NASHVILLE, Tenn.—For some pastors, the only construction projects they worry about are building renovations, but others say they’re facing churchgoers who are tearing down aspects of their faith.

A Lifeway Research study of U.S. Protestant pastors finds almost 3 in 4 (73 percent) are familiar with the concept of deconstruction, and more than a quarter (27 percent) of those say people in their churches have deconstructed their faith.

When asked how familiar they are with “the concept of an individual deconstructing their faith in which they systematically dissect and often reject Christian beliefs they grew up with,” 25 percent of pastors say they are very familiar, 21 percent say familiar and 27 percent say somewhat familiar.

While 12 percent say they’re not that familiar with the concept, 14 percent say they haven’t heard the term before, and 1 percent aren’t sure.

“In recent years, many Americans have stopped associating themselves with Christian churches,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research.

“While surveys have shown that many who don’t attend or claim to belong to a church still maintain many Christian beliefs, for a noticeable minority, the journey away from the Christian church begins with a change in beliefs.”

Age and education are key indicators of how knowledgeable a pastor may be about the concept. Younger pastors, those 18-44, are the most likely to say they’re very familiar with deconstruction (36 percent), while pastors 65 and older are the least likely to possess that same level of familiarity (12 percent).

Pastors with doctoral degrees are the education level most likely to be very familiar (43 percent), and those with no college degree are the least likely (8 percent). Pastors without a college degree are also the most likely to say they’ve never heard the term before (27 percent).

African American pastors (24 percent) are more likely than white pastors (13 percent) to say they’ve never heard of deconstruction before. Female pastors are twice as likely as male pastors (22 percent compared to 11 percent) to say they’re completely unfamiliar with the concept.

Pastors in the West (20 percent) are more likely than those in the Midwest (11 percent) to say they’re completely unaware of deconstruction.

Among pastors who are familiar with the concept of deconstruction, around a quarter say they’ve recently seen the effects in their congregations. More than 1 in 4 (27 percent) U.S. Protestant pastors who have heard the term before say they’ve had attendees of their church who have methodically deconstructed their faith in the past two years. Close to 7 in 10 (68 percent) say that hasn’t been the case for them. Another 5 percent aren’t sure.

“The use of the term ‘deconstruction’ emerged in the last few years and has been used both by those questioning their own beliefs and those desiring to help them find the truth,” said McConnell. “Despite the growing awareness among pastors, it may be easier to find people in the midst of deconstructing their faith on social media than within churches.”

Although much of the conversation surrounding deconstruction centers on experiences within evangelical churches, evangelical pastors who are familiar with the term are not likely to be familiar with it in their pews.

Evangelical pastors who have heard of deconstruction are more likely than their mainline counterparts to say they haven’t had churchgoers deconstruct their faith in the past two years (72 percent vs. 62 percent).

Denominationally, Baptist pastors (75 percent) are also more likely than those who are Presbyterian/Reformed (64 percent), Methodist (63 percent) or Restorationist Movement (55 percent) to say they haven’t seen deconstruction among attendees at their churches.

The deconstructionist trend also is less likely to be happening at smaller churches, at least according to their pastors who have heard of the term. Those at churches with worship service attendance of fewer than 50 are the least likely (16 percent) to say this has happened to one of their churchgoers in the past two years.

The phone survey of 1,000 Protestant pastors was conducted by Lifeway Research Sept. 1-29, 2021. Researchers weighted responses by region and church size to reflect the population more accurately. The completed sample is 1,000 surveys, providing 95 percent confidence the sampling error does not exceed plus or minus 3.2 percent. Margins of error are higher in sub-groups.

LA GRANGE, Ky. (BP)—Tony Rose says it’s unlikely he would have dialed 988—the new national Suicide and Crisis Lifeline he commends today—had it been around when he began battling depression as a young pastor 30 years ago.

“As most Christians and especially pastors going through depression, I still would have been very hesitant to call it,” he said, days after the new number was activated nationwide July 16.

“But knowing what I know now, I would be extremely grateful for it. I know the life-threatening nature of the suffocating darkness of depression,” said Rose, a retired pastor who counsels and coaches pastors as a Send Relief relational leadership trainer.

Jeremiah Johnston, associate pastor of apologetics and cultural engagement at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Dallas, commends the new 988 number for its ease of use. He knows the importance of quick memory in crisis situations, augmented by the night he called 911 and couldn’t remember his home address.

“Abel, our firstborn triplet, was having trouble breathing. We got on the phone with our pediatrician. It was the middle of the night. We were worried he had COVID. He couldn’t breathe. We put him in the shower,” Johnston recalled.

“And even with that intervention he still was unable to breathe. I pick up the phone. I dial 911. And they ask me for my address, even though I’m calling from my cellphone, and I was blanking. What is my home address? And I’ve lived here for five years.

“It was in the middle of the night. These crises happen,” Johnston said. “And when someone is in immediate danger of hurting themselves or harming themselves, we need a 911. I could remember 911 when I was having a challenge with my little guy—I think he was 5 years old—but I couldn’t remember my home address.”

Pastors urged to become familiar with 988

Dialing or texting 988 automatically connects callers to the National Suicide Prevention lifeline network of services with greater ease than dialing the traditional 1-800-273-8255, which still works. Callers are connected with a Lifeline counselor at the crisis center geographically closest among a network of 200, according to 988lifeline.org.

Both Rose and Johnston encourage pastors to be familiar with the 988 number and the services it provides in locations across the nation. The number should be the first reference before calling police, who are not always trained in handling mental health emergencies, Rose said.

“Though, most of the time they do a great job, they’re not trained for this,” he said of police officers. “Now that we have this, [people in crisis] will get directly connected to somebody equipped to deal with it on the phone. And as is often the case in mental illness and crises, a telephone call and a contact can be the difference in life and death.”

988 is a government-driven initiative Johnston affirms. He encourages the number’s widespread use.

“I want to encourage believers. We should all save this number in our contacts as the 988 suicide prevention line. We should literally have it saved in our contacts of our phone,” Johnston said. “It’s so helpful to me, because I’m out there, and I speak on the frontlines as an apologist, as a pastor and Christian thinker. And so many people don’t even know who to call for help. And so they get paralyzed with silence or a question.”

