Moral concerns and church-state issues figured prominently in the 89th Texas Legislative Session that wrapped up June 2.

Texas Baptists’ Christian Life Commission saw several key legislative priorities advance during the 140-day session, while also suffering a few key losses.

Lawmakers dissolved the Texas Lottery Commission and outlawed lottery couriers. They clarified an exception to Texas’ abortion ban and made incremental progress toward regulating temperatures in state prisons.

“Overall, it was a very successful and exciting session. We saw numerous pieces of good legislation pass which promote a culture of life, human dignity and just treatment,” said John Litzler, CLC public policy director.

At the same time, separation of church and state suffered serious setbacks in the session.

Lawmakers approved an education savings account program that will send public funds to private schools, including religious schools.

They also approved a bill mandating the display of the Ten Commandments—with state-sanctioned wording—in every public-school classroom.

The CLC tracked more than 300 of the 9,000-plus bills filed in the 2025 Texas Legislative Session. They grouped them according to four priorities: religious liberty, sanctity of life, human flourishing, and fair and just financial practices.

Key legislation included:

• Regulating the Texas Lottery

The CLC entered the session hoping to see a bill pass that would prohibit lottery couriers—third-party companies that enable customers to purchase lottery tickets through their websites or mobile phone apps.

Lawmakers exceeded expectations, passing that prohibition in a bill that also dissolved the Texas Lottery Commission, which is the subject of several investigations and lawsuits.

Texas legislators voted to move administration of the lottery to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, where CLC Consultant Rob Kohler said the lottery will be operating “under a bright light.”

The bill to abolish the Texas Lottery Commission and move administration of the lottery game passed in both the Senate and House, advancing to the governor’s desk where it awaits his signature.

Because of the attention focused on the Texas Lottery, efforts to expand legalized gambling in the state never gained traction during the legislative session.

“The fact that the online sports wagering and casino resort bills did not even receive committee hearings was also a great victory,” Litzler said.

• Life of the Mother Act

The CLC supported SB 31, the Life of the Mother Act, which clarifies exceptions to prohibited abortions.

The bill unanimously passed the Senate on April 27. The House approved it May 27, sending it to the governor for his signature.

“The bill clarifies the sole exemption to Texas’ abortion ban by better defining what it means for a pregnant woman to be at risk in a physician’s reasonable medical judgment,” Litzler said.

“It also provides important educational instruction on Texas’ abortion law for doctors’ and hospitals’ attorneys. This protects both pregnant women and their children.”

• Temperature control in Texas prisons

The CLC advocated on behalf of HB 3006, a bill requiring state prisons to have air conditioning and heatingsystems by the end of 2032. The House approved the measure, but it failed to receive a vote in the Senate.

However, HB 500—the supplemental appropriations bill—included $600 million to make improvements to regulate temperatures inside Texas prisons.

That included $226.3 million for “major repair and restoration projects” to install air conditioners, as well as $110 million for the purchase of the Dalby Correctional Facility from Garza County—which already has air conditioning—and $301 million for the construction of new dormitories that will be air-conditioned.

“We are disappointed that HB 3006, which would have required all state prisons to have A/C in them by the year 2032, did not pass. However, HB 500 has over $600 million appropriated to add air-conditioned units,” Litzler said.

“I would score this important issue as still-to-be-determined, but we remain optimistic that every TDCJ prison will have air conditioning in the living quarters by 2032, as HB 3006 sought to require.”

• Electronic Benefit Transfer program

Among the other “wonderful provisions” in HB 500, Litzler noted, is funding for Texas to administer the summer Electronic Benefit Transfer program.

The initiative helps reduce food insecurity by providing low-income families access to grocery benefits.

“Summer EBT is a federal program that provides grocery benefits to low-income families during the summer months when students are not in school and not receiving free or reduced cost lunch,” Litzler explained.

“While Texas will bear half the cost of administering the program, it will also be unlocking access to $450 million in federal funds.”

• Trey’s Law

The CLC supported and legislators approved Trey’s Law. It makes unenforceable any provision of a nondisclosure agreement that would prevent a person from disclosing an act of sexual abuse or revealing facts related to the sexual abuse of someone else.

Pending the governor’s signature, Trey’s Law goes into effect Sept. 1.

Trey’s Law was named for Trey Carlock, who died by suicide. He was traumatized by a restrictive nondisclosure agreement regarding abuse he endured at Kanakuk Kamps in Missouri, his sister Elizbeth Carlock Phillips said in advocating for the bill.

Litzler explained the legislation will ensure “survivors of sexual abuse and their families do not have to choose between restorative justice and the right to share their stories.”

CLC Director Katie Frugé called the measure “a noble and necessary step in returning agency and healing to survivors of sexual abuse.”

• Education savings accounts.

The CLC opposed SB 2, which created a voucher-like system that allows families to direct public funds to private—frequently religious—schools.

Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill into law May 3. The $1 billion program—the governor’s top legislative priority—will provide about $10,000 to each participating private school student and up to $2,000 to each participating homeschool student.

It dedicates 80 percent to students with disabilities and—broadly defined—low-income families. The general population, including families with students already in private schools, can apply for the remaining 20 percent.

Litzler expressed disappointment in passage of the bill, noting the CLC’s longstanding opposition to using public funds to advance religious instruction and its commitment to supporting public education.

On the positive side, lawmakers approved HB2, which allots $8.5 million for public schools, including pay raises for teachers.

• Ten Commandments in classrooms

The CLC also opposed SB 10, which requires each public-school classroom to display a poster at least 16 inches by 20 inches with legislatively prescribed wording of the Ten Commandments.

The approved wording—an abridged version of Exodus 20:2-17 from the King James Version of the Bible—replicates the words inscribed in a monument near the Texas Capitol. Jews, Catholics and Protestants number the commandments differently, and their wording varies.

The Texas House of Representatives voted May 25 to approve an amended version of the bill. It requires the Texas Attorney General to defend school districts in any litigation sparked by the Ten Commandments displays.

The Texas Senate agreed to the House version of the bill and voted May 29 to send it to the governor’s desk for signing.

A coalition of civil liberties groups immediately responded by pledging to sue if Abbott signs the bill into law.

