Southern Baptist Convention

#UsToo: How antisemitism and Islamophobia make reporting sexual misconduct and abuse of power harder for Jewish and Muslim women

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, October 17, 2023
HEART, FACE, Shorthand, MeToo movement, Prejudice, Southern Baptist Convention, Female, Social policy, Islam in the United States, Biology, Space, Xenophobia, Organization, Foundation, Clothing, Psychological abuse, Behavior, Abuse, Color, Doctor of Philosophy, Senior counsel, Education, Institute, Turning Point, Black Christian Siriano gown of Billy Porter, Police, History of Iranian Americans in Los Angeles, Awareness, Skin, Violence, Woman, CERES Community Environment Park, Religion, Life, Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, Research, Assault, Racism, Nursing, Jewellery, Drug, Jews, Islamophobia, Muslims

Ever since, #MeToo has been shorthand for people’s experiences with sexual harassment and assault, from film sets and office buildings to college campuses and religious communities.

Key Points: 
  • Ever since, #MeToo has been shorthand for people’s experiences with sexual harassment and assault, from film sets and office buildings to college campuses and religious communities.
  • Many articles about #MeToo and religion focus on large churches, such as the Southern Baptist Convention – spaces that are mostly white and Christian.
  • These women face added challenges when they break the silence around sexual misconduct and abuse of power, as I document in my book “#UsToo.” Many Jewish and Muslim women of color navigate three kinds of oppression simultaneously: sexism, racism and antisemitism or Islamophobia.

’Dirty laundry’

    • This problem is not exclusive to Jewish or Muslim communities but rather a general problem for all subcultures.
    • Publicly airing communal “dirty laundry” is seen as precarious, both for the individual and for the ethnoreligious group.
    • Jewish and Muslim women in the United States are diverse, from different levels of religious observance to ethnic identity.

Risks of silence and interdependence

    • The insularity, sense of connection and interdependence within some minority communities can be conducive to abuses of power.
    • Word spread quickly in the Jewish community, and other women came out of the woodwork about his behavior.
    • Sacred Spaces, incorporated in 2016, is another organization that brings Jewish values to its work addressing and preventing abuse.

Walking a tightrope

    • Nevertheless, some Muslim women affected by sexual misconduct have been working for years to bring it out of the communal closet and into the public eye.
    • Many of the women I interviewed live on a tightrope: calling out the patriarchy and sexual misconduct they experienced, while defending their community against anti-Muslim stereotypes.
    • HEART, a sexual health and reproductive justice organization founded in 2009, offers education and resources to discuss sexual relationships and violence.
    • Despite this progress, many Jewish and Muslim women are still apprehensive about reporting coreligionists, as are women in larger Christian communities.

Can chatbots write inspirational and wise sermons?

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, July 6, 2023
Sermon, Theology, Bible, Second Vatican Council, Awareness, ChatGPT, Research, Emotion, History, Language, Terminology, Southern Baptist Convention, Homily, Love, The Sundays, School, Catholic Church, Observation, Program, Wine, Bread, Entertainment, Baking, Christianity, Mass

Indeed, programs like ChatGPT, that can produce a sermon in seconds, might seem attractive to busy clergy.

Key Points: 
  • Indeed, programs like ChatGPT, that can produce a sermon in seconds, might seem attractive to busy clergy.
  • But several religious leaders, including rabbis serving Jewish congregations as well as Christian Protestant pastors, have conflicting feelings about utilizing chatbots in preparing sermons.

Historical practice

    • In the early centuries of Christianity, preaching was largely reserved for bishops, considered to be the successors to Jesus’ apostles.
    • In some religious orders, priests became famous traveling preachers, although much of the time they were preaching in other settings, not during Mass.
    • During the next few centuries, preaching brief sermons or homilies became increasingly important during the celebration of Sunday Mass.

Insight and inspiration

    • In the decades since Vatican II ended in 1965, preaching in the Catholic tradition has been emphasized as a “primary duty” of all priests.
    • The sermon is meant to inspire people in their ordinary lives of faith.
    • It must also be shaped by an awareness of the needs and lived experience of the worshipping community in the pews.

Use with caution

    • Chatbots have been known to make some factual blunders or invent sources completely.
    • Above all, I believe chatbots, as of now, are not capable of preparing a text suitable for being offered as a sermon.
    • Perhaps Baptist pastor Hershael York, Dean of the School of Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has put it best.

Southern Baptist Convention votes to expel two churches with female pastors – a religion scholar explains how far back these battles go

Retrieved on: 
Friday, June 16, 2023
Saddleback Church, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Association, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Exercise, Book, Employment, Bible, Leadership, Woman, Theology, History, Movement, Covenant Baptist Theological Seminary, Science, Man, Publishing, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Time, SBC, International Mission Board, Norm (mathematics), Faculty, Saddleback, Female, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Birth control, Toy, Lace, Cryptocurrency, Nursing, Eden Theological Seminary, Southern Seminary, Southern Baptist Convention, Baptists, Methodism

Saddleback founder and former pastor Rick Warren appealed the church’s ejection at the 2023 conference.