Johnston has called the number to familiarize himself with the service, and encourages others to do the same.

“These individuals on the other ends of the phones are saints,” he said. “And they would love to simply advise you” on the services available when someone needs to be referred, he added.

Rose encourages pastors not to hesitate in using the service for personal edification. The 63-year-old was 32 when he first sought help, he said, and long has advocated for mental health care.

“I mean, who does the pastor really want to talk to about his own depression? That’s one of the dilemmas we still face, is the taboos that go with it,” he said. “And I thought once I went through it, it would be over with. It’s been my constant off-and-on companion since then.

“It’s been the harshest thing I’ve been through, but sometimes God’s harshest teachers are his best teachers.”

ANADARKO, Okla. (BP)—Mike Keahbone, pastor of First Baptist Church in Lawton, Okla., not only played a crucial role in drafting a Southern Baptist Convention-approved resolution decrying the forced conversion of Native peoples, but also has begun using the resolution as a way to minister to survivors.

Keahbone, a Native American with heritage from the Comanche, Kiowa and Cherokee tribes, served on this year’s SBC Resolutions Committee and helped write the resolution titled, “On Religious Liberty, Forced Conversion, and the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report,” which was adopted by SBC messengers in June.

Keahbone read the resolution from the platform at a “Road to Healing” tour event on July 9, sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Interior in conjunction with the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, who attended the event, is the first Indigenous person to serve in a presidential cabinet position.

The tour, a response to a recently released federal report documenting the forced assimilation and conversion of Native Americans, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians in the United States between 1819 and 1969, kicked off at Riverside Indian School in Anadarko, Okla. According to media reports, it is believed to be the oldest boarding school in Oklahoma, opening in 1871.

Keahbone said around 75 percent of the boarding schools mentioned in the federal report were located in Oklahoma. So, as an Oklahoma pastor, he felt led to attend the Road to Healing event, an opportunity for past victims of mistreatment in the boarding schools to tell their stories in an open-mic time.

The accounts shared at the event included one from a survivor who recalled being checked in and immediately taken to a church and forced to ask God for forgiveness for being Native American.

SBC ‘standing with Native peoples’

Keahbone said he didn’t even realize any of the survivors of the abuse were still living and described what he heard as “soul-crushing but very healing.”

“The powerful thing in that moment was I got to stand up and share this resolution and to say that Southern Baptists, the largest Protestant denomination in the country, is standing with Native peoples,” he said.

“The language in the resolution was so powerful in saying we stand against these things that hurt you, and we stand for the things that will help you.

“We’re the first denomination that I know to recognize this report and say: ‘We love you. We’re on your side. And we’re praying for you.’ I could see it in people’s faces, and I had a few people come talk to me about it after the event.”

For Keahbone, the report and the stories are personal. His great uncle, a Comanche tribe member named Perry Noyobad, lived in one of the boarding schools and was subjected to abuse such as punishment for speaking his native language.

Noyobad would later use that same language as a World War II code talker, helping the Allies communicate messages without fear of interception.

Keahbone said when his uncle was asked why he would serve his country in this way, he would say he was not fighting for what America was at the time, but for what he believed America could be.

The federal report released in May is the first volume of a full investigation carried out by the Bureau of Indian Affairs within the Department of the Interior. Titled “Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report,” the report said Native peoples were targeted with these efforts of forced conversion and assimilation in order to remove them systematically from their native lands.

The instances of forced conversion or assimilation often took place in the form of mandatory boarding schools. Although Southern Baptists are not specifically named in the report, it does say many of these boarding schools were run with the help of churches from various denominations.

‘Gross, ugly and  … personal’

The report was the inspiration for the resolution Keahbone wrote with fellow pastors J.T. English from Storyline Fellowship in Arvada, Colo., and Jon Nelson of Soma Community Church in Jefferson City, Mo.

“I read all 95 pages of the report, and my initial response was filled with anger and sadness, because it was starting to fill in the information gaps that I had lived with my entire life,” Keahbone said.

“I learned that some of my family members were just treated like wild animals, and they were simply stuck in survival mode. It was gross, ugly, and it started to become personal.”

The resolution he helped craft rejects any type of forced conversion or assimilation of Native peoples as antithetical to Southern Baptist beliefs about the Great Commission, religious liberty and soul freedom.

“I had never drafted a resolution in my life, and I had never even been to an SBC annual meeting in person before this year, but I really felt like this was an important thing for us to recognize,” Keahbone said.

“Bart Barber (chair of the 2022 Resolutions Committee) read every page of the report and got back with me and said we need to do something with this. Everybody on the committee was so supportive of the resolution and agreed it needed to be addressed. They allowed me to be the one to present it, and the response from the convention was overwhelming, awesome and did a lot of good for my heart.”

When thinking about his own service to Southern Baptists, both as a pastor and as a member of the SBC Executive Committee, Keahbone remembers his uncle’s philosophy, as well as the impact Southern Baptist ministry has had on his own life.

He recalls the way Southern Baptists ministered to him as a young boy growing up in the Comanche tribe, and he explained his first exposure to Christianity and the church was through Vacation Bible School at First Baptist Church Elgin, Okla.

At VBS, he experienced “safety, kindness and love,” he said. This gospel impact still drives him as he serves Southern Baptists, both for who they are and who they could be.

“I understand the impact of the gospel in my life, and I was introduced to that gospel through some godly and amazing, wonderful Christian people at First Baptist Church Elgin,” Keahbone said.

“They became a family to me, and I became a part of something, and I didn’t really realize it. All I knew was through these people I learned that God was real. I’ve just seen the Lord work too much and too often in my life to just give up on our convention. I just believe it’s worth fighting for.

“Amidst all the ugliness that we see, we are still people who proclaim the gospel, and we take the gospel all over the world. The Lord’s hand is on us, and he’s not done with us yet.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—The earliest known depiction of biblical heroines Jael and Deborah was discovered at an ancient synagogue in Israel, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill announced.

A rendering of one figure driving a stake through the head of a military general was the initial clue that led the team to identify the figures, according to project director Jodi Magness.

