The Southern Baptist Convention lost 259,090 members in 2024 — the 18th consecutive year of membership decline — according to the denomination’s Annual Church Profile report, released Wednesday.
In “Becoming the Pastor’s Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman’s Path to Ministry,” Beth Allison Barr traces the history of the role, showing how it both helped and hurt women in conservative Protestant traditions.
One claim, about an allegedly defamatory tweet by another former denominational president, is still live. The SBC has spent more than $3 million in legal fees on the Hunt case.
The number of nondenominational churches has grown, as have the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated. As a result, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, and other historic mainline groups have had to do less with less.
The investigation cost the SBC's Executive Committee $2 million in legal fees and led to one former Southern Baptist seminary leader pleading guilty to lying to the FBI.
For the past 25 years, Southern Baptists have officially banned women pastors. That hasn’t stopped churches from having women serve in that role.
The proposed database has been derailed by denominational apathy, legal worries, and a desire to protect donations to the Southern Baptist Convention’s mission programs.
Contributing writer Rodney Kennedy makes the case that the structure of populism cries out for a new rebellion against the 'elite' in every generation.
Editor-in-Chief Brian Kaylor reflects on Speaker Mike Johnson working to cover up a House Ethics Committee report on former Rep. Matt Gaetz after President-elect Donald Trump nominated Gaetz to serve as U.S. attorney general.
Queen is the first SBC leader to be charged in an ongoing DOJ investigation into the nation's largest Protestant denomination.