WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (BP)—Southern Baptist pastor Kevin Smith announced Tuesday morning, July 23, he has resigned as chairman and from the board of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. Smith’s resignation comes on the heels of a turbulent 24 hours for the Southern Baptist public policy entity.

The ERLC announced Monday evening, July 22, the board’s executive committee had removed President Brent Leatherwood “in accordance with our bylaws.” However, that decision was rescinded early this morning.

In a statement provided to Baptist Press, Smith said: “After multiple conversations with Executive Committee members of the ERLC, I was convinced in my mind that we had a consensus to remove Brent Leatherwood as the president of the ERLC. It is a delicate matter and, in an effort to deal with it expeditiously, I acted in good faith but without a formal vote of the Executive Committee. This was an error on my part, and I accept full responsibility.”

Smith went on to note: “At this time, the Executive Committee does not wish to move forward with my course of action.”

He confirmed his resignation from the board saying: “I have been a proud participant in Southern Baptist Convention life for 35 years. I love the SBC. I love the ERLC. And I trust the Executive Committee to take the best course of action moving forward. I will look forward to focusing on ministry in my neighborhood church.”

Smith is a pastor at Family Church in West Palm Beach, Fla. He previously served as executive director of the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware and has been on the ERLC board since 2018.

The ERLC trustees are scheduled to meet Sept. 10-11 in Nashville.

Full statement

Smith’s full statement follows:

“It has been my honor to serve as a trustee at the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention. As to recent events: After multiple conversations with Executive Committee members of the ERLC, I was convinced in my mind that we had a consensus to remove Brent Leatherwood as the president of the ERLC. It is a delicate matter and, in an effort to deal with it expeditiously, I acted in good faith but without a formal vote of the Executive Committee. This was an error on my part, and I accept full responsibility. At this time, the Executive Committee does not wish to move forward with my course of action. Therefore, I am resigning as the Chairman of the ERLC Board of Trustees and as a Trustee. I have been a proud participant in Southern Baptist Convention life for 35 years. I love the SBC. I love the ERLC. And I trust the Executive Committee to take the best course of action moving forward. I will look forward to focusing on ministry in my neighborhood church.”

(RNS)—In a head-scratching turn of events, the executive board of the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy arm now says its leader has not been fired.

On Monday evening, July 22, the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission announced Brent Leatherwood, the group’s president, had been fired—a day after he praised President Joe Biden for ending his reelection bid.

Less than 12 hours later, the ERLC’s executive committee issued a new statement on Tuesday, saying Leatherwood would remain in leadership.

“Brent Leatherwood remains the President of the ERLC and has our support moving forward,” the statement read.

The committee also said ERLC board chair Kevin Smith had acted on his own in announcing that Leatherwood was fired. Smith, a former seminary professor and denominational administrator who currently pastors a church in Florida, has resigned as ERLC chair, according to the statement.

“There was not an authorized meeting, vote, or action taken by the Executive Committee,” the executive committee’s statement said.

Smith, who has served on the ERLC board since 2018, was elected chair last fall.

Praise for Leatherwood

Eric Costanzo, pastor of South Tulsa Baptist Church and an ERLC trustee board member, praised Leatherwood after it was announced the ERLC president was not fired.

“Brent deserves countless apologies for this error and all the assumptions that came with it,” Costanzo wrote on X. “He has proven to be a faithful leader and man of integrity time and again.”

The confusion over Leatherwood’s status is the latest crisis for the ERLC—which has been embroiled in seemingly endless controversy since the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president in 2016.

Criticism of ERLC

Several prominent megachurches withheld funding for the group after Leatherwood’s predecessor Russell Moore was critical of Trump, leading to calls for Moore to be fired.

That led to a meeting between Moore and Frank Page, who was then head of the SBC’s Nashville, Tenn.-based Executive Committee, where the two pledged to work together to unite Southern Baptists. Page later resigned in a scandal.

The SBC’s Executive Committee went on to investigate the ERLC in 2020 for allegedly being divisive and causing a shortfall in denominational donations. A 2021 report from the investigation, which was led by Georgia pastor Mike Stone, a fierce critic of Moore, called the ERLC “a significant distraction.”

Moore resigned as ERLC president in May 2021, leaving the commission for a role at evangelical magazine Christianity Today, where he is now editor-in-chief.

Critics such as Florida pastor Tom Ascol, head of a Calvinist group called Founders Ministries, have repeatedly called for the ERLC to be shut down. This summer, Ascol made a motion to that effect at the SBC’s annual meeting. The motion failed.

Criticism of Leatherwood

Leatherwood has been criticized for opposing legislation backed by Ascol and other members of the so-called abortion abolition movement that would have jailed women who have abortions. More recently, Leatherwood criticized the GOP for dropping anti-abortion language from its 2024 platform.

Leatherwood also called for gun law reforms after a shooting in March 2023 at a Nashville Christian school where his children were students.

He did not respond to requests for comment. Leatherwood did post his thanks on social media.

“I deeply appreciate everyone who has reached out, especially our trustees who were absolutely bewildered at what took place yesterday and jumped in to set the record straight,” Leatherwood wrote Tuesday morning on X.

With additional reporting by Baptist Standard Editor Eric Black.

This is a breaking story and will be updated.

