding into a “trajectory hermeneutic” that places Scripture in a secondary role to culture’s influence.

“We’re trying to go back to God’s intended design of what he teaches in Scripture and his intention for the local church,” said Wood.

The Saddleback pastor cited their interpretation of Bible passages such as:

• Romans 16, which mentions Phoebe, a deaconess, and Priscilla and Aquilla, who were influential leaders in the early Church, and
• Romans 16:6-7, he said, notes a woman named Junia as among the early apostles.

The passage 1 Timothy 2:12 often comes up in these discussions, said Wood, and he believes it is helpful for discerning between the office of the elder and the gift of teaching.

“An elder can empower women and mobilize women to use their spiritual gifts in the local church. And we see this from a descriptive angle all throughout the course of the New Testament,” he said.

“Conservative, Bible-believing theologians” interpret the passage differently, Wood said. He believes the text is about the authority elders have in authorizing who can use gifts, such as teaching, in the local church.

“Just like Paul gives order in a home with a husband being the head of a household, he’s saying, ‘I don’t permit a woman to come in and seize that role.’ So, when a woman teaches in a local church, she’s teaching in conjunction with the authority of the church … [and] uses that spiritual gift under the authority of the eldership or the leadership of the local church.”

Saddleback ordained three women in May 2021 to various ministry positions with the title of “pastor.” A little over a year later, founding pastor Rick Warren announced his plans to retire by that September and named Wood his successor.

On Oct. 9, 2022, Stacie Wood preached a message at Saddleback titled “The Courage to Slow Down.” In comments to BP at that time, Andy Wood clarified he and his wife are not co-pastors, but he serves as lead pastor while she is one of the church’s teaching pastors.

AMARILLO, Texas (BP)—Pro-life advocates and others are awaiting a Texas judge’s ruling on whether an abortion pill approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2000 should be prescribed to women.

Alliance Defending Freedom is representing Christian and pro-life medical professionals and advocates urging a federal district judge to issue an injunction suspending or revoking Mifepristone while a court challenge to the pill’s safety proceeds.

In the unprecedented challenge to the FDA approval process, the groups contend the FDA illegally approved Mifepristone in 2000 and charge the drug is not safe for use.

The awaited ruling could impact the long-held FDA approval process used in vetting all drugs prescribed in the United States, according to legal experts. It also could halt the method used for 53 percent of all abortions in U.S. facilities in 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

ERLC supports challenge

Southern Baptist ethicists support the court challenge that could suspend the use of the abortion pill nationwide, including those where abortion is still legal post-Roe v. Wade.

“The FDA has failed to protect the health, safety and welfare of women by wrongfully approving these harmful chemical abortion drugs and stripping away any safeguards for their use,” said Hannah Daniel, manager of public policy for the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

“The abortion pill not only ends the life of a precious, preborn child, but it poses serious health risks for women, who often take the drugs far away from available medical care.

“We urge the court to rule quickly to stop the widespread use of these harmful drugs for elective abortions to protect both women and their children.”

ADF Senior Counsel Erik Baptist argued against the drug in the Northern District Court of Texas on March 15 before Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, appointed to the court in 2019 by then-President Donald Trump.

“Today, we asked the court to put the health and wellbeing of women and girls first by undoing the harms that FDA has caused by illegally approving dangerous chemical abortion drugs and removing necessary protections,” Baptist said in a press statement.

“The FDA’s approval of chemical abortion drugs over 20 years ago has always stood on shaky legal and moral ground, and after years of evading responsibility, it’s time for the government to do what it’s legally required to do: protect the health and safety of vulnerable women and girls.”

The FDA lifted certain longstanding restrictions in 2021 on the use of the drug combination for allowing telehealth prescriptions and mail delivery, restrictions that were lifted temporarily during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As we stated in court, the FDA never had the authority to approve these drugs and remove important safeguards, despite the substantial evidence of the harms women and girls who undergo this dangerous drug regimen could suffer.”

FDA approval process

Kacsmaryk has said he will issue the ruling “as soon as possible.” But the immediate result of any ruling he issues in the case is not apparent, the Associated Press reported. FDA drugs generally are revoked through a process including public hearings and scientific deliberations that can extend for years.

