Confusion over the status of a DOJ investigation into the SBC has strained already tense relationships between abuse survivors and the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
These are the latest in a series of expulsions in recent years, most notably when it ousted one of its largest, California's Saddleback Church, and a Louisville, Kentucky congregation for having women in ministry leadership roles.
For nearly a century, Southern Baptist churches have banded together to raise funds for mission in the US and around the world, raising more than $20 billion through their Cooperative Program. But the trust that once held the program together is fraying.
A pair of new lawsuits, including one that includes civil RICO claims, come at a time when the SBC Executive Committee faces a fiscal and leadership crisis.
The Executive Committee, which oversees the SBC's operations between meetings of the convention's governing body, has been without a permanent leader since 2021.
In 2004, Southern Baptists voted to allow their insurance and retirement agency to work with other churches. The latest denomination to sign up is the Global Methodist Church, made up of former United Methodists.
The nation’s largest Protestant denomination has settled a sexual abuse lawsuit against one of its prominent leaders who had been accused of allegedly molesting young men for decades.
This issue of A Public Witness introduces you to the 56th speaker of the House — the founding dean of a failed Baptist law school, an attorney for three firms devoted to advancing Christian Nationalism, a crusader for prayer in public schools, an evangelist proclaiming