When walking through a season of doubts and questions, Morgan Breeden from First Baptist Church in Cuero recognized God was on the move in her life.

“I was [thinking], ‘I’m going through a really hard time in my faith right now, [but] I feel like the Lord is going to use this for something big in the future,’” said Breeden, a high school senior thinking back on her middle school years.

When she was in the sixth grade, she attended a youth event her homeschool convention hosted. She heard from representatives from Teen Missions International, a missions organization that helps launch youth into lifetime missions involvement by training, discipling and mobilizing them to share the gospel around the world.

Breeden said she was “enamored by the thought of missions” and burdened by the awareness there are “people who have never heard the gospel in other countries.”

“I was never able to get over that. And so, [missions] was just always on my mind—to go on mission trips and do ministry and be missional where I am,” she said.

‘I think I’m called to ministry’

Later, as a high school sophomore in 2023, Breeden thought she needed to look to the future and consider “actual career opportunities.”

But that summer at youth camp, she felt God calling her to something different.

“The whole week was focused on Isaiah chapter six, which is ‘Here I am, send me,’” Breeden explained.

Near the end of the week at camp, the camp pastor extended a call for students to commit to full-time Christian service.

She later recalled thinking: “I’m not going to stand up and go, because I’m not sure. But I think God is calling me to this. But I need some time to pray about this.”

Into the next year, the Lord continued knocking on the door of her heart. In early 2024, God gave Breeden the desire to start a Bible study with her friends for girls in their age group.

“[It] was something that I saw as a need, and the Lord had put on my heart to do,” she said.

After being involved in the Bible study a few months, she recalled washing dishes in the kitchen and began reflecting on how God was at work in her life.

“I was thinking about everything that’s been going on, and all these desires [the Lord] had put on my heart, and all these things that I felt he was leading me to, and I was just like, ‘I think I’m called to ministry,’” Breeden said.

Then, a fire was ignited in her heart, and she began sharing her call to ministry with people who affirmed her call, saying, “Yeah, I totally see that for you.”

“So, I had those like inward confirmations from the Holy Spirit, and then I had outward confirmations from people around me,” she said.

Significant role of Bounce

Her freshman year of high school, Breeden was introduced to Bounce, a Texas Baptists ministry that mobilizes students by engaging them in challenging mission service and inspiring times of worship.

Bounce played “a big role” in her call to ministry.

“[Bounce] was my first mission trip I’d ever gone on, and so it definitely instilled in me a love for missions,” Breeden said. “I loved this, and I love serving at church, and I feel most fulfilled when I’m serving. … It just took a couple years for me to put the pieces together.”

On her second Bounce trip in 2024, her junior year of high school, she recognized the call God put on her life.

This year during spring break, she was able to return and “share the news” in an interview with CW39 Houston.

“Going back this year was a no-brainer,” Breeden said. “I just love it.”

Over three years of Bounce, she said, God taught her service “doesn’t have to be this huge grand gesture” to “make a difference in someone’s life.”

“After Bounce, I just come back renewed,” she said. “[Bounce] puts it in perspective again for me every year, to just look for those opportunities [to serve] no matter how big or how small it is … to honor the Lord and worship him.”

Seeing ‘the change that happens’

Breeden said “serving and pouring out during the day” and then coming back in the evening to worship with her co-laborers and be “poured into at night” is what made Bounce so special.

She said her favorite part of Bounce is seeing “the change that happens” in other students’ lives as they serve the community.

“I’ve seen students accept Christ at Bounce and go home entirely changed. So, I would say just getting to serve there and then seeing how the Lord transforms the students that I go with and myself … would be my favorite part,” Breeden said.

She has since said “yes” to her call to ministry, and her peers seem to view her as a leader. She experienced this over spring break as a fellow student at First Baptist in Cuero confided in her about her relationship with the Lord and “some challenges she’s facing.”

“We probably got to talk for like 20 minutes, and it meant a lot to me to be that person that she came to and to get to share with her things that I’ve learned or that I know and get to encourage her and help her in that way,” Breeden said. “That was really impactful for me.”

Since embracing her call to ministry, Breeden said, she’s gained further confirmation and has been “growing in my relationship with the Lord and dependence on him.”

 “I think that’s only going to continue, because the more responsibility I have, like in a ministry role, the more I’m going to have to be dependent on him and just rely on him for strength, because it is not coming from me,” Breeden said.

Breeden encouraged those discerning a call to full-time ministry to look for “inward and outward confirmations.”

“Look for internal confirmations from the Holy Spirit and be prayerful and be mindful of the desires that the Lord put on your heart,” Breeden said.

“Then secondly, look for outward confirmations from trusted people around you, whether that’s your parents or your youth pastor or some friends who are rooted in their relationships with the Lord.”

FORT WORTH—Opal Lee, the “grandmother of Juneteenth” and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient—and “a little old lady in tennis shoes,” as she says she has been viewed—still is walking for freedom and unity at 98 years old, despite a recent hospitalization.

Lee chanced to meet Baptist Standard publisher and editor Eric Black in a Washington, D.C., airport this spring, where she had traveled for an engagement with her granddaughter, Dionne.

They just tell her where to go and she goes, she explained in the interview she gave to the Baptist Standard at her Annie Street home.

Lee confirmed the date of birth listed for her on the internet.

“I’m the oldest person alive,” she quipped, noting, “This is my 99th year.”

She said she was feeling good, so she expects the Lord will be good to her and allow her to make it to Oct. 7, her birthday.

Lee was hospitalized in late May while visiting Ohio for the 30th anniversary of Cincinnati’s National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, the Dallas Morning News reported. However, a news release from the nonprofit United Unlimited described her as “still unstoppable.”

Would not have survived without God

Lee grew up the granddaughter of a Baptist pastor with 19 kids, she said. When her parents wed, her mother began attending the Methodist (AME) church with Lee’s dad, and Lee grew up in that denomination.

She said she still attends Baker Chapel when “I’m in town, and I look forward to it.” In fact, Lee pointed out, when she’s out of town she’s “a little miffed, because I want to be at my church.”

Her faith has been important throughout her life, Lee said. “If I didn’t have a God to depend on, ooo, some of the things that have happened, whew, you wouldn’t have survived, you know?”

