Church

Ed Litton, the relatively unknown senior pastor of Redemption Church in Saraland, Alabama, defeated two preeminent rivals to be elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention during a session of the SBC’s annual meeting Tuesday.

Traditionally, Southern Baptists open the two-day meeting with the banging of a gavel. In most years, the meetings have featured the Broadus gavel, named for John A. Broadus, a founding faculty member of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary who was also an enslaver.

Southern Baptists worried about “liberal drift” in their denomination heard warnings about “paganism” and worldly ideologies like critical race theory. About 1,000 people attended the Founders Ministries gathering Monday ahead of the Southern Baptist Convention.

As the delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting gathered on Monday for the next day’s opening gavel, the denomination’s Executive Committee rejected a request to broaden an inquiry into its handling of sexual abuse allegations to include all the entities of the SBC.

Todd Littleton knows he faces nearly impossible odds at this week’s annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. Amid a flurry of resolutions decrying critical race theory, he decided to submit his own proposal to recognize structural racism and oppression as societal evils.

Ryan Burge wrote a computer script to collect and organize the text of all the resolutions passed at the annual meeting dating back to 1845 to see if there were any patterns.

Newly released audio clips from a Southern Baptist whistleblower appear to corroborate accusations Southern Baptist Convention leaders were reluctant to take action against churches accused of mishandling abuse.

Missouri Baptist Convention Executive Director John Yeats has served as an officer for the Southern Baptist Convention for 24 years. A pastor in Virginia thinks that’s too long. So, Adam Blosser announced his candidacy Wednesday, less than a week before the SBC’s annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee.

Anne Graham Lotz, 73 and a breast cancer survivor, talked in a recent interview about her belief that ordination is not for her but that she is nonetheless called to speak in a variety of settings.

Two Southern Baptist pastors will seek an investigation into allegations that the highest echelons of the Southern Baptist Convention mishandled several sex abuse claims and bullied sex abuse victims. Southern Baptists will meet June 15-16 in Nashville for their annual convention.