Given under the brand name Mifeprex as the first dose in a two-drug combination to induce abortion, Mifepristone is also used for other purposes including treatment after miscarriage and, in another form called Korlym, to treat high blood sugar in people with a certain type of Cushing’s syndrome and type 2 diabetes, according to Medlineplus.com.

The abortion pill combination is available in 60 other countries, CNN reported.

In defending its approval of the drug, the FDA said the approval followed four years of deliberation and included extra safety restrictions, the Associated Press reported.

The FDA encourages women to seek medical care in the case of prolonged heavy bleeding and other complications.

“Although cramping and bleeding are an expected part of a pregnancy, rarely, serious and potentially life-threatening bleeding, infections, or other problems can occur following a miscarriage, surgical abortion, medical abortion or childbirth,” according to the FDA’s medication guide for the drug.

“Seeking medical attention as soon as possible is needed in these circumstances. Serious infection has resulted in death in a very small number of cases. There is no information that the use of Mifeprex and misoprostol caused these deaths. If you have any questions, concerns, or problems, or if you are worried about any side effects or symptoms, you should contact your healthcare provider,” the FDA guide says.

Challenging the abortion pill are the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Pediatricians, the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, and doctors Shaun Jester, Regina Frost-Clark, Tyler Johnson and George Delgado. They filed suit in November 2022.

Scott Lassman, an attorney in Washington, D.C., who specialized in FDA regulatory issues, told the Washington Post, “The FDA is virtually never reversed by a court on scientific decisions because courts invariably recognize that they don’t have the expertise to make scientific decisions.”

In May 1877, Myra Graves made history.

Widow of the first president of Baylor University, Graves was the first woman seated as a delegate to the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting. She returned again in 1882, according to the Journal of Southern Religion.

No one seemed to notice.

The same could not be said a few years later, when two women from Arkansas showed up as delegates. A pastor from Virginia stood up, saying women had no right to be at the meeting. That led to a hasty gathering of a five-member committee to decide the issue. The committee did not want the women there, but ruled nothing in the denomination’s constitution barred their presence.

The committee’s ruling did not sit well with delegates like a certain Dr. Hawthorne of Georgia.

“I love the ladies, but I dread them worse,” he told delegates, according to the May 16, 1885, edition of the Tennessee Baptist newspaper. “If my wife was here knocking at the door of this Convention I’d never vote against her coming in.”

Delegates to that meeting eventually voted to bar the Arkansas women. Then they changed the SBC’s constitution to make it plain only “brethren” were allowed—a rule that stayed in place for decades.

Role of women revisited

Nearly 140 years later, the role of women in the SBC is back up for debate. This time, the question is whether churches with women pastors should be expelled from the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

Since 2000, official Southern Baptist doctrine limits the role of pastor to men. But that doctrine had never been enforced at the national level until recently. This past February, the SBC’s Executive Committee expelled five churches—including Saddleback in California, one of the largest churches in the SBC—for having women pastors.

Several of those churches are expected to appeal at the SBC’s annual meeting in June.

The Rev. Linda Barnes Popham, longtime pastor of Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., one of the churches kicked out alongside Saddleback, told The Tennessean newspaper she was surprised her role at the church became controversial recently. She said a number of SBC leaders have preached at the church during her three decades as pastor, including the chair of the committee that recommended disfellowshipping Fern Creek.

“If our convention continues to make ‘minor things’ the ‘main thing,’ there will soon not be many churches left in the convention,” she told that committee in a letter last October, according to The Tennessean.

Saddleback pastor Andy Young also released a video this week outlining the church’s view on women leaders.

The current SBC debate over women pastors has been fueled, at least in part, by a 2019 tweet from bestselling author and Bible teacher Beth Moore about speaking at a church on Mother’s Day. Her social media post sparked a wave of controversy that eventually contributed to her leaving the denomination.

At the time, the SBC also was dealing with a major crisis over sexual abuse and some felt the alarm bell over women preachers was being used to distract from that crisis. The news of Saddleback’s expulsion likewise has overshadowed decisions around paying for abuse reforms.

Opposition to women pastors and preachers

Delegates to the June meeting, known as messengers, may also debate a potential constitutional amendment to officially bar churches that “affirm, appoint, or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.”

Virginia Baptist pastor Mike Law proposed the constitutional amendment last year, but the SBC Executive Committee has yet to decide whether to let it move forward. Any changes to the SBC’s constitution would have to be passed two years in a row.

