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First Peek at the Museum of the Bible Collection: 'Beautiful,' 'Inspirational,' 'Massive'
Image via Heidi Hall/RNS.
Even though the conference is known for its evangelical bent, that doesn’t mean liberal Christians, Jews, and others can’t appreciate the museum, Summers said. Among the museum’s advisers, 20 percent are Roman Catholic and 20 percent are Jewish. The remaining are all manner of Protestants, including Lutherans, Presbyterians, and Mennonites.
Churches Step in After Feds Defund Fugitive Safe Surrender
Image via Heidi Hall / RNS
The first people that fugitives encountered when they surrendered themselves on a humid September weekend weren’t cops, judges, marshals, or anyone else associated with the criminal justice system.
They were met by a phalanx of smiling, middle-aged church ladies, their vivid blue Galilee Missionary Baptist T-shirts unmistakable under the bright skies, smiling and holding open the door. Two other church volunteers collected belts and keys and sent the visitors through a metal detector.
And then they met Veda Gooch, a Galilee member standing on the other side, quick with a guiding touch on the arm or even a hug if they needed it.
“Y’all here to sign up?” she asked quietly.
Is It Heresy for Baptists to Baptize a Baby? One Pastor’s Example Sets Off a Debate
Baptism of infant in Orthodox Church. Photo via Iakov Filimonov / Shutterstock.com
In April, an influential American Baptist Churches USA pastor performed the rite, which most Baptists believe is reserved for Christians who are able to make a mature confession of faith. Although there are dozens of Baptist denominations in the U.S., the news made instant waves among those who know and understand Baptist teachings.
Before long, a Southern Baptist seminary president compared the notion of Baptists baptizing infants to vegetarians eating steak.
Swingers Club or 'Church:' Who Gets to Decide?
United Fellowship Center in suburban Madison, Tenn. Image via Heidi Hall/RNS.
Goodpasture Christian School sits on a sprawling, bucolic campus seven miles north of downtown Nashville, where 900 students ready themselves for adult lives of college, career, and loving the Lord.
Right next door sits the United Fellowship Center, a planned church where adults will ready themselves to have sex with each other after enjoying a little BYOB togetherness.
It’s the newest incarnation of The Social Club, a whispered-about swingers club in downtown Nashville that left for the suburbs when a building boom took its parking lot. The community went bonkers after zoning hearings revealed the club’s plans to relocate in a former medical office building in Madison — adjacent to Goodpasture and within a mile of an Assemblies of God megachurch.
After months of debate, an emergency city zoning amendment and a state law designed to stop the relocation, the club’s attorney made an announcement: The Social Club would open in its new location as a church.
Protection via the First Amendment effectively silenced zoning complaints — for now. But it sparked conversations about what it means for a secular organization suddenly to label itself a church, and religious scholars seem no more ready to plunge into that debate than American courts have proved to be.
“When I see this case, I do roll my eyes, but I also know Protestant Christians in America don’t own 'church,'” said Kutter Callaway, assistant professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif.
As One Evangelical Church ‘Comes Out’ for LGBT Rights, Others Cast a Wary Eye
The GracePointe Church choir performs during Easter service in 2014. Photo via GracePointe Church / RNS
Pastor Stan Mitchell’s announcement that his evangelical GracePointe Church would fully affirm gay members met with a standing ovation from some, stunned silence from others, but everybody prayed together quietly at the end of it.
A month and a half later, Mitchell routinely receives emails inviting him to kill himself, often including the assurance they were sent in love from other Christians. Half of his 12-member board has left, along with half the average offering and about a third of the weekly attendance — once at 800 to 1,000 people.
He’s met with dozens of disenchanted members and plans to see dozens more, apologizing almost compulsively for his handling of the issue. But there’s no going back, he says. He doesn’t even want to.
One of his biggest fears is that talking publicly about what happened at GracePointe could discourage countless other evangelical pastors who he says are ready to make the same move.
“I’m watching LGBT people finally make peace with themselves because they couldn’t get away from the authority of Scripture and what they thought it said about them,” said Mitchell, 46.
“The upsides — my God, they’re everywhere in this.”
Southern Baptists Try to Diversify Churches — But Will It Work?
Erskin Anavitarte, a Southern Baptist pastor-turned-musician. Photo via Tate Music Group / RNS
How tough is it to create a racially diverse denomination? Consider a recent luncheon organized by the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
About 100 Nashville-area evangelical leaders accepted invitations to a lunch hosted by the denomination’s policy arm, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. On the agenda: a pitch for a spring summit and a short discussion by ERLC President Russell Moore about the need for churches to become more racially diverse.
The number of African-Americans who showed up for the lunch? Four (two of them denomination employees).
ERLC leaders originally planned a summit on bioethics. They quickly shifted gears after grand juries in November and December failed to indict police officers for the deaths of young unarmed black men. Moore’s social media remarks condemning the New York City jury’s decision not to indict the officer who killed Eric Garner were met with an angry backlash, some from people filling Southern Baptist pews and pulpits.
Black church leaders are greeting news of the summit with reactions ranging from polite skepticism to hopeful support.
Russian Pastor Reflects on Religious Persecution
Victor Ignatenkov, left, with Ellen Smith, a Presbyterian missionary and translator. Photo courtesy of Ellen Smith/RNS.
A Russian pastor whose grandfather was killed for being a Christian toured the U.S. recently, studying church ministries and providing a rare, first-person look at Russia’s complex religious landscape after widespread persecution ended.
During Victor Ignatenkov’s youth under the Soviet regime, Christians could meet only for worship.
No Sunday school.
No midweek Bible study.
And definitely no proselytizing.
Today, Ignatenkov, 59, said he’s free to lead whatever activities he wants as pastor of the Central Baptist Church in his hometown of Smolensk — a city situated between the capitals of Russia and Ukraine — and as regional bishop for the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptist. The union is a group of evangelical Protestant churches that began emerging in Russia about 150 years ago as an alternative to the Russian Orthodox establishment.