Welcome to Nashville, Liam Adams.
Enjoy the journalistic whiplash.
Adams, The Tennessean’s new religion writer, has received quite an introduction to the Godbeat in Music City.
Upon starting his new job last week, Adams immediately found himself covering two days of high-profile meetings by the Southern Baptist Convention’s executive committee.
He’s back at it this week, reporting on the committee again delaying “action on a third-party investigation into the committee’s handling of sexual abuse claims.”
“So I’m going to take a guess that this isn’t normally what happens in the Southern Baptist Convention, right?” Adams joked on Twitter. “Asking for a friend who just so happens to be in his second week reporting the news on all of this.”
Elsewhere, Religion News Service’s Yonat Shimron and Bob Smietana report that the “presidents of all six Southern Baptist seminaries have issued statements or tweets expressing their dismay at the Executive Committee’s unwillingness to act at the convention’s direction.”
According to Baptist News Global’s Mark Wingfield, new details have emerged about the committee’s handling of the investigation, “as outrage mounts among other Southern Baptist leaders.”
Read additional coverage by The Associated Press’ Holly Meyer (Adams’ predecessor at The Tennessean) and Christianity Today’s Kate Shellnutt.
For more context, see our past Plug-ins — here, here and here — focused on the Southern Baptist controversy.