Lee recalled moving to the location where her house currently stands when she was around 9 or 10 years old. Her parents had moved around some, she said, but they ended up in a house on Annie Street in Fort Worth.

“But the people in the neighborhood didn’t want us. They were white,” she recalled.

Sensing trouble was afoot, Lee’s parents sent Lee and her siblings to some friends’ house several blocks away. Then they, too, “left under cover of darkness, and the people tore the place apart and did despicable things,” she said.

“Our parents never discussed it with us,” Lee said. But they bought a house five blocks away on Terrell Avenue, where “there were whites on one side and Blacks on the other, and nobody seemed to mind.

“But in this area,” Lee said, “they were furious.”

That was on June 19, 1936, Juneteenth. She recalled how her mother had fixed up the house so nicely. Her dad came home from work with a gun that day, “and the police were here.”

The officers warned her father that if he fired a shot, they’d set the people—a crowd of around 500, Lee said—loose, “and let the mob have us.”

Lee emphasized again they’d never discussed that night with the children, “so we all drew our own conclusions.”

Winding road to completing her education

Lee’s parents had planned to send her to Wiley College in Marshall, but she got married instead.

However, after having four children of her own, Lee said she decided four kids to raise was plenty and “cut [her] losses,” meaning her (ex) husband was going to have to grow up on his own, she explained.

As a single parent, Lee enrolled in Wiley College to complete her degree in education—on her own dime this time—but her mother offered to help by keeping the kids.

She recalled working multiple jobs to save up for college, but then she spent it on a TV to help keep the kids home where her mom could keep an eye on them more readily.

“I went to Wylie without a dime,” Lee noted, so she worked on campus during the week and came back to Fort Worth to work another job on weekends.

She finished in three-and-a-half years because, Lee said, she couldn’t do that any longer.

Lee taught third grade until she became a “visiting teacher” who would check on students who were absent and, like a social worker, help make sure they had what they needed, she explained.

Walking for freedom, 2.5 miles at a time

Some reports have said the mob destruction of her family home happening on Juneteenth is what spurred Lee’s push for Juneteenth to become a national holiday.

But Lee said: “I don’t know what spurred me. I just know that Juneteenth was extremely important to me …

“I’m old as dirt,” Lee quipped.

“And so, I decided if I walked from Fort Worth to D.C.” to ask the president to make Juneteenth a national holiday, “maybe he would. And he did.”

The walk Opal Lee took began when she turned 90. She walked 2.5 miles in each city where she stopped between Texas and Washington D.C. The 2.5 miles represents the two and a half years it took for enslaved persons in Texas to receive word of their freedom after the Civil War ended.

Others provided aid and joined her at each location, solidifying her reputation as “the little old lady in tennis shoes.”

Despite all she has overcome and accomplished, Lee’s greatest achievement has been her children, she noted. She lost her youngest son to complications from injuries sustained during his time in the service, Lee said.

It was tragic to lose him, but all her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren are her greatest blessings and achievement, Lee mused.

Waiting for a reply from the president

When asked about her views on current events in the United States, Lee mentioned she’d sent President Trump a letter. He’s yet to respond, but as she had been successful in reaching out to past presidents, she was hopeful she might get an opportunity to talk to him.

“I just don’t know where his views are coming from. I don’t understand,” Lee observed. She read her letter to President Trump in an interview available here.

Her letter to President Trump pointed out that “leadership is more than policy, it’s example.” She asserts division is easy, but the “courageous” choice is unity.

“The road to freedom is long, but I’ve walked it my whole life,” Lee noted to the president, before asking him to name a time and place to walk, and she’d meet him there.

But Lee wasn’t too bothered about President Trump’s lack of response. “There’s so many other things that need to be done that I can’t concentrate on him,” she said.

‘We are our brother’s keeper’

Lee played a key role in securing the use of 13 acres of land on the Trinity River to be used for urban farming, Opal’s Farm.

The farm manager, Greg Joel, provides produce for WIC and a food distribution center in the area and takes the rest to market, Lee explained.

Young people concerned about the future of the United States need to understand “we are our brother’s keeper,” Lee asserted.

“We are a people who have to look out for each other regardless of the color of our skin … The Bible says so.”

So, Americans have a responsibility to help out wherever they can. “He’d want us to,” she noted, referring to God.

As for walking, Lee’s family and friends will be out walking again this Juneteenth, in Opal’s Walk for Freedom, the annual 2.5 mile walk on June 19.

A portion of this year’s registration fee will go toward the construction of the National Juneteenth Museum. Participation in the walk can be in person or virtual.

A coalition of civil liberties groups—including Americans United for Separation of Church and State—pledged to sue if Gov. Greg Abbott signs into law a bill mandating the display of the Ten Commandments in public-school classrooms.

The Texas House of Representatives voted May 25 to approve an amended version of the bill that requires the Texas Attorney General to defend school districts in any lawsuits sparked by the classroom Ten Commandments displays.

The Texas Senate agreed to the House version of the bill and voted March 28 to send the measure to the governor’s desk for signing.

Americans United—along with the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas and the Freedom from Religion Foundation—called Ten Commandments legislation “blatantly unconstitutional” and “religiously coercive.”

The Texas Ten Commandments bill “will co-opt the faith of millions of Texans and marginalize students and families who do not subscribe to the state’s favored Scripture,” the coalition stated.

“We will not allow Texas lawmakers to divide communities along religious lines and attempt to turn public schools into Sunday schools. If Gov. Abbott signs this measure into law, we will file suit to defend the fundamental religious freedom rights of all Texas students and parents.”

Bill prescribes wording of Ten Commandments

SB 10, sponsored by Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, requires each public-school classroom to display a poster at least 16 by 20 inches with prescribed wording of the Ten Commandments—an abridged version of Exodus 20:2-17 from the King James Version of the Bible.

Jews, Catholics and Protestants number the commandments differently, and their wording varies.

Rep. Candy Noble, R-Lucas, who carried the bill in the House, said the prescribed wording of the Ten Commandments in the bill replicates language inscribed in a monument near the Texas Capitol.

“This monument and the words on it have already been approved and upheld by the Supreme Court in a 2005 case, so the wording won’t need to be subject to a new court case objection,” said Noble, a member of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano.

Noble asserted the bill is “about honoring our historic educational and judicial heritage.”

She cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, in which the court established a “history and tradition” test to determine if government actions violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

“Nothing is more deep-rooted in the fabric of our American tradition of education than the Ten Commandments,” Noble said.

A federal court ruled unconstitutional a similar bill in Louisiana, saying it violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The state is appealing that decision.

Plaintiffs in the Louisiana suit are represented by Americans United, the national ACLU, the ACLU of Louisiana and the Freedom from Religion Foundation.

Groups call mandate ‘religiously coercive’

Both the Louisiana law and the bill in Texas are prohibited by longstanding U.S. Supreme Court precedent, the coalition asserted, pointing to Stone v. Graham.

“We will be working with Texas public school families to prepare a lawsuit to stop this violation of students’ and parents’ First Amendment rights,” the coalition stated.

“We all have the right to decide what religious beliefs, if any, to hold and practice. Government officials have no business intruding on these deeply personal religious matters.”

The Texas bill “will subject students to state-sponsored displays of the Ten Commandments for nearly every hour of their public education,” the coalition asserted.

“It is religiously coercive and interferes with families’ right to direct children’s religious education,” the civil liberties groups stated.

Misreading the tension between Jesus and the Pharisees historically fostered antisemitism and contributed to the Holocaust, New Testament scholar Scot McKnight told a gathering at East Texas Baptist University.

“I believe we have misunderstood the Pharisees—misinterpreted the Pharisees—to significant and substantive damage in culture and society, and the Holocaust is connected to this,” McKnight said.

Delivering the Frank and Pauline Patterson Lectures at the Spring Colloquy of ETBU’s B.H. Carroll Theological Seminary, McKnight encouraged Christians to adopt an “empathy for people of the past” as they seek to understand the truth about the Pharisees.

“Truth is found by those who risk it all in its pursuit, and I contend it cannot happen without empathy,” he said.

Consider a ‘constellation’ of issues

Rather than focusing on a single issue, such as sabbath observance, the tension between Jesus and scribes, Pharisees and temple officials may be understood best as a “constellation” of issues.

“The conflict between Jesus and the leaders at Galilee, including the Pharisees, was multilayered, complicated, religious, social, political and economic,” McKnight said. “In other words, it was about power.”

Those who held power viewed with suspicion and distrust the kingdom of God vision of Jesus as outlined in Luke 4, he noted.

“To understand Jesus, one has to begin where he himself staked his claims—with a vision of radical social and economic justice, with Jubilee, with his vision to turn the nation into an agent of economic generosity and justice,” McKnight said.

The temple authorities were the incumbent elites who held power, while the “kingdom network” of Jesus was an insurgent movement of the common people, he observed.

“We ought to emancipate the Pharisees from the relentless Christian stereotype of hypocrisy and rediscover them as but one actor in a complicated network of power, negotiation, beliefs, practices and social stability,” he said.

Different perspective on Pharisees

Looking at nonbiblical sources from the first century, McKnight painted a different picture of a Pharisee than the stereotype of a legalistic hypocrite.

“When you think of a Pharisee, think of a spiritually formed person. Think of an idealistic person who is passionate about God and the Bible,” he urged.

“Think of ordinary folks whose lives embodied holiness and justice. And think of those who had the capacities of influencing society.”

Christians have tended to view the conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees as focused on theology and the doctrine of salvation, he observed. Instead, he suggested, the differences centered more on how faith is lived.

Judaism—particularly the law as understood by the Pharisees—should not be viewed as a systematic theology but as a way of life and system of practices, McKnight said.

‘Woe unto you …’

Many of the Christian stereotypes surrounding Pharisees—and Jews in general—have grown out of a misreading of Matthew 23, he asserted.

Too often, Christians’ stereotypes of Jews as legalists and hypocrites have given rise to antisemitic rhetoric and violent actions, ultimately leading to the Holocaust, he insisted.

“Matthew 23 is not an oracle of doom but an emotion-laden lament. It is the heart cry of a prophet who had delivered the message of God to an unresponsive people of God,” McKnight said.

“Jesus really did disagree deeply and dramatically with the scribes and Pharisees, but he was not spewing hatred. He was weeping over the culture the scribes and Pharisees had formed.”

Law book or life book?

Jesus actually agreed with the Pharisees that the law had to be interpreted, expanded and amplified, McKnight observed. But Jesus disagreed deeply with the way in which the Pharisees did it, without compassion and pastoral care.

“Jesus lamented that the expansions of the Torah by the Pharisees were burdensome to ordinary people,” McKnight said.

“The interpreters of the law were doing damage to walking in the true way of the law.”

The scribes, Pharisees and temple authorities viewed the Torah as “both a life book and the law book,” he said.

Jesus agreed the law needed to be applied to everyday life, but he gave greater weight to its principles of justice, compassion and faithfulness.

“The foundational difference between the Pharisees and Jesus was communal,” McKnight said.

It was a conflict between the temple community who possessed power and Jesus’ “kingdom network,” he said.

As McKnight emphasized at several points, “Power is always at the heart of social conflicts.”

The Texas House of Representatives voted to dissolve the Texas Lottery Commission and move the operation and administration of the lottery to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.

Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, presented the House substitute to SB 3070, the bill approved unanimously by the Texas Senate. Geren said he wanted to put “guardrails around the operation of the lottery,” while ensuring its continued operation.

Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, author of SB 3070, previously had introduced legislation to do away with the state lottery altogether. In presenting SB 3070 in a Senate Committee on State Affairs hearing, Hall called the compromise bill “the next best thing.”

Put the lottery ‘under a bright light’

Among other reforms, the bill in both its House and Senate versions bans lottery couriers—third-party companies that enable customers to purchase lottery tickets through their websites or mobile phone apps.

The bill requires retailers to develop age verification tools to prevent the sale of lottery tickets to minors.

It also makes the lottery subject to regulatory review, although the House and Senate versions of the bill set different dates by which the review must be completed.

Rob Kohler, consultant with Texas Baptists’ Christian Life Commission, said the lottery will be operating “under a bright light” under the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.

Differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill will need to be reconciled before it goes to Gov. Greg Abbott to sign into law.

Before voting to approve the bill moving lottery operations and oversight to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, the House rejected an amendment by Brent Money, R-Greenville, to abolish the lottery altogether.

