Baptists

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Plug-In: Looming Israel-Hamas war brings familiar questions about the end of the world

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Plug-In: Looming Israel-Hamas war brings familiar questions about the end of the world

No big deal. OK, it’s sort of a big deal: went to Arlington, Texas, for the start of the World Series. Let’s go, Rangers! But you knew that I would say that.

Speaking of the Fall Classic, Marvin Olasky writes at ReligionUnplugged that the World Series “reflects life and what little we can control.” I sure hope my favorite team can control its bullpen and win its first title ever.

But you signed on for religion news, not my baseball analysis, so here goes: The new speaker of the U.S. House is a Southern Baptist who has served as a trustee of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Baptist Press’ Brandon Porter notes.

Rep. Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, suggested his election as speaker was ordained by God, according to Religion News Service.

This is our weekly roundup of the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith. We start again with the Israel-Hamas War, this time focusing on questions about the end of the world.

What To Know: The Big Story

End times debate: The Israel-Hamas war has sent Christians in search of prophetic meaning, as the Washington Times’ Mark A. Kellner, a former GetReligion contributor, explains:

Evangelical leaders are looking to the Bible’s end-of-days prophecies as congregants seek to understand the Israel-Hamas war.

While the Book of Revelation and the Gospel of Matthew offer details of what is to happen before Christ’s return, apocalyptic Scriptures have often been cited when global tensions flare up, such as Israel’s war of independence in 1948, the 1967 Six-Day War and the October War of 1973.

Believers also sounded alarms after the eruption of World War II, the Cold War and the 9/11 attacks.

“I think even secularists would tell you never have we faced so many severe threats in the world that we’re facing right now,” said the Rev. Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas.


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Trying to count religious believers in United States? Good luck with that ...

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Trying to count religious believers in United States? Good luck with that ...

QUESTION:

How many members do major U.S. religious groups have?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

Well, that’s impossible to say with any accuracy since there’s no one agreed-upon statistical source and some groups do not collect or issue good numbers.

We do know two things for sure about the U.S. (1) It remains predominantly Christian despite a recent decline, and (2) There’s been notable growth in non-Christian religions through immigration and conversion.

Recently, some noteworthy new numbers about U.S. Christianity became available. We’ll review those below, but let’s begin with complexities regarding the major non-Christian faith groups.

Judaism is traditionally second in population size to Christianity. The American Jewish Population Project at Brandeis University reports there are 7,631,000 American Jews, children included, among which 4,873,000 are adults and “Jewish by religion” as opposed to a secular ethnic identity. That’s similar to the 7,387,992 ethnic total reported by the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise.

A major report by the Pew Research Center, a go-to-source for surveys on American religion, said that as of 2020 there were “approximately” 5.8 million Jewish adults, of whom 4.2 million were “Jews by religion.” Then we can consult these two standard sources:

* The 3rd edition of the “World Christian Encyclopedia” (Edinburgh University Press), compiled by a study center at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, contains extensive information on all religions in all nations, not just Christianity and not just the United States. It counts 5.6 million Jews of all categories.

* The U.S. Religion Census, compiled once each decade by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, yielded 2020 data on 372 religious bodies posted here. With Jews, the Census primarily used groups’ own reports given to the Synagogue Studies Institute.


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Boring sermons happen and savvy preachers need to spot what is going wrong

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Boring sermons happen and savvy preachers need to spot what is going wrong

Kids do say the darndest things, and with decades of pulpit experience, the Rev. Joe McKeever has learned that these revelatory remarks often happen just after church.

In one case, a parent shared a question from a perplexed child who struggled with a complex McKeever sermon. Thus, the 7-year-old asked: "Why does Pastor Joe think we need this information?"

That's blunt. But not as blunt as what happened to a friend, as McKeever recounted in a recent essay: "Boring sermons: We all have them from time to time."

This pastor said a family from his church attended a Friday football game, and during halftime, their preschooler asked why students chanted "BORING!" at the visiting marching band. "Her mother explained that sometimes students will do that when they feel the other band is doing poor work," wrote McKeever. The mother added: "It tells them they stink."