Key Points: 
  • Saddleback founder and former pastor Rick Warren appealed the church’s ejection at the 2023 conference.
  • About 88% of messengers – Southern Baptists’ language for delegates – then voted to reaffirm the church’s expulsion.
  • The proposed amendment to exclude any church that hires a woman as a pastor must be voted on again at next year’s annual meeting.

The ‘woman question’

    • Women were not allowed to serve as messengers to the SBC until 1918.
    • Until the 20th century, only men gave the missionary organization’s report to the SBC.
    • Those beliefs formed a basis for gender hierarchy that ultimately triumphed over more moderate egalitarianism in the late 20th century.

Southern Baptist controversy

    • In the 1970s, greater numbers of women entered the six Southern Baptist seminaries, many professing a calling to the pastorate, even though most churches still refused to ordain them.
    • I was a student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in the 1980s.
    • As historian Barry Hankins also concludes, the “gender issue” eventually became a central issue for Southern Baptist fundamentalists as their takeover of the SBC proceeded.
    • A number of Southern Baptist churches had ordained women, and some had called women as pastors.

First in the Edenic fall

    • In 1984, as fundamentalists gained greater control, the SBC passed a resolution against women’s ordination.
    • The Southern Baptist Convention has no official control over local churches.
    • Some local churches did ordain and call women to the pastorate, and their local Baptist associations “disfellowshipped” those congregations, excluding them from participating in the local association.

‘Gracious submission’

    • For Southern Baptists, the statement of faith is not a creed but rather a set of largely agreed-upon beliefs.
    • Seminaries and denominational agencies, such as the International Mission Board, however, must work within the guidelines of the statement.
    • In seminary leaders’ thinking, however, she was teaching men the Bible, which they forbid women to do.

Future purge

    • If the proposed constitutional amendment passes next year, it will likely lead to a purge of many other Southern Baptist congregations.
    • Already, the pastor who proposed the amendment has compiled a list of 170 churches that he claims are in violation of the ban.

Pastor Rick Warren Responds to SBC Messengers' Vote to Uphold the Disfellowship of Saddleback Church Says, 'Truth inevitably triumphs over tradition, but it takes time'

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, June 15, 2023
Saddleback Church, Travel, Hermeneutics, New Testament, Annual, The Purpose Driven Life, Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group, Ageing, Nonsense, Convention, Woman, Human, Great Commission, Master Class, History, Complaint, Messenger, Nature, Task, SBC, Executive Committee, Frustration, Annual general meeting, Executive Committee of the Communist International, Robert's Rules of Order, Letter, Church, Tobacco, Nursing, Southern Baptist Convention, Religious text

Having challenged more than 12,000 voting Messengers to overturn a ruling to disfellowship the Church he pastored for 43 years the tallied ballots were not in Saddleback's favor.

Key Points: 
  • Having challenged more than 12,000 voting Messengers to overturn a ruling to disfellowship the Church he pastored for 43 years the tallied ballots were not in Saddleback's favor.
  • Streamed live and available now at www.SBCStand.com, Warren opened his press statement by saying, "We received more votes than I anticipated in New Orleans.
  • "The average Southern Baptist is 56 years old and the average age of a Convention attender is higher than that.
  • Yesterday's ballot at the 2023 Annual Meeting of the SBC was the first time in history for the Messengers to vote on whether to disfellowship a church from the Convention.

Pastor Rick Warren Challenges that The Southern Baptist Convention is at a Crossroads

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, May 30, 2023
Saddleback Church, Southern Baptist Convention, College, New Testament, Holy Spirit, Generator, The Purpose Driven Life, Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group, Convention, Woman, Spurgeons, Great Commission, Part, Task, SBC, Annual general meeting, United Kingdom, Member institutions of the University of London, Video game, Nursing, Television

LAKE FOREST, Calif., May 30, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Pastor Rick Warren, founder of Saddleback Church, best-selling author of The Purpose Driven Life and Coordinator of the global Finishing the Task coalition, today announced the launch of a four-part video series addressing the unprecedented decline of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). "SBC at the Crossroads" begins its staggered release today with, Part 1: "Denial or Revival?"

Key Points: 
  • "SBC at the Crossroads" begins its staggered release today with, Part 1: "Denial or Revival?"
  • This isn't a glitch or the result of a pandemic; it's a trajectory we've been on for a while.
  • I have Southern Baptist pastors on both sides of my family going back four generations.
  • Pastor Warren is scheduled to give a 3-minute appeal to SBC messengers from the Convention floor at the Annual Meeting in New Orleans on the afternoon of June 13, 2023.