MOUNT VERNON, Ill. (RNS)—First Baptist Church survived a tornado, church schisms and a pair of worldwide pandemics in its more than a century and a half of ministry in this small Southern Illinois town, about an hour east of St. Louis.

For 156 years, church members gathered to sing hymns, study the Bible and lift each other in prayer. They also ate barbecue, laughed, cried, reached out to their neighbors and cared for one another.

But nothing lasts forever.

“There is a time for everything,” Ryan Burge, pastor of First Baptist, told his congregation on July 21 as they gathered for the church’s final worship service, reading from the book of Ecclesiastes. “A time for birth and a time for death. A time to build up and a time to tear down.”

For First Baptist, time had run out.

“After being a fixture of Mount Vernon for 156 years, First Baptist Church will no longer exist in the very near future,” Burge told the three-dozen or so worshippers. “And we are all deeply grieved for that moment. It will change our lives, in both big and small ways in the days and weeks to come.”

The church’s closing was made official a few minutes later during a brief congregational meeting after the service, when church members voted to close as of Aug. 1. It was a decision that followed years of slow decline.

Years of slow decline

In the late 1990s, the church had about 170 members, down from more than 600 members in the 1960s but still a going concern. By the mid-aughts, when Burge arrived as a 20-something pastor, the church had about 50 members. At closing, there were fewer than 20.

The decline of First Baptist followed a larger pattern among churches in the United States, where the average congregation’s size has shrunk from 137 in 1999 to less than 60 today, according to the Faith Communities Today study. Meanwhile, most people if they attend services go to a larger congregation.

That pattern has played out in Mount Vernon, where small churches like First Baptist have struggled. First Presbyterian Church, for example, shares space with the local Lutheran congregation, while its former building is now a YMCA.

Meanwhile, about a mile south of First Baptist, Central Christian, a non-denominational multi-site congregation, is thriving.

Gail Farnham, who as moderator at First Baptist led the meeting’s vote, said small churches like First Baptist are stuck in a dilemma. They can’t attract people with the same kinds of programs that larger churches offer. As a congregation ages, most of the people they know, if they are interested in going to church, already have a place to worship.

Farnham said she had been preparing for the reality of closing the church for years. In 2017, the church gave its building to a local Christian school, with the caveat that the congregation could still meet in the building for worship. That decision, she said, gave the church a few more years of life. It also ensured the building would still be used for ministry even after First Baptist was closed.

She was pleased to see old friends show up for the church’s last service and the congregation’s last time together.

“I don’t feel sad right now,” said the 80-year-old Farnham, who first came to First Baptist, which is part of the American Baptist Churches USA, with her family when she was about 5 years old. “I just feel like it’s happening the way it should happen.”

Many more churches likely will follow

Tens of thousands of local congregations like First Baptist are likely to close over the next few decades if current trends continue. Their passing will go unnoticed, said Burge, a political science professor at Eastern Illinois University who studies the changing religious landscape.

Burge said that even as the congregation at First Baptist shrank, members were still active in serving their community. From 2008 to 2023, the church provided nearly 55,000 lunches for local schools, with elderly members showing up to volunteer to fill the lunch bags. That dedication renewed his faith, said Burge.

“When I believed in God the most is when the two dozen people assembled [here] heard about the idea of the Brown Bag Program and did not hesitate to get involved,” he said in his final sermon,“when I saw members who struggled to stand do everything that they could to help pack those bags; when people gave over and above their tithe to make sure that we always had enough items to feed those hungry kids.”

Burge has long championed the importance of organized religion, for both its spiritual and social benefits. Churches, he argues, host food pantries and shelters, volunteer for disaster relief and provide small acts of kindness that make the world less awful. They care for one another when life gets hard.

That’s something he experienced firsthand growing up. His family struggled to make ends meet, and he recalls boxes of groceries showing up on the family’s porch, provided by members of their church who wanted to lend a hand.

Without that care, he wonders if his family would have made it through those hard times.

“That’s what kept me in religion,” he said in an interview the day before the church’s last service. “There are all these small kindnesses I saw for me and my family. I want to do that for other people.”

In his last sermon, Burge recounted when a friend told him that First Baptist was lucky to have him as pastor. But his friend was wrong, said Burge, adding that he and his family had received more than they gave in the love and kindness of church members.

He mentioned the church’s kindness, in big and small ways—like the meals that showed up after the birth of his children or the time the church paid his family’s health insurance when he was laid off during budget cuts at the university back in 2016. He was later hired back.

The church didn’t hesitate to help, he said. Burge said that kind of kindness and community can be found at churches around the country—and can’t be easily replaced.

Ministry not wasted

In his sermon, Burge—who came to First Baptist as a 20-something graduate student and has stayed for nearly 18 years—said the church’s ministry was not wasted, and its legacy would live on.

“It was all worth it,” he told the remaining congregants.

Farnham said the church was grateful that Burge had stayed as their pastor. And they are proud of all he has accomplished.

“He is like one of my grandkids,” she said.

Lisa Hayse, who grew up in the church, said the congregation’s legacy will live on in the memories of people who worshipped there and in students at the Corem Deo Classical School, which now owns the building.