The child remembered this and shouted "BORING!" during the next Sunday sermon.

Pastors need honest feedback from time to time, stressed the 83-year-old McKeever, who -- in addition to decades in various kinds of Southern Baptist ministry -- was for 20 years an active member of the National Cartoonists Society.

"One of the problems with being a pastor is that we rarely hear anyone else preach," he said, reached by telephone. "We do what we do in the pulpit, over and over, and it's easy to lose any sense of standards.

"Many preachers lose the ability to listen to themselves. … They end up telling people things that they don't need, things that they didn't want, that they don't understand and, worst of all, that they don't find inspiring."


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Hey, Tennessean folks: Has SBC President Bart Barber changed theologically? Yes or no?

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Hey, Tennessean folks: Has SBC President Bart Barber changed theologically? Yes or no?

This is a strange one. In a recent profile of the Rev. Bart Barber — the current president of the Southern Baptist Convention — the Nashville Tennessean team did something that was both unusual and totally predictable.

Unusual? My state’s dominant newspaper used a theological term when it needed to find an accurate political term, of some kind. Yes, you read that right. I just urged some journalists — in this case — to use accurate “political” language instead of mangled doctrinal language.

Predictable? The abused theological term was “fundamentalist.”

To make matters even more complicated, the Tennessean used an ACCURATE historical-political reference in the headline — “Bart Barber defied the Conservative Resurgence. How it is now shaping his SBC leadership” — and then turned around and used “fundamentalist” in the overture.

Dang it! (I will also ask: Is the pronoun “it” in the headline a reference to Barber’s decisive act of defiance or to the Conservative Resurgence itself?) Here’s that flawed overture:

Bart Barber defied the top brass.

In May 2018, the Texas pastor and his fellow trustees at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth fired seminary president Paige Patterson, the architect of the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention. Following years of financial-related controversies, revelations about Patterson mishandling reports of sexual abuse pushed Southwestern’s board past a point of no return.

Barber, once a loyal foot soldier in Patterson’s movement, was a decisive vote in Patterson’s dismissal, thereby severing his allegiance. 

The emphasis on the “Conservative Resurgence” as a movement inside the SBC is accurate, since that is a commonly used term among historians. The Tennessean kind of explained that term later in the story, and we will get to that.

After making that wise choice, why use the church-history term “fundamentalist” at the top of the story? That’s a word that fit with some Southern Baptists who supported (as opposed to leading) the “Conservative Resurgence,” but not to all. Using that term also suggested that Barber has changed some of his theological beliefs, as opposed to his stance on crucial issues in SBC politics.

I see zero evidence in this news report that Barber has changed theologically. It that is the case, then ask him hard questions about that and then report the answers.


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Plug-In: Here's the latest sex and money news from the Southern Baptist Convention

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Plug-In: Here's the latest sex and money news from the Southern Baptist Convention

After a week away, it’s nice to be back. Making headlines this week: A U.S. senator is demanding to know if the Christian aid organization World Vision is funding terrorism, Ken Chitwood reports for Christianity Today.

Pope Francis is going to Marseille to talk migration, but will Europe listen as it scrambles to stem an influx? The Associated Press’ Nicole Winfield, Trisha Thomas and Sylvie Corbet tackle that question. And Jerry Falwell Jr.’s latest legal battle with Liberty University — and his brother — has escalated, according to Religion News Service.

This is our weekly roundup of the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith. We start with the latest news — and there’s a lot of it — from the Southern Baptist Convention.

What To Know: The Big Story

Is sin a private matter?: A lawsuit filed by the Rev. Johnny Hunt, a former Southern Baptist Convention president, against the SBC’s Executive Committee and Guidepost makes that claim, Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana reports. But legal experts are skeptical, Smietana notes.

The longtime megachurch pastor is upset over the disclosure that he covered up his sexual misconduct for a decade, according to the RNS story.

Moments that made the Rev. Bart Barber: The Conservative Resurgence that the SBC’s current president defied is now shaping his leadership, The Tennessean’s Liam Adams writes.