Law, pastor of Arlington Baptist Church, said several SBC churches close to his congregation have women pastors. That prompted him to write to the Executive Committee last May, seeking clarification about the SBC’s rules.

His email also had a personal side. Arlington Baptist Church, where Law began serving in 2014, had at least two women pastors in its past. Having women as pastors, he believed, put the church at odds with the SBC’s doctrine.

“Thankfully, the saints at Arlington Baptist have returned to faithfulness on this issue, and unity with Southern Baptists,” Law wrote in his proposed amendment. Law, who was not available for an interview because he was assisting a church member, has also set up a website for the proposed amendment, including a video explaining his rationale.

“Why is it wrong for women to serve as pastors?” Law said in the video, which was sent to members of the Executive Committee. “Because it is contrary to God’s design for his church. It is that simple. Don’t overthink this issue.”

Law also put together a list of 170 women pastors serving at SBC churches. That list includes 51 women who are senior pastors, 20 associate pastors, 47 children’s pastors, 12 elders, 11 worship pastors and 35 “other” pastors.

Acts Church in Waco

David Booker, lead pastor of Acts Church in Waco, was not aware until recently that his church was on Law’s list. But he was not surprised.

He and his wife, Kim, the church’s co-lead pastor, founded the church in 2007. The church, which is affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the SBC, also has a worship pastor, a children’s pastor and an executive pastor who are all women.

Booker said men who hold those roles often are called pastors, and so the church just uses the same titles for the women in those roles. The church also has several women elders, a position some churches limit to men.

“I don’t know if God is that concerned about titles,” he said.

One of the current debates in the SBC is whether the denomination’s doctrinal requirement of male pastors applies only to senior pastors or to any pastoral role.

When the church was first founded, Booker said, he and his his wife—who runs a discipleship school for the church but does not preach on Sundays—and other leaders studied biblical passages about the roles of men and women. As Baptists, they wanted to do everything according to the Bible.

“We came to the conclusion that the Bible does not prohibit women in church leadership,” he said. “I can totally get how people feel different.”

According to the current SBC constitution and bylaws, a church must have a “faith and practice which closely identifies with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith.”

Booker said Acts church fits that description. The church is committed to the Bible and to what’s known as the Great Commission, Jesus’ command to make disciples around the world.

Shared beliefs expected

David Schrock, pastor of preaching at Occoquan Bible Church in Virginia, which joined the SBC, said having a shared set of beliefs makes it possible for churches in the convention to work together on missions and starting new churches. Without those shared beliefs, he said, that cooperation falls apart.

Schrock, who said Law is a friend, supports the amendment.

“If we cannot agree on who a pastor can be, when Scripture clearly speaks to the matter, we cannot cooperate in planting churches,” said Schrock.

Several pastors on Law’s list declined to comment or said their church was no longer affiliated with the SBC. One did say her church stopped giving to the SBC a number of years ago—though some congregation members still give directly to SBC missions.

Law is not the first to propose an amendment to bar churches with women pastors. In 1993, a messenger named Michael Barley from Kentucky proposed an amendment to bar “churches which have ordained women.” The Executive Committee rejected that amendment the following year.

Things have changed since then, said Law. In 2000, the denomination’s official doctrinal statement, known as the Baptist Faith & Message, was revised to state “the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”

“With the confessional basis for this amendment now in place, it is time the SBC took this step,” he said.

India’s anti-conversion laws violate international human rights standards and worsen already-poor religious freedom conditions in India, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom stated.

“India’s state-level anti-conversion laws violate international human rights law’s protections for the right to freedom of religion or belief,” the commission concluded in a report issued March 14.

Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, worship and observance.”

India’s laws “impermissibly limit and punish an individual’s right to convert and right to persuade or support another individual to convert voluntarily,” the commission report states.

Anti-conversion laws “enable and embolden existing government harassment, vigilante violence, and discrimination against religious minorities, as well as crackdowns on civil society organizations,” the report notes.

“Issue Update: India’s State-level Anti-conversion Laws” reports 12 of India’s 28 states have legislation that criminalizes religious conversions: Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh.

“An increasingly common feature of India’s state-level anti-conversion laws are provisions aimed at preventing so-called ‘Love Jihads,’ a derogatory term for conversions occurring in the context of interfaith marriages,” the report states.