“There will still be hymns sung here,” said Hayse, who now teaches kindergarten at Corem Deo. “There will still be singing to praise the Lord in that sanctuary. It won’t stop.”

Standing in the church’s fellowship hall—where church members and friends looked at old photos and memorabilia from the congregation’s history and ate pulled pork, mac and cheese and salad, washed down with lemonade and iced tea—Hayse recalled the days when the church’s pews were packed and Sunday school rooms were filled with the laughter of children.

At Corem Deo, she teaches in the classroom where she learned Bible stories as a preschooler. Hayse said her late father had long hoped the church would once again be filled with children. That hope has been realized, she said.

Though the church is closing, the friendships between church members will remain. Farnham plans to send out updates to church members in the coming months and hopes church members will still find time to meet up.

“We are not done with each other,” she said.

A Bounce student missions team was prepared to serve in Mora County, N.M., assisting with recovery efforts resulting from the 2022 Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Fire and post-fire floods. However, recent water contamination and flooding steered them to be a different community’s “answered prayer.”

Earlier this month, 100 middle school through college students were redirected to Claremore, Okla., to assist in relief efforts following tornadoes that blew through the community in June.

God opened up another door

Noah Doley, a high school senior at Faith Baptist Church in Wichita Falls, said the most important part of his Bounce experience was being able to adapt to the week’s changes along with his team.

“I think we were all kind of excited that God opened up another door for us,” Doley said. “We were just excited to help out the community of Claremore in any way we could.”

The students helped the community with disaster response tasks such as debris and tree removal.

David Scott, director of Bounce, said the students’ adaptability and hard work was encouraging to see as they served the community.

“The kids have worked really hard and had a really great attitude just stepping in and helping, assisting with the community,” Scott said. “Our approach has always been, ‘We’re going to do whatever the community needs,’ and that’s what they’re doing.”

Missional their entire life

Celebrating its 10th year as a ministry of Texas Baptists, Bounce offers student ministry leaders the opportunity to mobilize their middle school, high school and college students to engage in challenging mission service and inspiring times of worship.

Bounce’s strategy always has been to do things that are going to encourage students to be missional beyond the week, Scott said.

“As we like to say, we want them to ‘Bounce’ back home and find opportunities to be missional their entire life,” Scott said. “That’s why we do worship. Through our worship experience, we’re trying to help them understand the value of mission service to cultivate a love for missions and ministry in their life.”

Doing this to show God’s love

Riley Cooper, another high school senior at Faith Baptist Church in Wichita Falls, said her team was OK with all of the changes and were willing to be flexibile because they recognized their work was all for God’s glory and none of their own.

“We don’t think that just because we’re teenagers that we can’t help in all the ways that we could. We’re doing this for God and doing this to show God’s love,” Cooper said.

Bounce offers two types of mission opportunities for students: disaster recovery/community rehab and church planting.

Student disaster recovery/community rehab opportunities allow students to help rebuild communities and reflect Christ in areas impacted by disasters or where homes are in need of rehabilitation through hands-on construction mission projects.

Student church planting opportunities allow students to serve with church plants for significant ministry that not only assists church plants and planters, but also cultivates an appreciation and love for church planting in the lives of participants.

Students also receive training in sharing the gospel, and Scott said his hope is that they would come out of the week able to share with confidence.

Scott extended his gratitude to the Bounce supporters in Oklahoma who helped coordinate service projects for the students and to First Baptist Church of Inola for opening up their facilities to house students that assisted with recovery efforts.

Editor’s Note: This is a developing story and will be updated as new information becomes available.

DALLAS (BP)—The historic sanctuary at First Baptist Church Dallas burned Friday evening, July 19. The cause of the blaze is not yet known. The Victorian-style, red brick sanctuary building was erected 1890 and is a recognized Texas Historic Landmark.

According to media reports, Dallas Fire and Rescue received a call at 6:05 p.m., Friday evening regarding a building on fire in downtown Dallas. Firefighters responded. Within 15 minutes of the first call, a second alarm was requested. Then around 7:30 p.m., the scene was upgraded to a three-alarm fire. A fourth alarm was called in around 8:15 p.m.

The Dallas Morning News reported that “more than 60 units were dispatched to respond to the structure fire.”

The church released a statement on X at 9:34 p.m. saying the primary fire was extinguished but firefighters were still working at the scene.

First Baptist Church Dallas has an indelible history within the Southern Baptist Convention having been pastored by former SBC presidents George W. Truett and W.A. Criswell. Currently led by Robert Jeffress, First Baptist Dallas reported a membership of nearly 16,000 in 2023. The church currently worships in a state-of-the-art facility, which opened in 2013, adjacent to the historic sanctuary.

Jeffress posted on X Friday night asking for prayers for the church saying: “We have experienced a fire in the Historic Sanctuary. To our knowledge, no one is hurt or injured, and we thank God for His protection. He is sovereign even in the most difficult times.”

The historic sanctuary was home to First Baptist Dallas’ contemporary service each week, called the Band-Led Service. There was a special VBS service scheduled for this Sunday, June 21. The church hosted its annual Vacation Bible School this week.

“We are grateful that no life has been lost that we know of even though we just had 2,000 children and volunteers on campus for Vacation Bible School earlier in the day,” Jeffress said in a statement to Baptist Press.