In other coverage, Adams notes that a top SBC committee documented a former CEO’s “professional fraud” but won’t pursue legal action. And Southern Baptist leaders are promoting strength even as a top committee faces increased instability.


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What do seminaries do, in an age in which many believers are afraid of 'theology'?

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What do seminaries do, in an age in which many believers are afraid of 'theology'?

During the 1970s and '80s, the flocks gathered in conservative Protestant pews kept growing and growing -- until a third of the U.S. population could be defined as "evangelical."

Times were already getting tough for leaders of progressive Mainline churches, with sharp declines in budgets and worship attendance. But the waters were smooth for evangelicals.

"One might be considered a very capable kayaker if the river currents are moving along at only a few miles per hour," said theologian David Dockery, during the recent convocation rites at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas, after he was inaugurated as its 10th president.

But the currents changed, while many contented evangelical leaders didn't spot the dangerous waves around them. "I fear that the waters of our cultural context have become much choppier and are moving evermore rapidly with each passing year," said Dockery, who noted that he was beginning his 40th year working in Christian higher education.

Consider a sobering new study -- "The Great Dechurching. Who's Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back" -- by researchers Jim Davis, Michel Graham and Ryan Burge. Their numbers indicate that evangelicalism has backslid to where it was 50 years ago.

The big question is, "Why?" Dockery said he accepts the study's thesis that many boom-era evangelicals lacked "deep roots in their understanding of the Christian faith." Many evangelicals failed to teach practical discipleship in daily life and seemed reluctant to defend the truths "delivered to the saints" through the ages. This fear of theology has proven to be a disaster as America "has become more secularized, polarized and confused," he said.

Thus, the "Dechurching" trend leads straight to hard questions about seminaries, noted Burge, in his "Graphs about Religion" newsletter. He teaches political science at Eastern Illinois University and is one of my GetReligion.org colleagues.

Seminaries help define religious denominations and are "an incredibly important part of the religious economy. In many ways they are the canary in the coal mine for the health of American religion," he wrote.


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Plug-In: Jesus didn't pad his resume, but this top Southern Baptist leader did just that

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Plug-In: Jesus didn't pad his resume, but this top Southern Baptist leader did just that

It’s National Shameless Plug Day.

Or maybe it’s really not, but I still want to share an in-depth feature I did on faith nights hosted by Major League Baseball teams. I traveled to San Diego and Los Angeles to report this story for ReligionUnplugged.

But that’s enough shameless plugging for now.

This is our roundup of the top headlines and best reads in the world of faith. We start with the resignation of a top Southern Baptist Convention official.

What To Know: The Big Story

Out immediately: Willie McLaurin, interim president and CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee, resigned Thursday.

“In a recent resume that I submitted, it included schools that I did not attend or complete the study,” McLaurin said concerning his decision.

The short version: He lied.

Not the first time: McLaurin is just the latest SBC Executive Committee head to leave amid controversy, as Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana points out:

McLaurin became interim president after Ronnie Floyd, the previous president, resigned in October 2021 after months of controversy over the SBC’s sex abuse crisis. Floyd’s predecessor, Frank Page, resigned in 2018 due to misconduct. 

Regarding McLaurin, the Washington Times’ Mark A. Kellner notes:

The first Black man to head the group that handles matters for America’s largest Protestant denomination outside of an annual business session, the pastor and leadership coach was considered a leading contender for permanent appointment.


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Baylor wins a key victory (somehow or another) defending its stand (sort of) on sexuality

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Baylor wins a key victory (somehow or another) defending its stand (sort of) on sexuality

This has been true for decades: Journalists just love headlines that include Baylor University and anything having to do with sex.

More than two decades ago, it was Baylor coeds posing for Playboy. Two decades before that, it was student journalists getting fired for disagreeing with a Baylor policy that students shouldn’t pose for Playboy. Ironically, that controversy was an echo of earlier controversies about student journalists (including moi) publishing stories about sexual assaults near campus (and other hot topics).

