Day and overnight camps are a staple of summer, a welcome relief for working parents. But they can also present opportunities for sexual predators.
Day and overnight camps are a staple of summer, a welcome relief for working parents. But they can also present opportunities for sexual predators.
At their annual meeting, Southern Baptists re-elected their president, adopted statements on their views about major cultural issues, and discussed how to deal with sexual abuse and racial discrimination in the church.
Southern Baptists, faced in recent months with hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse in its ranks, have overwhelmingly adopted changes to governing documents that will bring greater visibility to their desire to disaffiliate with churches that do not handle instances of abuse properly.
The Southern Baptist Convention began its annual meeting yesterday in Birmingham, Alabama. According to its president, the denomination faces “a defining moment” that will shape the church for generations to come. In focusing on the crisis of sexual abuse, Dr. J. D. Greear stated, “This is not a distraction from the mission. Protecting God’s children is the mission of the church.”
Carrying the responsibility for a denomination that is dealing with the 12th consecutive year of decline would exhaust many leaders, but Greear believes that putting the gospel above anything else is what the convention needs to do.
A new Southern Baptist Convention report on sex abuse, filled with the voices of survivors, acknowledges numerous ways the denomination has failed to protect members of its churches.
Speaking at a black church Sunday (June 9) in a city that is nearly 75% percent African American, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, J.D. Greear, said white Christians who are racially insensitive are disregarding the gospel.
“We want our churches to be as safe as possible as soon as possible.” This is the goal of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), according to its president, J. D. Greear.
Ahead of the SBC’s annual meeting that begins tomorrow in Birmingham, Alabama, Dr. Greear and other Southern Baptist leaders are responding to an unprecedented sexual abuse crisis facing their denomination. They are seeking ways to hold churches more accountable for allowing such abuse and to keep people in their churches safe.
While there has been an unexpected resurgence in giving, the Southern Baptists are hemorrhaging church members, culminating in 30-year low attendance numbers.
Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, Jr. took to Twitter late Monday night to call Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission president Russell Moore to the carpet.