Pinnacle Financial Partners Relocating Corporate Headquarters to Nashville Yards in Downtown Nashville

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, June 17, 2021
Commercial Building & Real Estate, Construction & Property, Finance, Banking, Professional services, Urban planning, REIT, Residential Building & Real Estate, Nashville, Tennessee, Southwest Value Partners, Cities in the United States, Pinnacle Financial Partners, Pinnacle, Political divisions of the United States, Regions of the United States, Southern Baptist Convention, The Pinnacle at Symphony Place

Pinnacle Financial Partners announced today that it will relocate its corporate headquarters to a new, to-be-constructed office tower at Nashville Yards, the 18-acre project in downtown Nashville from owner and developer Southwest Value Partners.

Key Points: 
  • Pinnacle Financial Partners announced today that it will relocate its corporate headquarters to a new, to-be-constructed office tower at Nashville Yards, the 18-acre project in downtown Nashville from owner and developer Southwest Value Partners.
  • Pinnacle will be the anchor tenant in the multi-tenant tower, the first of that kind in Nashville Yards, which is also home to Amazon Nashville.
  • Pinnacles current headquarters building is in the SoBro neighborhood (south of Broadway) less than a mile away from Nashville Yards.
  • The partnership between Southwest Value Partners and Pinnacle ensures that well be an integral part of Nashville Yards as a whole.

Beck A. Taylor Elected 19th President of Samford University

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, March 10, 2021
Samford University, Andrew Westmoreland, Beck A. Taylor, Westmoreland, Samford, Education, Southern Baptist Convention

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., March 10, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --The Samford University Board of Trustees today elected Beck A. Taylor as its 19th president, effective July 1, 2021.

Key Points: 
  • BIRMINGHAM, Ala., March 10, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --The Samford University Board of Trustees today elected Beck A. Taylor as its 19th president, effective July 1, 2021.
  • Taylor succeeds Andrew Westmoreland, who is retiring after serving as president of Samford University since 2006.
  • The Samford University Board of Trustees today elected Beck A. Taylor as its 19th president, effective July 1, 2021.
  • "We could not be more pleased with the appointment of Beck Taylor as the 19th president of Samford University," said William J. Stevens, chair of the Samford Board of Trustees.

Southern Baptist Group Asks Supreme Court to Review Decision Interfering with Church Autonomy

Retrieved on: 
Wednesday, February 17, 2021
NAMB, Baptists, Christianity, Southern Baptist Convention, Abrahamic religions, North American Mission Board, Evangelicalism, Frank Page

The mission of NAMB is to help local churches plant new churches and engage in compassion ministry to share the gospel.

Key Points: 
  • The mission of NAMB is to help local churches plant new churches and engage in compassion ministry to share the gospel.
  • Secular courts are ill-equipped to evaluate how that mission is best carried out and by whom.
  • NAMB partners with churches, local associations, and state conventions of the Southern Baptist Convention to share their Christian faith by planting new churches and providing compassion ministry.
  • A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed that decision upon appeal.

Lifeway Foods Launches New Holiday Commercial and Giving Tuesday Initiatives

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, December 1, 2020
Articles, Southern Baptist Convention, Humanities, Academic disciplines, LifeWay Christian Resources, Lifeway, Giving Tuesday

This Giving Tuesday, Lifeway will also sponsor Chicagos City Clerk Anna M. Valencias 4th annual Women of Worth event.

Key Points: 
  • This Giving Tuesday, Lifeway will also sponsor Chicagos City Clerk Anna M. Valencias 4th annual Women of Worth event.
  • Were so thankful to have the support of Lifeway for our 4thannual Women of Worth event, said Clerk Valencia.
  • Its because of the generous actions of companies like Lifeway, community organizations and all of our sponsors that were able to spread a little more joy this holiday season.
  • Were proud to partner with Lifeway on their Giving Tuesday initiative.

LifeWay hosts First-Ever Digital Conference with Partner JUNO

Retrieved on: 
Friday, October 23, 2020
Articles, Conferences, Southern Baptist Convention, LifeWay Christian Resources, TED, Events

SAN DIEGO, Oct. 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- LifeWay, one of the largest Christian resource organizations in the world, successfully hosted the 2020 REACH Conference on October 13th and 14th featuring an entirely digital experience.

Key Points: 
  • SAN DIEGO, Oct. 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- LifeWay, one of the largest Christian resource organizations in the world, successfully hosted the 2020 REACH Conference on October 13th and 14th featuring an entirely digital experience.
  • This first-ever experience, hosted via JUNO, a live and on-demand conference platform, included access to over 100 hours of video content featuring 75 speakers with immersive breakout sessions.
  • The conference format and platform made it possible for experiences that are typically only possible with in-person events feel seamless and engaging.
  • LifeWay is already in the works of planning and using JUNO for conferences aimed at serving their youth, ministry and church audiences.