Anti-conversion laws in 10 Indian states require individuals who intend to convert, individuals involved in the conversion plan of someone else, or both, to notify the government.

For example, the anti-conversion law in Karnataka State required the district magistrate, once notified of an individual’s intent to convert, to issue a public call for any objections to the conversion. If an objection is lodged, it triggers an official government investigation.

If the conversion is found to violate any provision of the state’s Protection of Right to Freedom of Religion Act, the matter is referred to police to initiate criminal action.

Seven Indian states provide that the burden of proof for violations of anti-conversion laws lies on the person who is accused, even though international human rights law prohibit the presumption of guilt for accused individuals.

“Repealing India’s state-level anti-conversion laws is necessary to comply with international human rights law for the right to freedom of religion or belief and to help prevent the country’s religious freedom conditions from further deteriorating,” the commission report concludes.

In its 2022 annual report, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended the U.S. Department of State designate India as a “Country of Particular Concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act.

East Texas Baptist University has partnered with Marshall Independent School District to create the Mav PATH Program. The agreement, signed Feb. 28, will give selected paraprofessionals the opportunity to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Education degree in elementary education. Marshall ISD will identify 15 paraprofessionals who have served within the district at least one year to enroll in the program and will pay each student’s tuition and course fees. The pathway allows paraprofessionals in the district the opportunity to acquire job-embedded experience as a classroom teacher while completing college credits through ETBU to obtain a college degree with teacher certification. “The most exciting part of MAV Path is the multi-dimensional impact of this educational opportunity for children, teachers, schools and communities, not to mention the impact on the livelihood of these graduates for years to come,” said Tommy Sanders, vice president and provost at ETBU. “This program is a family and community systems changer.”

Hardin-Simmons University’s Cowboy Band marks its centennial anniversary April 28-30. Events include a reunion banquet, a panoramic photo of returning band alumni, a concert at Paramount Theatre and a worship service at Logsdon Chapel, along with other meal functions and informal gatherings. Cost is $50 per person, which includes the cost of breakfast at the band hall, the Cowboy Band celebration dinner at the Motis Building and a commemorative T-shirt. The registration deadline is April 14. To register, click here.

“Mercy triumphs over judgement,” Katie Frugé, director of Texas Baptists’ Christian Life Commission, told students, faculty and staff during a March 8 chapel address at Wayland Baptist University. Using John 8:3-11 as her Scripture text, Frugé—who also directs Texas Baptists’ Center for Cultural Engagement—told listeners, “Mercy has the ability to cut into the human heart and transform it.”

The Texas Baptist Women in Ministry board named Jill Hudson as the organization’s new coordinator, effective April 3. She is a 2005 graduate of Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary and also holds a master’s degree in education and educational psychology from Baylor. She was ordained by Crosscreek Baptist Church in Pelham, Ala. She and her husband Brandon, pastor of First Baptist Church in Abilene, have two children.

 Jennifer Eames, founding director of the physician assistant program at Hardin-Simmons University, was named a Distinguished Fellow of the American Academy of Physician Assistants. The distinction is earned by less than 2 percent of the academy’s membership. Eames has led multiple global medical mission trips with students, serving most recently in Kenya. She is an elected board member of the Physician Assistant Education Association and a past president of the Texas Academy of Physician Assistants.

Retirement

Gary Morgan as pastor of The Cowboy Church of Ellis County in Waxahachie, where he has served since May 2001, and after 34 years in the gospel ministry. His retirement party is scheduled at 5 p.m. on April 2 in the church’s worship building.

NASHVILLE (BP)—The rising popularity of artificial intelligence like ChatGPT is causing Christians to examine questions beyond the ethical nature of the technology, such as what it fundamentally means to be human.

ChatGPT, launched in November 2022 by the Artificial Intelligence company OpenAI, is a technology designed to provide information to users in a conversational manner.

Users give the technology a prompt or question, and ChatGPT will scan the internet to provide a dialogue-based response to the specific inquiry.

The realistic nature of the dialogue the technology produces is causing concern and caution among some Christians, but experts say ChatGPT is merely another advancement in already existing AI and not something to be feared in itself.