The big idea is that sin exists at Jerusalem on the Brazos and that Baylor leaders are naive in thinking that they can do anything about that. Trust me: Some of these headlines are more important than others. Now we have this double-decker headline from Religion News Service:

Baylor University wins exemption from Title IX’s sexual harassment provisions

The private Baptist school argued discrimination complaints made by LGBTQ students were ‘inconsistent’ with the university’s religious values

As always, there are two questions that journalists need to answer when covering this fight and both of them involve religious doctrines that define this private academic community.

Question 1: Are Baylor’s “beliefs” backed by legal ties to a specific denomination and its teachings?

Question 2: Are Baylor students required to sign a “doctrinal covenant” in which they agree to support this private school’s “student code" or, at the very least, not to publicly oppose it?

The answer to both: Maybe, maybe not. Clarity on both of these questions is crucial to the Baylor left (and that is a real thing), the Baylor establishment and to Baylor’s conservative critics. It would help if journalists at RNS and other mainstream news outlets asked those questions and published the results. It’s no surprise that the best information can be found in niche Baptist-news sources.

Meanwhile, here is the RNS overture, atop a story that does not include a single sentence of material drawn from interviews with experts backing Baylor’s point of view.


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Life, death, eternity, golf: Can reporters spot Baby Boomer religion ghosts at The Villages?

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Life, death, eternity, golf: Can reporters spot Baby Boomer religion ghosts at The Villages?

I think it was “Doonesbury” creator Garry Trudeau who summed up the Baby Boomer aging process by saying it would be really depressing to have a heart attack while wearing your faded 501 Levi jeans.

I get that, as a Boomer who was born at the peak of that demographic wave (think January 1954). It seems like 75% of the ads during every noon ESPN Sports Center broadcast are aimed at me and my Medicare benefits. On top of that, I also spent several years in South Florida (I turned 50 there), where half the houses (it seemed to me) were in a development with “villages” in the name.

Thus, I understand why people are reacting to that recent feature. “Shadow on the Sun,” that ran in The Lamp Magazine, “A Catholic Journal of Literature, Science, the Fine Arts, Etc.” This long article by Sam Kriss isn’t a “news” feature, but I would argue that religion-beat journalists should dig into it.

Why? Well, as the Grateful Dead prophet Jerry Garcia put it — “What a long, strange trip it’s been.” And for millions of Boomers, the end of that trip is getting closer (like the Firesign Theater’s Antelope Freeway exit that never seems to arrive). Thus, there are lots of news hooks in this piece linked to death, dying and the Boomers, especially for reporters in Florida.

This brings us to The Villages, the largest retirement community in the world. The feature opens with a real-estate agent named Jason at the wheel during a tour.

Scholl Foot Care. Urology Associates. Cracker Barrel. Jason told me about The Villages. He explained that The Villages occupies around eighty square miles of central Florida, which makes it substantially larger than the island of Manhattan. It’s home to some one hundred forty thousand happy, active retired people, with more constantly arriving: this is the single fastest-growing metro area in the entire United States. It contains nine state-of-the-art hospitals, four gun ranges, two one-thousand-seat concert venues, and eight vast churches. It has more than fifty free golf courses, enough for you to play on a different range every week of the year. Ninety swimming pools, not counting the ones in people’s backyards. Twenty of them are Olympic-sized. Something like ten million square feet of commercial space, including a dozen sprawling shopping centers and over one hundred restaurants and bars. Residents also have their pick of around three thousand community social clubs. The Acting Out Theater Club produces its own original musicals. The Red Sox Nation Club has more members in The Villages than it does in Boston. The MAGA Club has hosted members of the Trump family. You can sail or scuba dive or line dance or learn the ukulele or discuss Ayn Rand. The Villages has its own radio station (W.V.L.G.), TV channel (V.N.N.), and newspaper (the Daily Sun), and somewhere north of eighty thousand homes. Jason couldn’t give me a more precise figure because it’s constantly changing. The Villages builds four hundred new houses every month.

What does this have to do with religion, morality and culture?


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