“This is extremely rare,” said Magness, an archaeologist and religion professor at UNC-Chapel Hill. “I don’t know of any other ancient depictions of these heroines.”

The nearly 1,600-year-old mosaics were uncovered by a team of students and specialists as part of The Huqoq Excavation Project, which resumed its 10th season of excavations this summer at a synagogue in the ancient Jewish village of Huqoq in Lower Galilee.

Mosaics were first discovered at the site in 2012, and Magness said the synagogue, which dates to the late fourth or early fifth century, is “unusually large and richly decorated.” In addition to its extensive, relatively well-preserved mosaics, the site is adorned with wall paintings and carved architecture.

The fourth chapter of the Book of Judges tells the story of Deborah, a judge and prophet who conquered the Canaanite army alongside Israelite general Barak. After the victory, the passage says, the Canaanite commander Sisera fled to the tent of Jael, where she drove a tent peg into his temple and killed him.

The newly discovered mosaic panels depicting the heroines are made of local cut stone from Galilee and were found on the floor on the south end of the synagogue’s west aisle. The mosaic is divided into three sections, one with Deborah seated under a palm tree looking at Barak, a second with what appears to be Sisera seated and a third with Jael hammering a peg into a bleeding Sisera.

Magness said it’s impossible to know why this rare image was included but noted that additional mosaics depicting events from the Book of Judges, including renderings of Sampson, are on the south end of the synagogue’s east aisle.

According to the UNC-Chapel Hill press release, the events surrounding Jael and Deborah might have taken place in the same geographical region as Huqoq, providing at least one possible reason for the mosaic.

“The value of our discoveries, the value of archaeology, is that it helps fill in the gaps in our information about, in this case, Jews and Judaism in this particular period,” Magness explained. “It shows that there was a very rich and diverse range of views among Jews.”

Magness said rabbinic literature doesn’t include descriptions about figure decoration in synagogues—so the world would never know about these visual embellishments without archaeology.

“Judaism was dynamic through late antiquity. Never was Judaism monolithic,” said Magness. “There’s always been a wide range of Jewish practices, and I think that’s partly what we see.”

These groundbreaking mosaics have been removed from the synagogue for conservation, but Magness hopes to return soon to make additional discoveries. The Huqoq Excavation Project, sponsored by UNC-Chapel Hill, Austin College, Baylor University, Brigham Young University and the University of Toronto, paused in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic and is scheduled to resume next summer.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—Global Christians can learn lessons from South Africa’s struggle to dismantle apartheid—including what South Africa still has failed to accomplish, activist Allan Boesak told the Baptist World Alliance annual gathering.

“A revolution that does not make room for reconciliation is an incomplete revolution,” said Boesak, a Reformed minister who was instrumental in forming the United Democratic Front.

He delivered the keynote address and also participated in a panel with Randall Woodfin, mayor of Birmingham, Ala., and Andrew Westmoreland, president emeritus of Samford University at the BWA annual meeting.

“There is a witness to be borne,” Boesak said. “I have seen and shared the suffering of my people under apartheid. In their cries, I have heard the voice of God.”

“Reparation and restoration” are essential to achieve “reconciliation that is real, radical and revolutionary,” he said.

The ‘heresy’ of white supremacy

Boesak described the principles that provided the foundation for apartheid as “heresy” and a “pseudo-gospel,” because white South Africans saw themselves—and only themselves—as bearing the image of God.

An idolatrous understanding of white identity prevents those who accept it from seeing their own sinfulness and need for forgiveness, he said.

“It is so hard for white people to ask forgiveness, because the sacralization of white supremacy means that white people have turned themselves into God,” Boesak said.

Following that line of thinking, he continued, if white people are God, then nonwhite people could not possibly be their equals.

“If we are not equal, reconciliation is not possible,” he said. And without reconciliation, “healing and wholeness are not possible.”

Christians in South Africa who resisted apartheid grew to “understand racism in its historical, structural, systemic dimensions and manifestations,” he said.

“Dealing with racism means dealing with power relations and with domination, subjugation and exploitation,” Boesak said.

In time, the anti-apartheid movement came to understand race as “no more than a social construct designed for political control, psychological manipulation and social engineering,” he said.

‘Fight for the freedom of those who oppress us’

As the prophetic church in South Africa grew in its understanding of the image of God, it also became more committed to seeing how whites needed emancipation from the bonds of racism that shackled them, he said.

“We cannot fight only for ourselves,” Boesak said. “Our revolution is only complete if we fight for the freedom of those who oppress us, as well.”

He insisted healing and reconciliation cannot be achieved unless the oppressor acknowledges his guilt and takes steps to repair the damage caused by oppression.

Boesak pointed to the story of Zacchaeus in Luke’s Gospel as a model for reconciliation that is “real, radical and revolutionary.”

When the little Jewish tax collector who worked for Rome encountered Jesus and hosted him in his house, he acknowledged to Jesus his guilt and the rights of his victims to restitution, Boesak noted.

When Zacchaeus offered to pay back four times what he had taken from others, he essentially was removing himself from the position his wealth provided him and placing himself on the level of those he oppressed.

“There is no reconciliation without equality,” Boesak said.

When Zacchaeus pledged to make reparations to those he abused and oppressed, “it was not only a pivotal moment; it was a transformational moment,” Boesak said.

Jesus said: “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham.”

Jesus was declaring that by making reparations, not only was Zacchaeus restored to the covenant community, but also his household was released from the curse of generational guilt, Boesak said.

‘When we say Jesus, we say justice’

During the session in which he appeared on a panel with Woodfin and Westmoreland, Boesak described how he left the pulpit of a South African Dutch Reformed church to enter public service at the invitation of Nelson Mandela.

In addition to Mandela’s powers of persuasion and the opportunity to help turn what he had been preaching about into reality, Boesak said, he “read the Bible”—noting particularly the examples of the Old Testament prophets.

“You’re not a preacher until you take what you say in the pulpit out into the streets,” he said.

Most of all, he grew to see he could carry out the command to “seek justice” by entering public service, and in doing that, he was following Jesus.