‘Like a very sophisticated parrot’

“It (ChatGPT) is an incremental step in a long line of artificial intelligence. Now everyone gets to play with it and see what it can do and what it can’t do,” said Ken Arnold, assistant professor of computer science at Calvin University.

Arnold, who holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Harvard, said the technology works like an equation, where an input is entered into the system and an output is created via available online information.

 “The things behind ChatGPT are not human,” Arnold said. “The responses are not based on its own experience or emotion. Its behavior is not manually programmed. The systems don’t work on the basis of logic. They are a lot like a very sophisticated parrot.”

Arnold acknowledges there are serious questions and concerns about ChatGPT such as: potential biases or stereotypes it might propagate; the individualistic nature of the technology; what things it may be devaluing; and what type of world is to be envisioned in which ChatGPT is useful.

“It is an equation, and it is very difficult to understand how it is making the computation that it is making. There is a lot of complexity hidden in there. What is going to come out of it is something that is a reflection of information that it has gathered on the internet.”

Yet, he said some of the potential positive uses of ChatGPT include helping people communicate more clearly through writing and organizing large sums of information like emails and lists.

Some Christians have even theorized how this technology could be used positively for gospel influence, such as use in biblical translation.

Human element essential for gospel witness

Although many of these theories remain untested, ethicist Jason Thacker said the human element always will be necessary in effective gospel witness.

“Churches need to keep in mind gospel transformation is not about information transfer,” Thacker said.

Thacker is the chair of research in technology ethics and director of the research institute at the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

Technology constantly is advancing rapidly and can be very useful for things like education, he said. But artificial intelligence always will fall short, because it is a created thing, without the unique spiritual capabilities a human believer possesses.

“The gospel is not a mere transaction. It (ChatGPT) may be presenting the gospel, but it is not preaching the gospel,” Thacker said.

Arnold said he talks with computer science students about deeper questions like how to refine the definition of what it means to be human.

He theorizes there will be a day when technology will be able to perform any measurable task as good or even better than a human being can.

Whether it is collecting information, making a basketball shot or winning a race, there will be no measurable outcome technology could not complete as well as a human.

Still, he believes artificial intelligence will never be human, because it is not made in the image of God.

“We must not view humanity as a set of skills,” Arnold said. “Christians have a deep and rich sense of what it means to be human. We are created in God’s image, meaning we can love, feel and serve each other. We can do things that are good or sinful.”

He believes, for instance, people were created to care for others, not just offer an appearance of caring.

“We have reduced ourselves with an over-cognitive view of what it means to be human,” he said, “We must focus on the practice of what it means to be a believer. Doctrine is meant to be teaching in practice.”

GRAYSON, Ky. (BP)—An open forum discussion at First Baptist Church in Grayson, Ky., on a Wednesday night turned into an opportunity for young and older members to learn more about each other.

“I was teaching, and it was just a clunker,” Pastor Josh Schmidt said. “I said: ‘Let’s have an open forum discussion. What’s good and what’s not good at the church?’ One of the things the senior adults were concerned about was that they didn’t know anybody anymore.”

Schmidt said the church is growing, but it has been all from one demographic—under age 30. Many teachers and leaders from the high school attend church at Grayson and have invited students to come.

“The church has changed,” Schmidt said. “That (older) group is feeling left behind.”

Then came a suggestion from one of the senior adults: “What if we did like a speed-dating thing only with young people and old people?”

From that came the idea for one-on-one interviews between the under-25 and the over-25 age groups on a Wednesday night. It turned out to be so fruitful—with about 80 participating—they will continue doing it for the next six months, Schmidt said.

The groups gathered on a Wednesday night and “interviewed” each other. They had lists of questions to ask each other developed through the staff, the pastor said. Each person was to have three “interviews” with the other generation.

Getting to know you

Most of them were ice-breaker questions, but many of them went much deeper. One teenage girl accepted the Lord after meeting with an older woman in the church who held her hand during the entire interview.

“(Youth pastor) Cory (Jones) and I stayed until after 9 o’clock talking to the teenager,” Schmidt said. “We called that sweet older lady, and she was fired-up.”

Another teenager asked about baptism, and another revealed she was not a Christian but had questions. That was all unexpected fruit from the generational meeting, Schmidt said.

The pastor pumped up his senior adults to make sure they would be at the meeting, but the younger group was told what was going to happen after they arrived for a youth group meeting.