Even when state lotteries operate as they are intended, they still are “shameful,” Money said, because they “disproportionately burden low-income Texans who spend a higher share of their income chasing false hopes.” The House defeated Money’s amendment 71-58.

Mired in investigations and lawsuits

The Texas Lottery Commission is the subject of several investigations and lawsuits.

In February, Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the Texas Rangers to investigate both an April 2023 bulk purchase of lottery tickets that enabled a group to claim a $95 million jackpot and a more-recent $83.5 million win involving lottery couriers.

Attorney General Ken Paxton also announced his office was launching its own investigation into the Texas Lottery to determine whether any state or federal laws were broken.

Ryan Mindell resigned on April 21 after one year as executive director of the Texas Lottery Commission. About that same time, several news outlets reported Gary Grief—who served more than 30 years as executive director of the commission—went missing, and some authorities feared he fled the United States.

Two former executives with Lottery.com who have been linked directly to Grief and other former high-ranking Texas Lottery Commission officials recently pleaded guilty to participating in a complicated securities fraud scheme.

The Texas House of Representatives voted to approve a bill mandating the display of the Ten Commandments in every public-school classroom.

The Texas House voted 88-49 on May 24 to give its initial approval to the bill. It granted final approval to an amended version by an 82-46 vote the next day.

Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, pointed out the initial vote in the House was being held on the Jewish Sabbath and the final vote on the traditional Christian day of worship, in spite of the commandment to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.

“Is that ironic or what?” the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Candy Noble, R-Lucas, responded.

Talarico, a seminary student, asked Noble, “Would you be willing to postpone your bill so that we’re not breaking the Ten Commandments by working on the Jewish or Christian sabbath?”

Noble said lawmakers were under a time “crunch.” She observed the House already would have voted on the measure several days earlier if Talarico had not raised a point of order that delayed its consideration.

Talarico later posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter: “Texas Republicans just passed a bill forcing every teacher to post the Ten Commandments in their classroom. They passed it on the Sabbath … breaking the 4th Commandment. Maybe they should try following the Ten Commandments before mandating them.”

Emphasis on ‘history and tradition’

Noble, a member of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, stressed the bill is “about honoring our historic educational and judicial heritage.”

“The displaying of the Ten Commandments in our Texas classrooms will bring back the historic tradition of recognizing America’s foundational heritage in both our educational and our judicial systems and remind students of the importance of this cornerstone of American and Texas law,” she said.

She cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, in which the court established a “history and tradition” test to determine if government actions violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

“Nothing is more deep-rooted in the fabric of our American tradition of education than the Ten Commandments,” Noble said.

The bill stipulated the exact wording of the Ten Commandments—an abridged version of Exodus 20:2-17 from the King James Version of the Bible.

Jews, Catholics and Protestants number the commandments differently, and their wording varies.

Noble said the prescribed wording of the Ten Commandments included in the bill replicates the words inscribed in a monument near the Texas Capitol.

“This monument and the words on it have already been approved and upheld by the Supreme Court in a 2005 case, so the wording won’t need to be subject to a new court case objection,” she said.

Still needs final Senate approval

The final amended version of the House bill stipulated the state will be responsible for legal fees if a local school district is sued over the Ten Commandments display.

The amended version must go back to the Senate for final approval, since it differs from what the Senate approved 20-11 in March.

SB 10, sponsored by Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, requires each public school classroom to display a poster at least 16 by 20 inches with the prescribed wording of the Ten Commandments.

If the amended bill passes the Senate, it advances to Gov. Greg Abbott, who is expected to sign it into law.

A federal court ruled unconstitutional a similar bill in Louisiana, saying it violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The state is appealing that decision.

Earlier in the session, Texas lawmakers approved a bill that allows school districts to set aside a prayer or religious study period in school.

The Texas House passed May 16 a bill requiring prisons to have air conditioning by the end of 2032.

Lawmakers passed 79-39 House Bill 3006 by Terry Canales, D-Edinburg. If the Legislature or the federal government allocates funding, it will require the installation of climate control in phases to be completed by the end of 2032. The bill now will face its last hurdle in the Senate.

“The bill targets key housing units and medical spaces, kitchens, and administrative offices in state prison facilities to ensure the most critical spaces are temperature-controlled,” said Rep. Eddie Morales Jr., D-Eagle Pass, a co-sponsor of the bill, told lawmakers.

The bill mandates the Texas Department of Criminal Justice purchase and install climate control systems to ensure temperatures are maintained between 65 and 85 degrees in certain areas. The installation will occur in three phases, capped at $100 million per phase, and completion is set for 2028, 2030 and 2032.

However, advocates are only a little bit hopeful the bill survives the Senate and even if it does, they worry the phased process will take too long.

“People are being hurt and tortured by the Texas heat and it’s simply not good enough to have a phased-in approach. We have the funding. Just get it done as quickly as possible,” said Erica Grossman, a Colorado attorney, who represents inmates who are suing Texas over its lack of air conditioning in state prisons.

This session, four prison heat-related bills filed by House members have been referred to the House Corrections Committee: HB 1315, HB 2997, HB 3006 and HB 489. However, Canales’ bill was the only one to make it out of committee.

Officials from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which oversees the state’s 101 prison facilities, asked lawmakers for $118 million over the next biennium to install air conditioning in about 11,000 units. Even if lawmakers grant that request, millions more will be needed to get to the at least $1.1 billion the TDCJ says will be needed to fully air condition its prisons.

Since the House Corrections Committee wrote in its 2018 interim report to the Legislature that TDCJ’s heat mitigation efforts were not enough to ensure the well-being of inmates and the correctional officers who work in prisons, lawmakers have tried to pass bills that would require the agency to install air conditioning. None of those bills made it to the governor’s desk.

Slow progress

During that time, TDCJ slowly has been installing air conditioning. The department also has added 11,788 “cool beds” and is in the process of procuring about 12,000 more.

The addition is thanks to $85.5 million state lawmakers appropriated during the last legislative session. Although not earmarked for air conditioning, an agency spokesperson said all of that money is being used to cool more prisons.

Still, about two-thirds of Texas’ prison inmates reside in facilities that are not fully air conditioned in housing areas.