“When we say Jesus, we say justice. When we say justice, we say Jesus,” Boesak said. “The more we say Jesus, the more we have to say justice. The more we have to say justice, the more we have to say Jesus.”

The Baptist World Alliance general council condemned the “unprovoked and unjustified” Russian invasion of Ukraine and the military coup in Myanmar that has led to “a campaign of terror and violence.”

At its annual gathering in Birmingham, Ala., the BWA general council adopted resolutions calling for “peace with justice” in Ukraine and “the establishment of a true democracy that respects the rights of religious and ethnic minorities” in Myanmar.

Calling for ‘peace with justice’ in Ukraine

The resolution on Ukraine states the BWA general council is “horrified by the huge loss of life, especially the targeting of civilians, and the destruction of property and infrastructure—including the wanton destruction of undefended houses of worship—that has resulted from indiscriminate Russian attacks on Ukraine’s cities, towns and countryside.”

It expresses grief for soldiers—both Ukrainian and Russian—who have been killed or injured, and it laments the more than 14 million people who have been displaced forcibly from their homes.

The resolution voices concern about the “ongoing restrictions on freedom of religion or belief occurring in Russian-held territories of Ukraine,” and it “rejects the nationalist ideology in Russia that has led to its aggressive action in Ukraine and its threats to other neighboring states.”

At the same time, it commends those religious leaders and others in Russian “who have condemned their country’s war in Ukraine as contrary to the values of the gospel.”

It calls on the European Union, G7 and other intergovernmental entities “to redouble their efforts to support Ukraine” and voices support for “a peaceful resolution to this war.”

However, it insists “it must be a peace with justice and that this must include the restoration of all pre-2014 Ukrainian territory and reparations made for war damage.”

The resolution states the BWA general council “prays that all who are concerned about truth today will be given the grace to be courageous in standing up for what is right and condemning the suffering and injustice caused by this war and the expansionist nationalist ideology that gave rise to it.”

The resolution commends the Ukrainian Baptist Union and other Christian groups in neighboring countries “for their generous hospitality, humanitarian aid and spiritual help for refugees, supported by the European Baptist Federation, the Baptist World Alliance Forum for Aid and Development, and the generosity of the global Baptist family.”

Finally, the resolution “assures the leadership, pastors and churches of the Baptist union in Ukraine of the continuing solidarity, support in prayer, practical help, and giving of the global Baptist family in all that they are dealing with in this time of war.”

“With them, the global Baptist family, trusting in God’s promises, looks to a time when ‘war will be no more’ and true peace and reconciliation between nations can prevail,” the resolution states.

Condemning the military coup in Myanmar

The resolution on Myanmar condemns the Burmese military—the Tatmadaw—and the State Administration Council junta for dismantling civil and religious freedoms after the February 2021 coup.

“Since the coup, the military has terrorized communities in Kachin, Karen, Kayah State, Chin State and Sagaing Region by burning villages, destroying churches, and detaining pastors and religious leaders,” the resolution states.

The resolution offers support for “the November 2021 call of the United Nations Security Council for an immediate end to the violence” and prayers for “Baptists and other Christians ministering in persecuted communities and among displaced persons.”

The BWA general council also:

• Presented the Denton and Janice Lotz Human Rights Award to global peace activist and justice advocate Daniel L. Buttry, global consultant with International Ministries of the American Baptist Churches.
• Accepted the application of membership from the Missionary Baptist Conference, USA.
• Elected Samuel C. Tolbert, president of the National Baptist Convention of America, as a vice president.
• Inducted Emmanuel McCall, who worked for the Southern Baptist Convention Home Mission Board and served as national moderator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, to the General Secretary’s Leadership Council.
• Approved a change to the bylaws and considered for approval next year changes to the constitution that would alter language regarding membership in BWA and ministry partnership with BWA.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—The Baptist World Alliance general council adopted resolutions that denounce racism as “a sin against humanity and God” and call for reparations for chattel slavery.

At its annual meeting in Birmingham, Ala.,—a city known decades ago for racist attacks on Black churches but currently led by a Black mayor—the BWA general council called for “restorative racial justice” that requires “individual and corporate repentance, lament, and recognition of wrongs done and suffering imposed on oppressed people.”

The general council approved without opposition the resolution on “Restorative Racial Justice and Flourishing Freedom,” urging BWA member bodies and ministries to identify ways to “lament, repent, reconcile, and transform individuals and structures; speak out against all forms of prejudice; and engage in theological reflection, dialogue and advocacy concerning restorative racial justice.”

Recognizing the broad scope of racism, the resolution states, “There are countless examples of racial prejudice on every continent, including the mistreatment of Indigenous people and their land.”

It encourages Baptist conventions, unions, mission agencies, churches and agencies “to refrain from participating in racially oppressive systems and to exercise their prophetic responsibility.”

‘Repair the damage’

The resolution on “Slavery Reparations” acknowledges “important local, national and global conversations about chattel slavery, its enduring generational impacts, and the possibilities of reparations to repair the damage for wealth stolen from centuries of forced labor.”

It “laments that many Baptist clergy, laypersons, churches and institutions supported chattel slavery with spurious theological claims and/or enriched themselves from the trans-Atlantic slave trade and/or enslavement of their fellow humans.”

The resolution recognizes the continuing “economic, political, psychological and spiritual impacts of chattel slavery,” and noted that enslavers—rather than enslaved individuals—received reparations after emancipation.

Biblical basis for reparations

It notes both biblical and historical examples of reparations in response to unjust situations. The resolution specifically mentions a half-dozen references to reparations in the Old Testament—in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, 2 Samuel, Proverbs and Ezekiel—as well as the New Testament story of Zacchaeus in the Gospel of Luke.

It also points to the commands in the Torah regarding the sabbath year and year of Jubilee, noting the Law “included freeing persons from bondage (with payment) instead of creating a system of lifelong, hereditary enslavement.”

Several members of the general council spoke to that aspect of the motion, pointing to the need for Baptists to develop a more thorough theological examination of reparations and the concept of Jubilee.