“People were kind of apprehensive at first—the teenagers more than the senior adults,” Schmidt said. “One of the things we were real intentional about was explaining why we were doing this. We both kind of started out our presentations the same way. Unless we do something tonight, the vast majority of these teens may never come back after graduating high school.”

Create intentional relationships

Schmidt said he read a report where 80 percent of teenagers never return to church after high school, but that number goes down drastically with intentional relationships, outside of parents.

He said the hope is to create some of those intentional relationships and before the start of school in the fall have a “spiritual adoption” where the senior adults “adopt” some of the teenagers and younger adults, within some guidelines (attending games, birthday parties, church events, etc.).

The pastor said the response was good from both groups after the first meeting. They will do one a month through the summer. Both sides reported talking about more than the suggested questions in their brief meetings with each other.

“The end game is to have both parties, older adults and younger adults, to rank their top five favorite interviews they did,” he said. “We would assign the younger people to older people, and hopefully they can have that meaningful relationship.”

Schmidt said mixing the age groups it is not a unique idea nor is it anything he came up with.

“This game organically from the church,” he said.

After posting on social media about what First Baptist Church in Grayson was doing, the response from other pastors and young church leaders was strong, with many asking Schmidt how to put it together.

PRINCETON—When Wes Brown planted a church on 16 acres of farmland in Collin County, there wasn’t much nearby but wide-open spaces.

Fifteen years later, houses are being built everywhere. The northern suburbs of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex are approaching the Cowboy Church of Collin County.

But the church, located a couple of miles south of Princeton, continues to thrive—proving, to Brown, what’s important isn’t so much the style but the message.

“People ask me, ‘What is a cowboy church?’” Brown said. “I just tell ‘em, ‘We’re a church that worships Jesus.’”

Cowboy Church of Collin County offers a laid-back Western heritage cultural vibe and an intentionally rural aesthetic. The church offers worship music with country and western flair, and many of the congregants come wearing hats, jeans and boots. Beyond Sunday services and other familiar church activities, the church offers opportunities to rope and ride.

For people who may not have been to church in many years, the Cowboy Church of Collin County offers a new beginning. Above all, the church offers Jesus.

 “The draw is lowering the barriers. It’s a more relaxed atmosphere. It’s a ‘come as you are’ deal,” said James “Mac” McLeod, western heritage consultant for Texas Baptists.

About 200 cowboy churches in Texas are affiliated with Texas Baptists, McLeod said. The cowboy church concept really took root and sprouted in the late 1990s, and the churches share a common mission: “Reaching people in the western culture with the gospel of Jesus Christ and providing a church home where they can grow.”

“Most cowboy churches are growing,” Brown said. “I think it’s the culture. Don’t get me wrong, there’s certainly a place for traditional church, absolutely. … But the cowboy church really extends its arms to those who’ve been detached from the church, for whatever reason.

“The cowboy church is almost a rebirth to them. It’s a new beginning, a new start for them—and people like that.”

‘Stay on mission’

McLeod sees a growing challenge in contexts like Collin County, with its rapid population growth and the corresponding shift from rural to suburban population. Like their urban and suburban cousins, some cowboy churches, he said, might soon need to consider revitalization to connect with their changing community.

“How are cowboy churches going to reach the communities they’re in, especially when the communities are becoming more suburban America?” McLeod asked. “You look at Collin County, and people are flooding in there like crazy—and they’re not cowboys. So, we have that same challenge of trying to stay on mission with why we started.”

Brown’s formula for growing Cowboy Church of Collin County always has revolved around being an active part of the community. He and other members of Cowboy Church are out in the community rather than waiting for people to come to them. They’re serving their communities, showing Christ’s love to others.

Brown believes as long as the church is connecting with people, it will continue to grow, regardless of how the community may change.

“It has to be personal,” Brown said. “You can’t just put a sign out there that says, ‘Y’all come’—which we do too! We say, ‘Come as you are, and invite people.’ But it has to be personal. You’re out meeting people, shaking hands, getting them to know you and trust you.”

Church members are involved in area civic events and organizations. Brown serves as chaplain for the Princeton police department. He regularly makes the rounds at feed stores and spends time in coffee shops.

“A pastor in today’s world and ministry, you have to get out of your box, out of your office,” Brown said. “You have to get out where the people are. I think that’s what Jesus did. He went to lunch with them. He was out among them. They saw him in town.