Indoor temperatures routinely top 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and inmates report oppressive, suffocating conditions in which they douse themselves with toilet water in an attempt to cool off. Hundreds of inmates have been diagnosed with heat-related illnesses, court records state, and at least two dozen others have died from heat-related causes.

“For years, there has been a huge understaffing crisis in the Texas prisons, a crisis that will not be fixed until there is air conditioning. I encourage anyone who questions these bills to spend five minutes in one of these prisons. Officers are suffering along with the inmates,” Grossman said.

“Texas will be spending millions of dollars either way: They will be paying lawyers and settlements to the people they hurt and kill, or they could finally just fix the problem,” Grossman added.

The pace at which the state is installing air conditioning is insufficient, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman wrote in a 91-page decision in late March. The lack of system-wide air conditioning violates the U.S. Constitution, and the prison agency’s plan to slowly chip away at cooling its facilities—over an estimated timeline of at least 25 years—is too slow, he wrote.

Sen. Joan Huffman, a Houston Republican who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, said in an emailed statement the supplemental appropriations bill will include the $118 million TDCJ requested to fund approximately 11,000 new air-conditioned beds. It also will include $301 million to construct additional dorms—which the prison agency requested to accommodate its growing prison population—and those new facilities all will be air-conditioned.

An internal investigation also found TDCJ has falsified temperatures, and an investigator hired by the prison agency concluded some of the agency’s temperature logs are false.

Citing that report, Pitman wrote: “The Court has no confidence in the data TDCJ generates and uses to implement its heat mitigation measures and record the conditions within the facilities.”

Ways to help

John Litzler, Texas Baptists’ CLC Public Policy director, has been advocating for HB 3006, hoping to help get temperature controls in Texas prisons into law this legislative session.

As of May 22, the bill has yet to be assigned to a committee in the Senate, and that’s “not a good sign,” he said.

Texas Baptists and others who are concerned about humane conditions for all Texas prisons still can make a difference, he noted.

Two actions could help, Litzler said. First, concerned individuals can “call the lieutenant governor’s office and ask that HB 3006 be assigned to a Senate committee, so it can be set for a hearing.” That number is (512) 463-0001.

Litzler suggested it also might help to call the offices of Sen. Huffman and Rep. Greg Bonnen, R-League City, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee. Sen. Huffman can be reached at (512) 463-0117 and Rep. Bonnen at (512) 463-0729. Litzler urged callers to ask these legislators to put “every available dollar they can put into the appropriations bill for that purpose.”

With additional reporting by Calli Keener.

WACO—Over the past 12 years, revitalization and a renewed vision at Highland Baptist Church in Waco have served as the catalyst to help bring revival among their community and a desire to reach “a new and next generation with the gospel.”

“Highland is 102 years old, but it is filled each Sunday with 18- to 25-year-olds,” said Pastor John Durham.

Since Durham began serving at Highland in 2013, the church has seen tremendous growth, as it strategically shifted its efforts toward reaching this demographic.

“Revitalized churches are the wave of the future if the American church is going to continue to reach others for the gospel,” Durham said. “Highland has grown from 1,400 to 4,400 in 11 years, and the major growth has taken place with middle school, high school, college students and young families.

“Some decisions had to be made to reach a new and next generation. Some of the decisions were common sense, but others were difficult to make and navigate.”

The church set a goal of creating a healthy church that is multigenerational and multinational, Durham explained.

“Some of the strategies toward that goal included being very intentional about forming a sense of family and warmth and hospitality, celebrating the different nationalities of members at Highland, putting a high value on authenticity and accessibility of leadership and then dialing down stoicism and formality and dialing up a high view of Scripture, corporate prayer and expressive worship,” he said.

Durham notes the church now has 61 nationalities represented in its membership. He also said that this year the church is on track to baptize 150 people, and the vast majority of those are in the 15- to 25-year-old range.

Love for Waco, love for students

As someone who grew up in Waco and graduated from Baylor University, Durham holds two things close to his heart—the Waco community and college students. He returned to his hometown after serving for almost 12 years as the senior pastor at First Baptist Church in Irving. Before that, he served for 10 years as the student pastor at First Baptist Church in Houston.

“That age window of 18 to 25 is so formational,” Durham said. “Students and young adults are making decisions on faith, friendship, calling, scriptural authority, local church priority and what is real.

“If that demographic can move beyond faith information into Christ-honoring transformation, you will see another great awakening in our nation. And if prayer, evangelism and passion for Jesus are indicators of awakening, I believe we are on the threshold.”

The years between age 18 and age 25 were “formational” for Durham as a Baylor student and young student pastor, he noted.

“So of course, as a church we want to invest a lot of resources, love, support and discipleship into that generation,” he said. “On a given Sunday morning at Highland, about one in three worshippers are in that age range of 18 to 25, so about 1,500.

“And when you add in our preschool ministry, kids ministry, shine ministry for kids with special needs, middle school ministry and high school ministry, that is closer to 2,200 people under the age of 25 on a Sunday morning. That is exciting.”

Unity, prayer and a sense of expectation

While reflecting on the changes he has seen in Waco through the years, Durham is encouraged and sees renewed opportunities to reach the community with the gospel.

“There is a spiritual condition of unity and prayer and expectation that is very new,” he said. “When I talk to those who have been around for decades here, they sense it and agree that there are some undercurrents of spiritual renewal here in Waco that is based on prayer movements and unity movements and new converts to Christ.”

Before beginning to preach three services on Sundays at 8:40 a.m., 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., Durham gathers weekly with a group of 80 to 100 men to pray at 8 a.m. The majority of the men are college age.

The church is intentional in its community outreach, Durham said, building a Wellness Center to address neighbors’ needs.

The Wellness Center provides urgent care for medical needs and assessment, ESL classes, birthing classes, citizenship classes, finance classes, computer training and more. The center has resulted in salvations, church connections and new friendships with Highland Baptist’s community.

The center is for “outreach to the people God has put around our church,” Durham said.

‘A place for help and hope’

“It is a place of help and hope. We really wanted to draw basically a 1-mile circle around our church campus and begin to feel the responsibility of caring for those families and people,” he said.