The BWA resolution “calls on older Baptist churches, colleges, unions and other institutions to thoroughly study their own history and publicly acknowledge institutional  and leadership ties to chattel slavery, and then explore ways to repair the damage from previous support for and profiting from slavery.”

No need to wait ‘for government to lead the way’

Initially, the resolution committee recommended language saying BWA “encourages” those entities to study their history, acknowledge ties to slavery and explore reparations. However one member of the general council suggested the language was not strong enough and proposed an amendment changing “encourages” to “calls on.” The amendment passed.

The resolution also urges “Baptist individuals and institutions to participate in reparation conversations in their own communities and national governments.”

One general council member asked how much the reparations would be, to whom they would be paid and whether the payment would be a one-time grant or an ongoing series of payments.

Resolutions Committee Chair Brian Kaylor, editor of Word & Way in Missouri, said the resolution purposely did not endorse any specific reparation plan, but instead called on Baptists to determine the best approach in their own contexts.

“We don’t need to wait for government to lead the way,” Kaylor said. Rather, Baptists can lead by example, exploring their own institutional histories and developing their own plans to repair the damage done, he explained.

The resolution on reparations passed with 84 percent voting in favor, 7 percent voting against and 9 percent abstaining.

‘An issue of right and wrong’

Racial injustice should make Christ’s church angry, Pastor John K. Jenkins Sr. from First Baptist Church in Gardendale, Md., told a worship service held during the BWA annual gathering.

While politicians, pundits and entertainers have spoken against racist systems, churches—particularly predominantly white churches—“remained shockingly silent,” he said.

“This is not an issue of white and black. This is an issue of right and wrong,” Jenkins said.

He challenged Christians to heed the call of Psalm 106:3 to “uphold justice” and “do righteousness.”

Speaking at a luncheon sponsored by Baptist World Aid, Mueni Mutinda discussed “decolonizing aid” as “a matter of justice.”

Mutinda, public policy adviser on climate change at Canadian Foodgrains Bank, said, “The church has played a major role in the colonial project.”

“The history we have inherited is not our fault, but it is absolutely our responsibility,” she said.

Mutinda challenged Christian aid organizations to consider how classifying and categorizing people groups and countries continues to perpetuate divisions and power dynamics that foster inequality. She urged Christians to “reimagine an alternative future” with “our identity in Christ” as the defining characteristic rather than race or class.

‘A Call to Live in Flourishing Freedom’

Prior to the annual gathering, the BWA Executive Committee approved a 38-page theological document submitted by its racial justice action group, “Restorative Racial Justice: A Call to Live in Flourishing Freedom.”

The “ancient sin” of grasping as one’s own what belongs to others often has been “aided by the sinful lie of racism—to posit one’s self or one’s group as if it is inherently superior,” the document approved by the BWA Executive Committee states.

“The gospel of Jesus redeems us from the sinful chains of inherent superiority for the freedom of inherent co-dignity in the image of God that receives its ultimate expression in ‘every nation, tribe, people and language standing before the throne and before the Lamb’ in the fullness of worship and equality,” the document states.

“Crucially, this freedom is not the eradication of those elements that have most often contributed to racism—nation, tribe, people or language—but the celebration of this beautiful diversity of co-dignity in equality.

“To live with this vision of flourishing freedom requires repentance, reorientation, restoration and the pursuit of just righteousness. In doing so, it sets both the captor and captive free.”

The document notes multiple resolutions and other statements by BWA throughout its history, but it also acknowledges “the desired outcome of the eradication of racism and racial prejudice has not been realized.”

The BWA Executive Committee approved a series of “racial justice convictions, commitments and actions.”

It includes a statement in which BWA confesses:

• “Its complicity, knowingly or unknowingly, in the perpetuation of racial injustice through its administrative and organizational structure.”
• “Its failure to follow up deliberately and systematically in a sustained way on its commitment to join the struggle against ethnic conflict and engage in efforts to eradicate racism wherever it emerges.”
• “Its sin of commission, omission and collusion by way of corporate responsibility with Baptists (conventions, unions, mission agencies, churches, members) who historically might have actively participated in racialized oppressive schemes, systems, structures, and operations and failed to exercise their prophetic responsibility by speaking truth to power and advocating for the liberation of God’s people guided by the kingdom value of gospel truth and flourishing freedom.”

In the document, BWA pledges to “conduct its own inventory to see if it has contributed in any way by commission or omission to racial injustice” and “as appropriate, identify ways to lament, repent, reconcile and transform structures that can make a lasting impact on BWA operations and ministry.”

Among other actions, BWA pledged to seek to develop resources and encourage the global Baptist family to inventory their resources to support efforts of restorative racial justice around the world and commit $100,000 to “empower restorative justice engagement within and by our BWA family.”

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—Since their last in-person meeting, the Baptist World Alliance and its member bodies have responded to a global pandemic, religious persecution, civil unrest and war, the international fellowship’s CEO said.

The challenges Baptists across the globe encounter “are too big for any one of us to face alone,” General Secretary Elijah Brown told the BWA annual meeting in Birmingham, Ala.

“Global challenges require a global church,” he said.

According to a vulnerability index BWA developed, one of four Baptists worldwide face persecution, war, violence and hunger, Brown said in his report to the assembly.

About 13.5 million Baptists live and minister in the most vulnerable contexts, he noted.

Responding to global pandemic

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2022 meeting marked the first in-person BWA annual meeting in three years. This year’s meeting in Birmingham drew 400 in-person attendees and about 100 registrants who participated online.

COVID-19 claimed the lives of at least 1,411 Baptist pastors, and Africa accounted for more deaths than any other region, Brown noted.

A survey of BWA members revealed more than half (53 percent of respondents) said one of the greatest challenges their churches faced was restrictions in gathering, and nearly half (48 percent) named financial challenges.

In terms of needs in their nations and local communities, 57 percent listed joblessness, 42 cited depression and mental health issues, and 37 cited social tensions the pandemic brought to the surface.

Crisis prompts creativity and innovation

In spite of the challenges the pandemic presented, churches and Baptist unions ministered in innovative ways, Brown noted.

“God uses crises as a crucible for Holy Spirit creativity,” he said.

