By Will Hall, Baptist Message executive editor NASHVILLE, Tenn. (LBM) – The presidents of the six seminaries of the Southern Baptist Convention signed a statement, Nov. 30, declaring Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality, theories about racism that arose largely from social activists at Harvard University and the University of California at Los Angeles, as “incompatible with the Baptist Faith & Message.” Their statement was released, they said, in recognition of the 20th anniversary of the SBC’s adoption of the Baptist Faith & Message 2000. In a statement to Baptist Press, Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina, and chairman of the SBC Council of Seminary Presidents, said the seminary leaders were prompted by widespread complaints raised by Southern Baptists. “We felt that because our brothers and sisters in various state conventions have concern about this issue, they would also want to know what their seminaries actually think, and what we are teaching and not teaching,” Akin said. Tennessee Baptists (2019) and Georgia Baptists (2020) adopted resolutions rejecting the controversial “Resolution 9” that was adopted by SBC messengers at the 2019 … [Read more...]

By Will Hall, Baptist Message executive editor ALEXANDRIA (LBM) – The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention has shifted its position on a decades-old policy opposing the use of federal embryonic stem cell lines in medical research. The SBC’s public policy arm has published or promoted multiple position statements in recent weeks, all offering a similar view that it is not morally wrong to take a COVID-19 vaccine developed or tested using established government embryonic stem cell lines. However, Southern Baptists voiced strong opposition against the use of human embryos to advance medical knowledge when in 2001 President George W. Bush allowed federal funds for research on 60 existing stem cell lines that had been produced from human embryos. These no longer contain any of the original tissue taken from the aborted babies that were used to start each respective stem cell line. Instead, generations of new tissue have been grown in laboratories from the original human cells. Then-ERLC President Richard Land said the decision to fund even limited embryonic stem cell research crossed a fundamental moral line. “We must always remember that these existing stem cell lines are … [Read more...]

Out of their vast treasures of wealth and wonder, the wise men made deliberate choices in the gifts they brought to worship Jesus. Gold was coveted as the most precious of metals. It was the standard by which wealth was measured, and so it was a fit tribute to royalty. Gold was meant to signify that this baby, born in a feeding trough to impoverished parents, was the King. Frankincense is a fragrant milky sap that is harvested from trees that grow mainly in Oman and Yemen in the Middle East. In the Old Testament the hardened sap was used as an incense burned for thanksgiving and praise offerings, and was given to acknowledge Jesus as our High Priest. Myrrh, a bitter herb, was a bittersweet gift. In the first century, it was a spice wrapped in the layers of linen placed on a dead body in order to externally embalm it. Myrrh was presented to confess the infant as our Savior, whose death and resurrection in a mere three decades would bring “salvation to the ends of the earth.” Adapted from David Jeremiah’s “A Spirit of Giving.” … [Read more...]