“I would love to see Highland continue to use our Wellness Center as a launching place for continued and increased ministry. I believe we have just begun to consider all the ways we can leverage this building and the hundreds of volunteers to love, reach, serve and share Jesus with our neighbors.”

Durham also noticed increased unity among the churches in the surrounding area over the past few years.

“The city of Waco has experienced some incredible unity within the churches,” he said. “Monthly prayer gatherings, city events, events for colleges and more have all come out of partnerships between the churches. There are about 60 churches who take biblical stands together, who come together for Last Thursdays where the leaders gather to pray for the city and revival.

“For almost two years now, a group of Christians, pastors and leaders across Waco will meet at a different church on the last Thursday of the month and pray for three things: revival in our city, unity of believers across our city and for spiritual awakening and salvation for Generation Z, those who are in middle school through young adults.

“I believe that has been the catalyst for growing churches in our city, hundreds of baptisms, salvations across our city, and of course, the reality that churches are wanting to support one another and cheer one another on.”

A Kenya pastor and a Texas deacon drove through Tharaka County northeast of Nairobi and realized there was only one Baptist church to serve the county of almost 400,000 people.

Twelve years later, there are 47 Baptist churches in the county, and 25 of them have buildings in which to meet. The Texas deacon has led in building all 25 structures, and more are needed.

The Kenya Challenge, as the church-building effort is called, is this year’s Texas Royal Ambassadors mission project. Boys attending RA camps around the state this summer will learn about the effort and raise money for building more churches, with the effort concluding at the annual RA Campout and Missions Mania on Nov. 8-10.

Sam Dunkin, a deacon at McDade Baptist Church, east of Austin, began going to Kenya in 1995 as part of a Southern Baptist International Mission Board effort. He continued to go and build churches after IMB stepped away.

The Kenya Challenge is not an official nonprofit or formal organization. It’s an effort centered around Dunkin’s commitment to a group of Baptist churches led by Linus Ngaine, the Kenyan pastor who in 2013 identified the need in Tharaka County.

Seven church buildings planned this year

Dunkin, who gives his age as “just 82,” plans to build seven church structures in Kenya this year, and each will cost about $4,000. Money raised by Texas RAs and their churches will go toward those costs, which will continue into 2026.

Savion Lee, Texas RA coordinator, said he chose The Kenya Challenge as this year’s mission project because God “just kind of laid on my heart.”

“Sam has been a faithful servant there in Kenya over these past number of years,” Lee said, and he offers regular progress reports to RA and Challengers groups throughout the year.

In the early days of Dunkin’s work in Kenya, three RA camp “state staffers” went on mission projects to the East Africa country, Lee said. Now, those men are missionaries serving overseas.

Dunkin also has maintained consistent yearly involvement in Alto Frio Baptist Camp, which is about 200 miles from Dunkin’s home and church in McDade.

He also leads training in varied outdoor skills at the state RA Wilderness Camp and Leadership Training Camp.

‘Work with others in sharing Christ’

As Dunkin talks about the varied things he does in Texas and Kenya, it becomes obvious he likes to work with people. There are the camp staffers and attendees in Texas, and in Kenya there are Ngaine, other pastors and a team of workers who build the church structures.

“I now have a crew that can put up one (church) in two days,” Dunkin said. The tin buildings are all the same—20 feet by 40 feet, roofed and walled with a double door, single door and five windows,” Dunkin said. “It’s plumb. It’s square. It’s beautiful.”

Each building also has a dirt floor. Dunkin leaves the floor for church members because the process of pouring and finishing the concrete creates a sense of ownership.

“I do not name the churches and don’t finish them,” he said. “I want them to take possession. … It will be their building.”

Lee said Dunkin’s church-building effort fits into the pledge all RA boys learn. One phrase of the pledge says they will “learn how to carry the message of Christ around the world.” Another says RAs will “work with others in sharing Christ.”

Those two lines of the pledge point RAs toward opportunities through their local churches and missionaries, “which help further the gospel of Christ around the world,” Lee said.

“Sam is working with others to share Christ in Kenya, and Texas RAs are working with Sam in that effort to carry the message of Christ around the world.”

GORDON—When an EF-1 tornado hit Gordon, damaging the community’s only school, canceling classes for the week, and affecting dozens of homes in the area, Texans on Mission assessors were on site the next day.

The following day, chainsaw and temporary roofing teams rolled in to begin helping families recover from the damage.

The Rolling Timbers Disaster Relief chainsaw team began removing a huge tree from the roof and yard of a home, one of an expected 15 families Texans on Mission volunteers have identified for help, said Mark Randall, disaster relief volunteer coordinator for Rolling Timbers.

“The tornado kind of came from the west-northwest, and it kind of crossed town,” Randall said, “Most of the damage is at the football field. It pretty much flattened their equipment room, their weight room and tore up the bleachers.

“There are a lot of trees on the ground, and we’re working on the ones that are on the homes first, so that people can get a temporary roof put on.”

As a Texans on Mission temporary roof crew arrived, a chainsaw crew was “trying to clear the stuff off the roofs, so they can get up there, so the homeowner doesn’t have any more damage than they already have,” Randall said.

“I would say the estimate on the number of jobs, including temporary roof, would be about 15. When it takes two to four hours for each job, that’s quite a bit of work.

“And if you think about that, that’s that many homes and that many people that we get to come in contact with, and that’s what we’re here for.”

The homeowner is a local saddle maker. The volunteer team assessed his home, then went over to his saddle shop to discuss their work and pray with him.

“He said he felt it was unbelievable that we just showed up, but he’s very thrilled that we’re here,” Randall said.

‘We’re going to make it secure’

Across town, Texans on Mission volunteers Gary Emory and Mike Pickel began replacing metal roofing sheets on survivor Sassy Vicchio’s home in preparation for temporary tarping. The two are part of a team that mixed volunteers from Georgetown and Cross Plains.

Emory, a member of First Baptist Church of Georgetown, and Pickel a member of Crestview Baptist Church in Georgetown, were carefully attaching the blown-off panels 15 feet up on the roof. Heat waves already were shimmering in the morning sun.

 “The house has three panels ripped off,” Emory explained. “We’re trying to replace what we can, and then we’re going to make it secure. And then we’re going to come back over it with a tarp to try and keep it dry until they can get permanent panels back up here that are watertight.”