“As tragic as the loss of this old sanctuary is, we are grateful that the church is not bricks and wood but composed of over 16,000 people who are determined more than ever before to reach the world for the gospel of Christ.”

The church campus consists of multiple buildings across a six-block footprint in downtown Dallas. At this time, it is unknown if any other buildings were damaged in the fire.

The congregation held services at Dallas’ Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center July 21. In a Facebook post following the service, the church quoted Jeffress from a special address: “We are going to rebuild the sanctuary as a symbol of truth!”

FREEPORT—Ken Anderson “rode out Beryl” in his Jones Creek home south of Houston. “We got hit harder than anybody, I believe. Lots of damage. Thousands of trees down.”

One of those trees uprooted by Hurricane Beryl landed on Anderson’s home.

“We’ve got a massive tree that fell on the house and went all the way across,” said Texans on Mission volunteer John Weber.

“Fortunately, it did not destroy the house,” said Weber, leader of the San Antonio team and a member of Shearer Hills Baptist Church.

The team went to work July 15 gradually cutting back the massive tree. Seven members of Anderson’s family, including a baby, are living in the house because of power outages where the others live, Weber said.

Anderson praised the chainsaw team.

“This is a great set of guys,” he said, adding that he couldn’t do the work without them because of a recent heart attack. “I appreciate everything they’re doing here. We need all the help we can get.”

Weber noted people have needs and are unable to do the chainsaw work his team provides.

“We’re trained, and we feel like we need to deal with people’s spiritual needs and their physical needs,” he said. “And sometimes, you need to do the physical before you can get to the spiritual.”

Heat, humidity and mosquitoes dogged all Texans on Mission volunteers working in Brazoria County as they cut up fallen trees, provided temporary roofs, washed laundry and went door-to-door responding to requests for help after the storm.

First Baptist Church in Brazoria is the hub of Texans on Mission ministry south of Houston, which includes some of the hardest-hit areas in a hard-hit region.

As Anderson indicated, downed trees are everywhere. Texans on Mission chainsaw crews are prioritizing situations where trees are on houses or vehicles or blocking access to homes.

‘Delivering help, hope and healing in Christ’s name’

Texans on Mission chainsaw units will come and go over the next few weeks. On July 16, 10 teams worked, including ones from Mississippi and Tennessee, part of the broader effort through Southern Baptist disaster relief.

“The damage from Hurricane Beryl is severe and widespread,” said David Wells, disaster relief director for Texans on Mision. “This relief effort is a powerful picture of what it looks like when the body of Christ works together. We are delivering help, hope and healing in Christ’s name.”

The hurricane knocked out electricity to millions, leaving large portions of the region powerless for days. Without refrigeration and air conditioning, residents struggled to get food.

The Texans on Mission state feeding unit stepped up to the challenge. Waking up early in the morning, volunteers cooked more than 60,000 meals for Houstonians. They were distributed to 26 locations across the city, focusing on areas of particular need.

In conjunction with Texans on Mission, Sugar Land Baptist Church helped meet the needs of preschoolers across the city. The congregation put together roughly 3,500 sack lunches to distribute.

One of the meals was given to a woman who hadn’t eaten in two days. When she lost electricity, all the food in her refrigerator went bad. She’s elderly and doesn’t drive, so she was silently suffering.

“Christ cares about the suffering,” Wells said. “He commands his followers to meet needs and share God’s love with those who are hurting. That’s what the feeding team is doing.”

More than 50,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria over the past two decades, and “the silence from Western nations on this genocide is appalling,” a new report from International Christian Concern asserts.

The report, released in mid-July, is based on open-source research, information collected from ICC field staff and first-hand testimony the organization’s advocacy staff heard during a trip to Nigeria in March.

The report, written by ICC advocacy manager McKenna Wendt, presents documented examples, case studies and other data to support organization’s position calling on the U.S. Department of State to designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern.

That designation is reserved for nations that engage in or tolerate “systemic, ongoing and egregious” violations of religious freedom.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has recommended CPC status for Nigeria every year since 2009. The State Department designated Nigeria as a CPC only once, in 2020, but the designation was removed the following year.

“While the State Department has recognized religious tensions in the region, the violence is often attributed to issues of climate change, farmer-herder conflicts, and ethnic divides,” the report states.

“Although these factors are certainly at play, it is a grave misjudgment to downplay the religious components of these conflicts and solely attribute them to secondary issues.”

Religiously motivated violence left unchecked

Because the United States has failed to hold Nigeria accountable, the nation’s government has allowed religiously motivated violence by groups such as Boko Haram, ISIS-West Africa, Fulani militias and armed bandit gangs.

“The unchecked violence and discrimination have led to severe loss of life, particularly Christians, and the conflict continues to undermine the Nigerian government, threaten national security, and cause significant economic loss,” the report states. “It has also weakened the efficacy of U.S. foreign policy tools in regard to promoting international religious freedom.”

Boko Haram has kidnapped Christian girls and young women, subjecting them to beating, torture, rape, starvation, forced marriages and forced conversion to Islam, as well as compelling them to participate in suicide bombings, ICC reports.

Between 2009 and 2014, Boko Haram was responsible for kidnapping at least 22,000 Christians and burning 13,000 churches and 1,500 Christian schools, the report notes.