The 22nd Baptist World Congress, which became a virtual event due to the pandemic, drew 4,600 registrants from three-fourths of the nations in the world and at least one participant from every BWA member body.

“It was the most globally diverse gathering in the history of BWA,” Brown said, adding it likely was the most diverse assembly in the 400-year history of Baptists.

The BWA World Congress featured 100 hours of virtual content provided by 350 contributors from 70 countries, Brown said.

A century after BWA provided its first emergency grants in response to what was then called the Spanish Flu, the alliance distributed 132 emergency aid grants to 82 countries, Brown reported.

In 2021, Baptist World Aid distributed $521,780 for 47 projects in 29 countries, making a difference in the lives of more than 219,000 people, he said.

Coup in Myanmar, war in Ukraine

In terms of social unrest, Brown particularly noted the February 2021 coup in Myanmar that led to extreme religious persecution and the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Vernette Myint Myint San, a Baptist physician, presented a devotional at a worship service prior to the session when Brown delivered his report. She described how the coup led to “crimes against humanity,” including torture, indiscriminate killing and the destruction of entire villages by the military.

She described the need to hold accountable those who commit atrocities, but to do so with the goal of restorative—rather than punitive—justice.

“The cross is the model and the framework for restorative justice” that “makes room for the recognition of wrongdoing, for repentance and for reconciliation,” she said.

Igor Bandura, a leader of the Ukrainian Baptist Union, said at least 400 Baptist churches in Ukraine are in what is now territory occupied by Russian forces, where there is no real religious liberty.

While he praised the Ukrainian soldiers who are fighting to protect their homeland and preserve freedom, he said the church’s role is to “fight spiritual battles.”

“We must keep our hearts from being hardened by hatred,” he said. “We don’t want to become like our enemies.”

Brown reported the global Baptist family contributed $4 million for relief within Ukraine and for ministry to refugees who have fled their homeland. One million displaced Ukrainians have been served by BWA member bodies and their churches, he said.

Alan Donaldson, general secretary of the European Baptist Federation, said when the invasion of Ukraine occurred, “The church awoke from its COVID slumber.”

Baptist church members in countries surrounding Ukraine who had been practicing social distancing for two years greeted refugees “with hugs, tears and smiles of unmasked faces,” Donaldson said.

During the BWA annual meeting, which ends July 15, the BWA general council will consider resolutions related to Myanmar and Ukraine, as well as racial justice and reparations for chattel slavery.

DALLAS (BP)—A $100,000 inflation relief fund for Baptist General Convention of Texas pastors was depleted within 24 hours of its availability, the BGCT announced July 13 as inflation reached its highest point in decades at 9.1 percent.

Two hundred pastors received grants averaging $500 each in the program announced July 11 and financed through a Lilly Endowment fund not available in other states, said Tammy Tervooren, a contracted grant administrator with the financial health team of the Texas Baptists Center for Ministerial Health.

“I don’t think we were surprised. It did go really quickly,” she said. “We’ve been working several years now with pastors, and we kind of had seen this coming. If you lay out a map, you see it’s been a struggle for pastors already.

“Pastors aren’t in it for the money. They do it because they’re called. They were already stretched pretty thin, a lot of them. (Inflation) is not helping. It’s kind of exacerbated.”

BGCT Treasurer and CFO Ward Hayes announced the grants July 11, and they were all gone by the 12th.

“Helping our pastors stay strong spiritually, emotionally, financially and in all ways remains a high priority for Texas Baptists,” Hayes said in announcing the grant. “That we are able to offer this grant at this time is a tremendous blessing.”

Pastors are impacted by the Consumer Price Index that increased 9.1 percent in June, exceeding the 8.8 percent increase Dow Jones estimated, CNBC reported July 13.

Some pastors struggling financially

Grants were awarded to pastors from a broad range of churches demographically, Tervooren said, including pastors leading large and small churches in urban and rural areas. Grant recipients were not available for comment, but Tervooren said pastors most commonly said they had trouble buying groceries and affording gas, especially to make hospital visits that can be 30 miles or more away in rural areas.

Pastors have been compensating by working part-time jobs in addition to fulltime pastorates, increasing household income by wives working, minimizing travel and hospital visits, reducing grocery purchases and even donating plasma twice weekly for compensation.

“These pastors, … they’re giving everything they have, their whole lives to the church,” Tervooren said. “And I think we should be generous to our pastors, as generous as we can. If the church can do more, then they should do everything they can for the pastor, everything possible.”

BGCT has participated in the Lilly Endowment grant program since 2018. While the grant expires in 2022, Tervooren said the BCGT hopes to receive a grant extension, especially to continue its financial education program helping pastors and churches manage budgets and compensation packages.

“Our hope and prayer is there will be a fund of some sort to help pastors,” she said. Pastors are frequently paid wages that make it difficult to manage financially, BGCT financial counselors have learned.

Among BGCT pastors only 59 percent of pastors receive a housing allowance, only 37 percent receive cash allowances for personal expenses, 36 percent receive a retirement plan or pension and 34 percent receive health insurance, Tervooren said the BGCT learned in a 2018 survey.

Rising inflation coupled with supply chain delays makes a recession more likely, according to financial analysts.

NASHVILLE (BP)—Churches and their members have essential roles to play in helping women and preborn children in a post-Roe world, Christians involved in pro-life ministry say.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 24 reversal of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision has given states the authority to put into effect abortion bans for the first time in almost 50 years. Nearly half of the states already have laws prohibiting abortion either throughout pregnancy or at some stage of pregnancy, although courts have blocked enforcement of some.

In states with abortion bans, the change in the legal landscape has placed a renewed focus on pro-life work—and on the ministry of the local church, Christian pro-life advocates said.

“What we want to see is the church is the first place that [a woman with an unplanned pregnancy] goes, that she feels that love and that compassion, that she feels that the church is going to be a refuge for her,” said Elizabeth Graham, vice president of operations and life initiatives for the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.

Her comments came during a June 13 panel discussion about the future of the pro-life movement that took place on the eve of the SBC’s annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif., and before the overruling of Roe.