Vicchio looked up to the pair as they were working, grateful for the help.

“This is such a blessing,” she said. “Y’all are a godsend, and I am so thankful right now, because I was devastated and not quite sure what I was going to do.”

She said the family still is recovering emotionally from the storm.

“It was very scary—very loud,” she said. “We heard a lot of tin rattling, and thank God that was it. The house right behind us was destroyed.”

Standing in her front yard, she was surrounded by the effects of the tornado’s violent winds. Tubular framing and roofing from a carport 200 yards away were wrapped in her cottonwood tree and surrounded the house.

Aledo couple serves together to offer hope

Volunteer Tom McMillan, a member of Parker County Cowboy Church in Aledo, is part of the chainsaw relief effort, along with his wife, Lorrie. He said he felt compelled to respond “to help people in need.”

“There’s a lot of people, when something like this happens … they don’t know where to start,” McMillan said. But “we show up,” and suddenly they discover a gleam of hope, he said.

While directing highway traffic around her husband Tommy’s skid steer, Tanya Prosise, a member of Stonewater Church in Granbury said they instantly responded when the call came needing the skid steer to remove debris from homes.

“And I always come with him. I’m part of the package,” she said.

She said she wants Gordon to know others care for them in tough times.

“We have it in our hearts to go and do and help for disaster relief,” she said. “I think they’re overwhelmed with the support. They just can’t believe that people come from other communities to help.”

Texans on Mission show community ‘we care’

Pastor Albert Oliveira of First Baptist Church in Gordon saw the tornado, its after-affects and the response as a potential time for “restoration” in the town.

“I know that for a lot of the victims, it’s scary. It brings a lot of sense of unknown, but it also brings people together,” he said.

Some residents who barely talked to each other before the disaster have called to ask, “Hey, are you OK?” Others who didn’t know each other are now “inside their neighbors’ homes helping them,” Oliveira said.

He said he sees the storm as “an opportunity for the churches to be there and not only preach we’re the hands and feet of Jesus, but be the hands and feet of Jesus.”

Texans on Mission is part of the restoration, showing the community “we care,” he said.

“I was talking to somebody earlier in the office about how awesome it is that we have a God that doesn’t just care for the big city, doesn’t just care for the big guys, doesn’t just care for the rich, doesn’t just care for the high-status,” he said.

“But we have a God that will send people like Texans on Mission to take care of this small town without caring if there’s a lot of people to vote, without caring that there’s a lot of people to give recognition, to pay, to make the big news.”

Instead, he noted, Texans on Mission offer the ministry of presence, showing up and saying, “We’re going to serve you guys because you need it, and we’re going to serve because we can.”

ABILENE—Texas Baptists’ Executive Director Julio Guarneri previewed his new GC2 Strong plan, fielded questions and received a unanimous vote to affirm the initiative he brought to the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board at the close of his May 19 address.

While Jesus and the gospel do not change, in a changing world, “our approach to ministry sometimes needs to change,” Guarneri said.

Assumptions about how conventions operate may need to be questioned, along with the idea that conventions do “missions on behalf of the church,” when missions should be church-driven.

“Conventions should facilitate churches, but not do it for them,” Guarneri asserted.

Assumptions that churches have uniform programming also may need to be challenged. Conventions may be looked to for mentor/practitioners more than as experts.

So conventions may need to shift, providing customized resources and support to individual churches, in contrast to the “plug-and-play” model of the past.

Guarneri said Texas Baptists are building on the Pastor Strong Initiative piloted in San Antonio by beginning cohorts in College Station, Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth to invest in the lives of pastors and encourage them. The expectation is the pastors will be transformed and in turn, so will their churches.

New GC2 initiative introduced

In addition to these expanded cohorts, Texas Baptists are in “the process of developing and launching something we’re calling GC2 Strong,” Guarneri said. The initiative will be led by Guarneri, Associate Executive Director Craig Christina, Treasurer and CFO Ward Hayes, and Sergio Ramos, director of the GC2 network.

GC2 Strong will have three areas of focus: churches, leaders and missions. Convention leaders want to see “multiplying churches.”

Currently, 85 percent to 90 percent of Texas Baptists churches are plateaued or declining, but to reach Texas for Christ, churches need to be revitalized—church strong, Guarneri said.

“We want to focus on leaders, develop ministers, connect them so that they can be encouraged. We want to be leader strong,” he said.

Convention leaders also want the BGCT to be mission strong and “our churches getting involved in local missions, partnering with others,” he said.

A GC2 church is a church that loves God, loves their neighbors and is making disciples. GC2 was originated by David Hardage, past executive director of Texas Baptists, as a “missional mindset,” Guarneri said.

The Great Commandment found in Matthew 22:37-38 and the Great Commission found in Matthew 28:19 fuel the new strategy for GC2—to love God, love neighbors and make disciples.

Guarneri explained GC2 has been understood as applying to churches outside of Texas who cooperate with the BGCT, but “we don’t want to have two categories of churches. We want to have one category of churches,” whether in Texas or beyond.

One component of GC2 Strong will be an assessment, or “discovery process,” of walking alongside churches to help them discover where they are in the “process of being a Great Commandment, Great Commission church” and customizing support to help them move to the next level.

A small group of churches will comprise the first group of GC2 Strong churches, who want to take on the commitment to go through the process, while “we continue to have a big family of Texas Baptists churches.”

“Hopefully, it’ll be the kind of thing that other churches get excited about and want to be a part of in the future,” Guarneri said.

Action items

Guarneri asked the BGCT Executive Board to take up two action items related to the new GC2 Strong initiative: to promote Texas Cooperative Program giving in the churches where they serve and to pray.

The BGCT staff plans to develop a resource to help Texas Baptist churches join in a season of prayer next spring, initiated by the Baptist World Alliance.

Texas Baptists will join the global Baptist family in prayer from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday in 2026—praying for God to move as he did in the first century and “to help us reach the nations in our state and around the world,” Guarneri said. “So, be looking for that resource.”

In a time for questions, Guarneri addressed when GC2 Strong will begin, noting he hopes to roll it out at the BGCT annual meeting in Abilene in November.

He fielded several other questions, clarified GC2 Strong churches would have no special status within the convention, and noted the initiative is still under development.