“For ministry to work today, you’ve got to be out among them.”

MACCLESFIELD, N.C. (BP)—First responders and members of a North Carolina church are being hailed as heroes after they helped pull a man to safety from a burning vehicle after the car’s driver crashed through the front of the church building on Wednesday, March 8.

Witnesses say the driver apparently lost consciousness and barreled through a stop sign at a T-intersection in front of Webbs Chapel Baptist Church in Macclesfield at approximately 4 p.m.

The vehicle slammed through the wall of a prayer room adjacent to the church’s foyer. Moments later, the car caught fire inside the building with the driver trapped inside.

No one was at the church at the time of the incident, but a passerby who stopped to assist was soon joined by the church’s pastor and other members who live near the church as news of the accident quickly spread.

Those initial people on the scene worked frantically to rescue the driver trapped inside while waiting for first responders to arrive. Their rescue efforts were complicated, however, by limited access to the vehicle and smoke that filled the room where the car was lodged.

Firefighters used a brush truck to pull the vehicle from the building which allowed a member of the N.C. Highway Patrol to pull the driver to safety through the passenger side door. Fire crews were then able to extinguish the flames on the vehicle and inside the church building.

The driver of the vehicle was treated at the scene and transported to a local hospital, where he remains hospitalized but is expected to make a full recovery.

The highway patrol officer who responded to the incident and pulled the driver from the car is also a member of the church, according to Pastor Stephen Duncan.

“They did some heroic things to save him,” said longtime church member Joesy Harrell, who was among the first people to arrive at the scene along with Duncan.

‘Crashed into a place of hope’

Duncan said he was able to pray with the driver before he was transported to the hospital by ambulance. The pastor visited him in the hospital the day after the crash and said he plans to continue to visit and minister to him.

“I told him that he crashed into a place of hope,” Duncan said. “We’re praying hard for him.”

After the crash, church leaders shifted that evening’s scheduled activities to the church’s family life center, where members came together to pray and process the events of the day.

Duncan said he shared from Haggai 2:9 with those who gathered, which says, “‘The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the LORD Almighty. ‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the LORD Almighty.”

“We know that God is going to use this,” Duncan said. “We are going to move forward and still do ministry. The gospel hasn’t been prevented from going forward because of this incident. I’m excited to see how God is going to turn this for his glory.”

The church will conduct worship services in the family life center for the foreseeable future, Duncan said. The accident completely destroyed the prayer room and caused extensive fire and smoke damage to the sanctuary. Although initial damage assessments have begun, the full extent of the damage, along with the cost and timeline for repairs, won’t be known for several more days, he said.

Duncan said he has been encouraged by the show of support he has received from the community, other churches and ministry leaders. He asked for ongoing prayers for the driver of the crash and for the church as it moves forward.

“We know God is going to be faithful,” Duncan said. “We are going to move forward.”

Chad Austin writes for Baptist State Convention of North Carolina Communications.


Herbert Brisbane of Fort Worth, a trailblazing African American Southern Baptist denominational leader in evangelism and church planting, died March 2. He was 68. He was born June 21, 1954, to Marjorie Tatum and Herbert Brisbane Sr. in Wichita Falls. He attended Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls on a basketball scholarship and was featured in Sports Illustrated in 1975 for his athletic accomplishments. He earned a Master of Divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. He served as associate director of the Baptist Student Union at Sam Houston State University and as director of the BSU at Texas Southern University. He was director of evangelism for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board before he joined the staff of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Home Mission Board, later the North American Mission Board, where he served in a series of roles—director of Black church evangelism, associate director of Black church extension and manager of multicultural evangelism. He was minister of missions and singles at Brentwood Baptist Church in Houston; director of pastoral care and evangelism at Antioch Baptist Church in Fairfax Station, Va.; and a chaplain at Baylor Scott & White in Grapevine. He most recently served on the ministerial staff at Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in Fort Worth. He was a trustee of the SBC International Mission Board from 2010 to 2013. He was the author of The Journey of Brokenness, published in 2017. Brisbane is survived by his wife of 45 years, Wanda; son Marlin and his wife Melissa; daughter Tennille Gavin and her husband Cedric; son Marcus and his wife Ruth; and five grandchildren.