Churches can offer community, support

Rick Morton, vice president of engagement for Lifeline Children’s Services, said: “We love crisis pregnancy centers [and] believe that there’s great necessity [in them]. And we believe in the church. We believe that ultimately the place that those women need—they need to be discipled, they need to be surrounded by community—is in the local church.”

Lifeline has prepared discipleship resources to provide churches with “the building blocks” to engage in ministering for the long term to women with unplanned pregnancies, Morton said.

Even before the Supreme Court overturned Roe, churches were asking how they could serve after a draft opinion annulling the 1973 decision was leaked in early May.

Churches reached out to Lifeline after the leak to say: “We are recognizing that we need to do more. And so, can you help us learn how to do more? Can you help us figure out ways that we can get engaged?” said Chris Johnson, the ministry’s national director of church partnerships.

Lifeline’s work includes pregnancy counseling, adoption and family restoration in the United States, with offices in 16 states. The 41-year-old ministry, based in Birmingham, Ala., offers international adoption in 18 countries.

Beginning, not the end

In some ways, this is “a beginning” and “not an end,” Morton said. “Maybe some of the hope out of this actually is that there are people that are rethinking and reframing the issue in their own mind, and maybe some folks that haven’t been as active and haven’t really related their pursuit of Christ and the gospel to this issue.”

It may be “a beginning point” for such Christians to say, “I’ll begin to get in and minister to women in crisis, to minister to those women and their unborn children, adoptive families,” he said. “I think there are all kinds of people that potentially God’s using this just to wake the church up.”

Sometimes that ministry is simple and practical, said Lori Bova, who has participated in pro-life work for more than two decades.

“I have learned that creating a culture of life often looks like meeting needs—driving women to appointments, buying diapers and wipes, providing childcare, etc.,” said Bova, chair of the ERLC trustees and a member of a Southern Baptist church in New Mexico. “We have a Savior who came to serve. It should be no surprise that this is our best means to change hearts and minds toward life, and ultimately the gospel.”

Address ‘systemic drivers’ of abortion

Churches can seek to address the “systemic drivers” that pregnant women often say push them to choose abortion, including the need for affordable housing and childcare, as well as a sufficient salary, Graham said. Church members can provide childcare, help women find jobs, volunteer with need-meeting programs and open their homes to pregnant women to offer a “continuum of care” for the long term, she said.

“We just need to connect with her, help her to feel safe, help her to know that she has other options and to walk alongside her,” Graham said. “These women know that the decision that they’ve made is a sin against God, but we can be there to show them compassion and grace and the cross.”

Herbie Newell, Lifeline’s president, said churches need to be “long-suffering and patient” and “lean in on” God’s call to disciple women and children, “walking with them through the long term and being the place where women and children find help, healing and rescue. And that’s in the arms of the gospel and Christ Jesus.”

“One of the greatest things the church can do is to be a resource of social capital to a woman in crisis,” he said. “The truth of the matter is most of these women have nowhere to turn in their darkest hour and their need. And there need to be churches that they can turn to and that will be there and will do the hard and will do the messy.”

Partner with pregnancy resource centers

Churches can partner with gospel-focused pregnancy resource centers in serving vulnerable women, pro-life advocates said.

The centers form the “front line in this battle,” Carol Everett said in a phone interview. “I would really like to see the Baptist church come to the forefront and every church get involved with a pregnancy resource center. That doesn’t mean they have to start one. They can get involved with their local one, and then they can have volunteers in there that serve as local missionaries. It’s a wonderful place for us to act as missionaries without going to a foreign mission field.”

The Heidi Group, which Everett founded in 1995, is working to open pregnancy resource centers in unserved locations, such as the 21 counties in Central Texas and West Texas without one, said Everett, a member of a Southern Baptist church.

Pregnancy resource centers in Texas already have experienced what ministry will be like when abortion is prohibited during much of pregnancy. The state’s ban on abortion when a preborn child’s heartbeat can be detected—as early as five to six weeks into pregnancy—took effect in September 2021.

That ban produced an increase of 50 percent “in girls and women walking through the doors of our pregnancy centers in Texas, almost across the board” and eventually up to 90 percent in some cities, Everett said. Now that Roe has been reversed and “people start thinking that [abortion is] wrong, we expect another rush,” she said.

Provide ultrasound tech to centers

One way Southern Baptists have supported the work of pregnancy resource centers is through the Psalm 139 Project, the ERLC’s ministry to help provide ultrasound technology to pregnancy centers and train staff members in its use.

The ERLC has nearly reached its goal of 50 ultrasound placements between December 2020 and January 2023, which would have been the 50th anniversary of the Roe ruling had it not been overturned.

The Psalm 139 Project has 49 machines placed or committed to be placed by January and funding for machines to surpass that goal. Since 2004, Psalm 139 has helped place ultrasound equipment at centers in 16 states and one other country, Northern Ireland.

Lisa Cathcart, executive director of the Pregnancy Care Center in Old Hickory, Tenn., for more than 13 years, said advocating for and financially supporting pregnancy resource centers is a way churches can conduct pro-life ministry. Other ways churches can be pro-life in a post-Roe era, Cathcart said, include teaching a “whole-life, pro-life view of human dignity” to their members and ministering in a gospel-based way to the congregation, which includes post-abortive women and men.

PCC has “always worked for the dignity and welfare of both [mother and child], and our work starts with her—the woman who needs compassion, hope and practical help to consider alternatives to abortion,” Cathcart said after Roe was overturned. “Our work will continue, even increase, and we are prepared to meet this moment.”

Pro-life ministry also includes Christian families welcoming children born to vulnerable women into their homes in a post-Roe world, pro-life advocates say. Newell testified before committees of lawmakers in both Alabama houses in support of legislation to prohibit abortion.

In both chambers, Newell said, Democrats on the committees asked him: “If we ban abortion in our state, there will be more kids in foster care and there will be more kids that need to be adopted. Are there enough families?”

“And I unequivocally looked them in the face and I said, ‘If you take this bold step and you dignify life, we will be ready and there will be families for these children.’ And I wholeheartedly believe it.”