“Last year, the group was accountable for the deaths of roughly 500 Nigerian Christians, and their violence has continued into 2024,” the report states.

ISIS-West Africa similarly has targeted Christians, publicly executing 11 Christian workers for their faith in 2019 and bombing a Catholic church in 2022, killing 40 worshippers and injuring dozens more, ICC reports.

Fulani militia operate primarily in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, targeting Christian communities, churches and their leaders. On Christmas Eve last year, they killed more than 200 Christians in coordinated attacks on 21 predominantly Christian villages.

The ICC report notes specific examples in 2023 of a Catholic priest burned alive, one pastor whose left hand was amputated and another shot in the head, at least 13 women from a predominantly Christian village assaulted and raped, and a farmer beheaded for teaching children in a Christian church.

“The outcry of Nigerian Christians is falling on deaf ears,” the report states. “It is time for the United States to answer their call for help.”

Policy recommendations

The report includes specific policy recommendations for the U.S. government in addition to designating Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern.

Recommendations include conducting “a comprehensive analysis of U.S. aid distribution in the region to ensure maximum effectiveness of aid disbursement.”

“Financial assistance provided by the U.S. to Nigeria must be contingent upon substantial improvements in religious freedom,” the report states.

Other recommendations include the appointment both of an ambassador to Nigeria “as soon as possible to improve diplomatic relations and to address religious freedom concerns,” and the appointment of a special envoy to Nigeria who would track and report on violence in the country.

The report also calls on the U.S. government to “encourage the Nigerian federal government to pursue police reform and strengthen judicial capacity” to provide better regional security.

‘Work in tandem with local leaders’ efforts’

Wissam al-Saliby, president of the 21Wilberforce human rights and religious freedom organization, said his organization “hopes that U.S. foreign policy supports to the maximum extent possible religious freedom in Nigeria.”

Al-Saliby was returning from the Baptist World Alliance annual meeting in Lagos, Nigeria, about the time ICC released its report.

While in Nigeria, he and 21Wilberforce Executive Director John Gongwer enjoyed fellowship with Christians there, met with former senior government officials and “held several rounds of conversations with church leaders to understand how we can partner with them,” al-Saliby said.

The latter may be most important in terms of promoting international religious freedom, he noted.

“While most advocates in the West call for the U.S. Dept. of State to once again designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern, we heard from most of our various interlocutors in Nigeria that the CPC designation is more effective when they work in tandem with local leaders’ efforts, and when U.S. foreign policy prioritizes religious freedom and human rights consistently, based on facts and evidence,” al-Saliby said.

“Nigeria is blessed with large, wealthy and influential Christian denominations and conventions. For example, with approximately 9 million members, Nigeria has the largest Baptist convention [in the Baptist World Alliance]. Local leadership from these believers can be a powerful force for change.

“21Wilberforce’s commitment, before my joining as president and even more so now, is to equip local Christians to lead on the research, outreach to their government, and advocacy in support of religious freedom. We have made significant inroads towards this objective and have started plans for our next visit.”

Kevin Abbott to Texas Baptists’ Center for Ministerial Health as director of pastoral health networks and as Houston-area representative for Texas Baptists. He most recently was associate director of Union Baptist Association.

Aaron Weaver to a part-time role as executive director of the Baptist History & Heritage Society. He succeeds John Finley, longtime Georgia pastor, in that position. Weaver, who earned his Ph.D. from Baylor University, will continue to serve as communications director for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a position he has held since 2013. He also is an adjunct professor of Baptist history at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology in Atlanta.

Sixteen students in Howard Payne University’s Spanish department participated in a five-week immersive experience in Seville, Spain. Each student completed six credits of Spanish at the Instituto San Fernando, the equivalent of two HPU courses. Students were hosted by families in Seville and were completely immersed in Spain’s language and culture, learning how to conduct daily business and complete everyday tasks in Spanish. Students also participated in major excursions to Córdoba, Cádiz and Granada. They toured cathedrals and synagogues and learned how Christians, Muslims and Jews lived alongside one another during the Middle Ages. Danny Brunette-López, professor of Spanish at HPU and department chair, served as a faculty sponsor for the month-long immersive experience.

Baylor University’s Louise Herrington School of Nursing hosted its 2nd annual CompassRN Student Nurse Summer Camp on July 10, welcoming 30 students from Dallas-area schools. The camp allowed students to hear from nursing faculty and staff and from current nursing students, as well as tour the School of Nursing and clinical simulation building. They learned about nursing school programs and admission requirements and observed basic nursing skills in the simulation lab. Originally established in Houston, Texas, CompassRN is a nurse-led nonprofit organization connecting youth to health education and nursing. It primarily targets underserved and underrepresented middle school and high school students.

The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor’s Clinical Simulation Learning Center received provisional accreditation status from the Society for Simulation in Healthcare. Provisional status is granted until Dec. 31, 2026, allowing time for the university to pursue full accreditation for the simulation center. “It’s an honor to be recognized by an international organization specializing in simulation,” said Jared McClure, UMHB’s director of Clinical Simulation Learning Center operations. “This recognition speaks to what we’ve put in place and accomplished so far and provides great credibility to our program, while still giving us milestones to reach as we move toward full accreditation.” The center’s mission is to engage students in a Christ-centered learning environment where they will develop the knowledge, skills and interprofessional competencies to become leaders in the health sciences.

