Reading Time: 12 minutes The 2023 Annual Meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is now receding into the rearview mirror. It enjoyed some huge crowds and copious drama, as usual. And one of the biggest bits of drama to occur there involved their election of a new president for the denomination. Their incumbent president, Bart Barber, coasted to […]
sbc infighting
Posted inReligious News
Southwestern Seminary: The newest battlefield for Southern Baptist faction warfare
Reading Time: 12 minutes The battles raging around Southwestern Seminary in recent years give us a potent clue about what’s happening behind the scenes at this embattled denomination. They also tell us exactly what happens when any authoritarian organization becomes dysfunctional.
Posted inReligious News
Faction warfare looms at Southern Baptist 2023 Annual Meeting
Reading Time: 14 minutes As the Southern Baptist Convention approaches its 2023 Annual Meeting, its two major factions are already at each other’s throats. Each faction seems to sense that this meeting will be an especially important skirmish in their war for control of this struggling denomination. Let’s examine the trenches they’re digging ahead of the meeting—and the strategies […]
Posted inReligious News
The drama continues over this Southern Baptist plum role
Reading Time: 9 minutes Recently, I showed you the drama around the selection of a Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) leadership role: the President and CEO of their top-ranked Executive Committee (EC). Previous Chairman Jared Wellman had thrown his hat into the ring. But in a stunning upset, he failed to get enough votes from their larger voting committee to […]
Posted inReligious News
Are Southern Baptist traditionalists losing their main stronghold?
Reading Time: 9 minutes A years-long Southern Baptist feud between two powerful factions approaches the end of its middle. Can the beginning of the end be far off?
Posted inReligious News
Why Southern Baptists weren’t part of the Native Americans abuse report
Reading Time: 12 minutes Recently, the United States government finished the first part of its investigation into federally-funded boarding schools that abused Native Americans. As you might expect, it’s a dark read. Primarily, it reveals that for 150 years, the American government used these schools to systematically destroy Native Americans’ culture. Worse, the government sought to destroy that culture […]
Posted inReligious News
Southern Baptists snub Old Guard hard at 2022 Annual Meeting
Reading Time: 9 minutes The Old Guard expressed some very strong feelings about this election. But the meeting’s attendees had other ideas.
Posted inReligious News
Ronnie Floyd got dissed hard by the Southern Baptist Convention Sexual Abuse Task Force
Reading Time: 9 minutes Oh, the task force’s recommendations doesn’t mention him by name. But the stomping happened nonetheless. Today, let me show you what got stomped and more importantly, why it deserves a good stomping.
Posted inReligious News
Sermon plagiarism: why it suddenly matters to some Southern Baptists
Reading Time: 10 minutes The current president of the SBC, Ed Litton, got caught using someone else’s sermon without attributing it. Usually, sermon plagiarism is simply a minor but common sin in evangelical leadership. But this time, Ed Litton’s faction enemies, the Old Guard, began howling for his resignation. Oddly, they didn’t care at all that his predecessor, J.D. Greear, did something considerably worse during his own reign.
Posted inReligious News
Tom Buck: In the land of hypocrisy, secrets are currency
Reading Time: 11 minutes I wonder how long Tom Buck struggled with the secrets he knew about Jeff Ford before using them to attack his faction’s newest enemy #1. One minute? Two? Less?