The American Southwest Conference named Price Peden from the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor and Leah Akridge from East Texas Baptist University as Community Service Athletes of the Year. The award honors a male and a female student-athlete who best display leadership and action in fostering community service on their campus and within the local community. Peden, a four-year soccer letterman from Flower Mound, served in leadership roles on UMHB’s Student Foundation, revival steering committee and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes leadership team. He worked with Love For Christ Food Pantry, Lighthouse Mentoring Program, UMHB Soccer Camps, Feed My Sheep and UMHB Champs Day. He volunteered with several soccer camps and community service projects, and he served as a mentor at Lake Belton Middle School. He was a weekly volunteer and small-group leader at Temple Bible Church. Akridge, who earned a letter four years with the Tigers softball team, is from Lufkin. She served as a Thrive mentor for underclassmen and as a volunteer intern at Immanuel Baptist Church in Marshall, where she also taught Sunday school to youth three years. During the summer, she worked in the nursery and taught the college group at First Baptist Church in Lufkin. She volunteered as a youth softball coach and in a local food pantry. She has been an active part of the ETBU softball team’s pen pal program, sending letters each week to patients in children’s hospitals. Akridge served on the leadership council for ETBU Fellowship of Christian Athletes and in a variety of community service projects.

East Texas Baptist University recently received a $100,000 grant from the East Texas Medical Center Foundation. This marks the third year the university has received grant funds from the foundation to help meet the growing need for mental health care in Smith County and the greater East Texas region. “Our desire is to stand in the gap between East Texas citizens and the need for mental health care in the region,” said ETBU President J. Blair Blackburn. He called the foundation’s support “crucial to the growth of ETBU’s clinical mental health counseling program and the increase in clients that the Community Counseling Center at ETBU-Tyler has been able to serve.” ETBU opened the Community Counseling Center in 2020 at the ETBU-Tyler site and launched a Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling degree program at ETBU-Tyler in January 2021. The total number of students enrolled in the program at the Marshall and Tyler campuses has doubled since 2019 as a result of the additional ETBU-Tyler campus. “In a post-COVID world, the mental health needs of all ages have become more acute,” said Thomas Sanders, ETBU provost and vice president for academic affairs. “This investment by the ETMC Foundation provides care for the needs of people today and increases the capacity for more licensed counselors in the future.”

Several universities affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas were named to the list of Military FriendlySchools by VIQTORY, a marketing company for military personnel entering the civilian workforce. Dallas Baptist University, Houston Baptist University and the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor were named to the gold level in the category of private schools offering a doctorate. Wayland Baptist University was named to the silver level and Howard Payne University to the bronze level in the same category. Hardin-Simmons University also was named to the Military Friendly School list. Institutions that appear on the list of Military Friendly Schools are evaluated in areas such as student retention, graduation, job placement and loan repayment for all students and student veterans, using public data sources and surveys.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—Religious liberty in Ukraine depends on the country’s survival as an independent nation, Igor Bandura of the Ukrainian Baptist Union told the Baptist World Alliance annual gathering.

“If Russia wins, Ukraine will disappear,” he warned.

And if Ukraine falls to Russian aggression, the religious liberty of its people will be imperiled, he asserted.

Russia’s current leadership and genuine religious freedom “are mutually exclusive,” Bandura said. The Russian regime now in power “does not respect freedom and independence,” he added.

In areas of Ukraine under Russian domination, pastors have been beaten, church buildings destroyed and families separated, Bandura reported.

Even so, Russia’s invasion of his country has drawn together its citizens and instilled in them a resolve to maintain their freedom and independence, he insisted.

“Our nation is united. No one is willing to surrender,” Bandura said.

Grateful to the global Baptist family

He expressed gratitude to the global Baptist family for their “support, solidarity and prayers” during difficult times in Ukraine.

“Thank you for standing with us in these dark days,” Bandura said.

Baptist churches in Ukraine were able to respond quickly, setting up church-based shelters and respite centers for internally displaced people almost immediately after the war started because they organized for ministry three weeks prior to the invasion, he said.

“God had prepared us for this,” he said.

BWA General Secretary Elijah Brown affirmed Bandura and Ukrainian Baptists for the timely and innovative ministries they offered. The “lessons learned” and the trail blazed by Ukrainian Baptists already are “lighting the way” for emergency responses elsewhere in the world, Brown said.

When asked during a question-and-answer session about Russian Baptists’ response to the invasion of Ukraine, Brown pointed to a “generational divide.”

During a trip to Russia in May, Brown said, he noted participants in the Russian Baptist Youth Congress voiced solidarity with Christians in Ukraine and passionate support for the Ukrainian people.

When he and BWA President Tomás Mackey met with Russian government officials, as well as with Russian Baptist leaders and representatives of the Russian Orthodox church, they called for the immediate cessation of violence toward Ukraine, the creation of humanitarian corridors for relief, protection of religious freedom and agreements to establish a just peace.

“We are one family, and we love all its members,” Brown said. “But we are of one perspective: This is an unjust and sinful invasion.”

Baptists from Lebanon, Nepal and Nigeria participated in a panel discussion spotlighting the multiplied international impact of the attacks on Ukraine, often called “the breadbasket of Europe” for its grain production.

People in the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Africa who already were in dire situations have experienced food insecurity and dramatically increased fuel prices since Russia began its assault on Ukraine, they said.

‘Theology of interdependence’

Alan Donaldson, general secretary of the European Baptist Federation, noted European Baptists treasure their independence and autonomy, but they also gained deepened appreciation for their interdependence as they cooperated to respond to needs in Ukraine and the refugee crisis that resulted from the Russian invasion.

Donaldson voiced hope that lessons about the value of interdependence learned in times of crisis will result in a more fully developed “theology of interdependence” that endures in peacetime.

Baptist World Aid Director Marsha Scipio reported BWA received more than $4 million to help Baptists in countries surrounding Ukraine respond to the needs of at least 5 million refugees and 7 million internally displaced people.

Rachel Conway with BMS World Mission noted Phase One emergency relief continues in some places. As some Ukrainians in neighboring nations return to their country and others seek to make new lives for their families outside their homeland, Phase Two will focus on recovery, resettlement and—eventually—rebuilding.