Following approval by Wayland Baptist University’s internal governance processes and the National Association of Schools of Music, the university now offers online Bachelor of Applied Science degrees in piano studies, sound production and worship studies. Candidates for these degree programs include independent music teachers, worship leaders, sound designers, recording engineers and others who may have significant work experience in music but previously lacked the opportunity to pursue a formal undergraduate degree. “NASM’s affirmation of Wayland’s new online BAS degrees is evidence of our music faculty’s ability to innovate at the highest levels of quality,” said Cindy McClenagan, vice president of academic affairs. “Approval to offer these unique degrees online allows students from around the world to study under our supremely talented and caring instructors.”

The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission announced Katie McCoy, director of women’s ministry for the Baptist General Convention of Texas, is among its 2024-25 class of Research Fellows. The ERLC Research Institute is a collaborative space for Southern Baptist researchers and academics to serve the commission and SBC churches on critical theological, ethical and public policy matters related to their areas of expertise. The new class of fellows will assist the ERLC in its mission by producing materials to equip churches to engage ethical and cultural issues in the areas of life and bioethics, religious liberty, marriage and family, and human dignity.

Fellowship Southwest received a $1.25 million grant from the Lilly Endowment to expand its immigration ministries along the U.S.-Mexico border over the next five years. Each year, Fellowship Southwest will recruit border-area churches to develop a well-connected network of migrant ministries from the West Coast to the Gulf of Mexico. Also, Fellowship Southwest will enlist other churches beyond the border region that commit to compassion and justice ministries related to immigration. Churches will receive guidance from an immigration ministry manager as they design their projects, as well as seed grants to support implementation. Fellowship Southwest Executive Director Stephen Reeves expressed appreciation to the Lilly Endowment for its investment in immigration programs. “I believe many churches will find a calling and renewed vision by practicing compassion and pursuing justice for their immigrant neighbors,” Reeves said. “By establishing relationships, learning the stories of migrants, and becoming more proximate to the crisis of human migration, they will embody the value of Christian hospitality and solidarity.”

Baylor University’s Louise Herrington School of Nursing recently celebrated the 15th anniversary of its “FastBacc” program—a 12-month accelerated track for a post-baccalaureate Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree. Students who already hold a bachelor’s degree in a non-nursing discipline complete 62 hours of nursing coursework at the Dallas campus. The first cohort of 16 students graduated in 2010. Adrianne Duvall-Ingram is the FastBacc program coordinator.

Retirement

Toby Gonzales as pastor of Primera Iglesia Bautista in Floydada, after 10 years at that church and 37 years in the ministry.

PHILADELPHIA (BP)—Christians engaged in Scripture place the highest premiums on civic advocacy and engagement, the American Bible Society said in its latest release from the 2024 State of the Bible.

Falling in a presidential election year, the study shows Scripture-engaged Christians place more importance than others on being aware of civic and government issues, advocating for civic and government policies and submitting to government leaders.

Specifically, 66 percent of Scripture-engaged Christians said it is important or very important to maintain awareness of civic and government issues, 48 percent placed the same importance on advocating for civic and government policies, and 42 percent said the same of submitting to government leaders.

“On every point—awareness, advocacy and submission—the Scripture-engaged are far more apt to tout the importance of civic responsibility,” researchers stated, outpacing those described as Bible-disengaged and those in the “movable middle,” a group somewhat engaged in and considered more apt to embrace Scripture.

“We see little difference between the movable middle and the Bible-disengaged on awareness and advocacy, but the Scripture-engaged clearly place a higher value on these aspects of citizenship.”

But the Scripture-engaged, considered the most committed of all Christians, still rank the importance of advocacy and submission below awareness on the study’s seven-point scale of importance, with only awareness ranking above 50 percent.

Focus on ‘Love in Action’

In the 2024 report’s fourth chapter, released July 11, researchers focused on “Love in Action,” tabulating the importance of several aspects of the biblical command to love one’s neighbor (Matthew 22:39). Researchers reported on perspectives rather than actual activity.

Researchers invoked the election year in explaining a three-year decline among practicing Christians in the importance of welcoming immigrants, befriending people of other races and caring for the environment.

“The political climate certainly affects the responses here. Our survey presents the issues in a few words, without further definition,” researchers wrote. “Respondents will, of course, add their own context—for instance, whether the immigration is legal or illegal. With that in mind, we find significant movement on these issues in recent years, especially among practicing Christians.”

Among practicing Christians, the importance of welcoming immigrants into communities fell from 4.3 on a six-point scale in 2022, to 3.9 in 2024. While befriending people of other races ranked 4.7 on the scale in 2022, it ranks 4.5 today. Caring for the environment sat at 4.7 in 2022, but ranks 4.6 in 2024.

“All groups are less apt to consider it important to welcome immigrants than they’ve been in previous years, but the decline is greatest among practicing Christians,” researchers stated. “Non-Christians now place more importance on this than practicing Christians do.”

Otherwise, areas of engagement related to loving others have ranked about the same for the past four years, researchers said, including caring for the imprisoned and advocating for those oppressed by society.

