In historic election, SBC Executive Committee elects first African American chair
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)—The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee (SBC EC) elected its first African American chair in a special called meeting Tuesday, June 16. Rolland Slade, pastor of El Cajon, Calif., Meridian, was unopposed as EC chair and was unanimously elected by ballot vote. Outgoing chair Mike Stone called for a ballot vote, he said, to mark the historic moment. “I think we all realize by what is going on in...
SBC President Greear addresses diversity, unity, missions, abuse prevention
DURHAM, N.C. (BP)—Promoting diversity, unity, missions and sex abuse prevention are goals the Southern Baptist Convention must continue to pursue in order to put the “Gospel Above All,” SBC President J.D. Greear said in his 2020 presidential address Tuesday, June 9. Speaking from his office at The Summit Church in Durham, N.C., in a virtual format after the 2020 SBC Annual Meeting was canceled because of the COVID-19...
Pastors urge prayer, Gospel outreach as outrage grows over George Floyd’s death
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. (BP)—Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) leaders are lamenting the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis after a white police officer used a knee to pin his neck to the pavement for several minutes. Floyd had repeatedly said he could not breathe. “I am disturbed, brokenhearted and deeply grieved when I see and read that another black man’s sacred life has been unjustly snuffed...
Jewish woman accepts Christ after watching livestreams during COVID-19, drives hour for baptism
GULFPORT, Miss. (BP)—”Don’t live in fear anymore,” Lisa Cohen Huff recalls hearing while half asleep in bed one morning at her Hattiesburg, Miss. home. “Here’s the door. All you’ve got to do is step through,” she heard the next morning. Huff grew up Jewish. But even before the COVID-19 pandemic largely shut down onsite worship, she had begun watching livestreamed worship and devotionals by...
Video of Ahmaud Arbery shooting inflames tensions in south Georgia town
BRUNSWICK, Ga. (BP)—Nearly three months after his death, a graphic video of the moment a young black man was shot while jogging on a quiet street in a small town has inflamed tensions and spurred outrage. Ahmaud Arbery, 25, was reportedly on a Sunday jog through a subdivision Feb. 23 when he was pursued by a white father and son, then shot during a resulting confrontation. Thursday, May 7, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation charged...