An interest in cross-racial engagement that surged after the 2020 death of George Floyd has cooled, researchers found.

“In the next year or two, we saw big companies committing to diversity and communities tearing down statues,” researchers noted. “But our trendline suggests a drop-off of attention in the last two years.”

Still, study participants largely value being good neighbors, despite differing interpretations of who qualifies as a neighbor.

Demographically, loving one’s neighbor is esteemed highest among Boomers, women, the Scripture-engaged, city and suburb dwellers, those in the northeastern U.S., and homeowners.

The University of Chicago’s NORC research center conducted the research Jan. 4-23, compiling findings based on responses from 2,506 online interviews completed among more than 9,900 adults contacted in the nationally representative AmeriSpeak panel.

The American Bible Society will release a chapter of the 2024 study monthly through December. Future releases will focus on the Bible’s intersection with artificial intelligence, well-being, the church, hope, hardship, loneliness and philanthropy.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Former President Donald Trump announced Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance—a Roman Catholic—will be his running mate as he seeks reelection.

Before his election to the Senate in 2022, Vance was a tech venture capitalist and the author of the bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy about his family history, upbringing in Middletown, Ohio, and the broader struggles facing white working-class Americans.

Vance, an adult convert to Catholicism and married to a Hindu woman, has a complicated relationship with religion and, after his recent support for keeping mifepristone, an abortion pill, legal, with the GOP’s religious base.

Here are five faith facts about Vance:

• Vance is an adult convert to Catholicism.

Vance converted to Catholicism in August of 2019, when he was baptized and confirmed at St. Gertrude Priory in Cincinnati, Ohio, by Henry Stephan, a Dominican friar. According to an interview with American expatriate and writer Rod Dreher, who was present at the baptism, Vance chose St. Augustine as his patron saint.

Vance told Dreher that he’d converted because he “became persuaded over time that Catholicism was true” and had observed that the people who meant the most to him were Catholic.

Vance said his conversion would have happened sooner if not for the clergy sexual abuse crisis, which “forced me to process the church as a divine and a human institution, and what it would mean for my 2-year-old son.”

Before becoming Catholic, Vance, now a father of three, was raised by Christian relatives, including many who didn’t go to church. Around when he started law school, he “went through an angry atheist phase,” as he told Dreher.

If elected, he would be the second Catholic vice president in U.S. history—after Joe Biden.

• Vance is tied to ‘Catholic integralism,’ an ideology that seeks Christian influence over society.

“Catholic integralism” is an intellectual movement that—experts say—prefers a “soft power” approach to exerting Christian influence over society.

Thinkers in the movement herald the importance of a Christian “strategic adviser” to people in power.

As Kevin Vallier, a professor at Bowling Green State University and expert in Catholic integralism, told RNS earlier this year: “There’s the sense that the liberal order is so corrupt that elite Catholics have to find positions of influence and use them in a kind of noble and appropriate way,” he said.

Harvard University’s Adrian Vermeule, a leader in the movement, stated integralists once viewed Trump as a figure similar to Constantine the Great, the Roman emperor who converted to Christianity.

Vermeule has also praised Trump by likening him to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a leader widely decried as being authoritarian.

Vance, for his part, spoke at a 2022 gathering at the Franciscan University of Steubenville that was widely associated with integralism and “new right” politics. Vance has yet to answer questions about his own thoughts regarding Catholic integralism.

• Vance’s wife, Usha, is not Christian and was raised in a Hindu household.

According to a recent interview with Fox and Friends, Usha Chilukuri Vance, J.D. Vance’s wife, is “not Christian.”

The two met in Yale Law School and married shortly after graduation. Usha, a native Californian, was raised by Indian immigrants in a Hindu household but has said she was very supportive of Vance’s conversion to Catholicism.

“I did grow up in a religious household,” said Usha, who clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts as well as Brett Kavanaugh before he became a Supreme Court justice. Roberts and Kavanaugh are both Catholic.

“My parents are Hindu,” Usha said. “That is one of the reasons why they made such good parents. That made them very good people. And I think I have seen the power of that in my own life. And I knew that J.D. was searching for something. This just felt right for him.”

When the couple married in 2014, they held two ceremonies, including one where they were blessed by a Hindu pundit, per Politico.

• Vance thinks Christianity is an “answer” to existential questions about American identity.

During a 2023 talk hosted by American Moment, Vance brought up Christian nationalism, which he dismissed as a term “meant to be very scary.” But he went on to explain how he envisions Christianity informing American life—and, particularly, American identity.

“We’re a country that is majority Christian, nominally, but not nearly majority Christian in terms of practice,” he said. “We’re a multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious democracy that’s heavily exposed to the economic forces of globalization, and I think that we have not yet figured out how to harmonize that with some basic sense of what it means to be an American in the 21st century.

“I happen to think that the Christian faith is a good way of helping provide an answer to that question.”

When he converted, Vance said his views on public policy were aligned with Catholic social teaching.

“Part of social conservatism’s challenge for viability in the 21st century is that it can’t just be about issues like abortion, but it has to have a broader vision of political economy and the common good,” he told Rod Dreher.

• His statements about abortion and immigration may trigger blowback from some Catholics.

On July 7, Vance told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he supported mifepristone “being accessible.” Mifepristone is used alongside misoprostol in abortions before 10 weeks of pregnancy. It also can be used to treat high blood pressure in adults who have Cushing’s syndrome and type 2 diabetes and cannot have or have failed surgery.

“This tawdry episode informs us that Vance has no principles, at least none that aren’t for sale, and the asking price is cheap,” C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, told the National Catholic Register.

J.D. Flynn, the editor-in-chief of The Pillar, a Catholic opinion and news site, wrote in an analysis on July 12 that if Vance was selected, it could lead to a new conversation about Eucharistic coherence, or the idea that a Catholic’s belief in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist should be accompanied by actions that align with the Catholic Church’s teaching.

This argument was used most recently to suggest Catholic politicians Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi, who support abortion rights, should not receive Communion.

In a campaign fundraising message on July 8, Vance called for mass deportations of immigrants without legal status, a promise also present in the Republican Party platform. “We need to deport every single person who invaded our country illegally.”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has called for a pathway to legal status and citizenship for the approximately 11 million immigrants who live in the U.S. without legal authorization, emphasizing the obligation in the Catholic Catechism to “welcome the foreigner.”

WASHINGTON (RNS)—In late March of 2021, the Religious Exemption Accountability Project filed a class action lawsuit charging the U.S. Department of Education as complicit “in the abuses that thousands of LGBTQ+ students endured at taxpayer-funded religious colleges and universities.”

The case, Elizabeth Hunter, et al v. U.S. Department of Education, was thrown out by the Oregon federal district court.

Three years later, the Hunter plaintiffs are back in court to make their case. In August 2023, the Hunter plaintiffs appealed the decision, filing their opening brief before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Appealing the case are a mix of current students, recent alumni and recently expelled students. With the case now fully briefed, the legal team will appear before the Court of Appeals on July 16 for oral argument.

At the center of the case is the issue of religious exemption from Title IX, an exemption the plaintiffs argued has allowed religious schools to discriminate against LGBTQ+ students.

Although the students bringing the case are connected to a number of religious institutions, including Brigham Young University, they coalesce around one point: that schools that violate LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination protections should lose access to federal education funds.

ERLC supports institutions’ right to their convictions

Religious liberty groups applauded the case’s original dismissal, arguing that the lawsuit was an attempt to subvert the constitutional right of religious freedom.

Following the lawsuit’s dismissal in 2023, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention stated, “No student of any faith should be deprived of their right ‘to attend a school that shares their beliefs’ and no educational institution should be stripped of its freedom to ‘live out their deeply and sincerely held convictions.’”

But in the aftermath of the dismissal, the case also received strong support, with 19 state attorneys general filing friends of the court briefs in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the Hunter v. U.S. Department of Education case in favor of the plaintiffs.

Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said in a statement, “During the Trump administration, his Department of Education gutted protections for women, members of the LGBTQ+ community and other classes of students that had been in place for decades.”

Rosenblum added: “Title IX needs to be strengthened, not systematically weakened. Students ought to know before they get to campuses whether their academic institutions will protect their rights or undermine them.”

The original lawsuit argues the Department of Education is responsible under the federal civil rights law Title IX to “protect sexual and gender minority students at taxpayer-funded” schools, including “private and religious educational institutions.”

It alleges that in violation of Title IX, LGBTQ+ students have endured abuses, including “conversion therapy, expulsion, denial of housing and health care, sexual and physical abuse and harassment,” as well as the “less visible, but no less damaging, consequences of institutionalized shame, fear, anxiety, and loneliness.”

Protests at some religiously affiliated schools

During the two years the original case was being considered, a broader reckoning spread among religious higher education institutions across the United States as their students became increasingly vocal about experiences of discrimination at the schools.

Students at some religious schools engaged in a range of protests. At Seattle Pacific University, a private school with ties to the Free Methodist Church, students protested against a policy that forbids the hiring of LGBTQ+ people.

At Baylor University, protests focused on the school’s Statement on Human Sexuality, which defines marriage between a man and a woman as the “biblical norm” and on Baylor’s refusal to recognize an LGBTQ+ student advocacy group as an officially chartered organization.

In October 2022, students organized at more than 100 campuses to walk out of school in protest of religious exemptions to Title IX, which they argued leave loopholes for LGBTQ+ discrimination, harassment and erasure.

When Hunter v. U.S. Department of Education was dismissed in January 2023 by Federal District Court Judge Ann Aiken of the U.S. District Court in Eugene, Ore., Aiken ruled the plaintiffs had “satisfactorily alleged” their injury by religious exemption.

However, Aiken also ruled: “Plaintiffs do not plausibly demonstrate that the religious exemption was motivated by any impermissible purpose—let alone that Congress was ‘wholly’ motivated by such an impermissible purpose.”

The decision left the 40 students and former students responsible for filing the lawsuit with recognition of the harms committed but no legal recourse.

In a press release from the Religious Exemption Accountability Project, Plaintiff Kalie Hargrove, former student at Lincoln Christian University, was quoted saying: “I am disappointed in the ruling. The actions of the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice have shown once again that human dignity is optional.

“I was publicly dehumanized, kicked out of school, received death threats, and had people call for my execution for being a Christian student at a Christian school who happened to be trans, and my government refused to protect me then, and refuses to protect me now.”