By Will Hall, Message Executive Editor AMES, Iowa (LBM)—A joint research team from the Iowa State University and the University of Colorado have helped dispel the long-held notion that the earth’s oceans resulted from water transferred to the planet via ice trapped in space objects and released upon impact of these meteorites with the earth. Instead, they say, in a newly released report in the journal, Nature Geoscience, that from the start the whole earth was covered in water, consistent with Genesis 1:1-2 which states that “In the beginning … the earth was without form, and void … and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” The research team had set out to measure the temperature of the early Earth. But they learned from measuring isotopes of ancient rocks that the chemical history of these rocks indicated the earth was covered by a continuous ocean, with no continents at that time. Basically, they found an unexpected universal presence of oxygen-18, an isotope typically absent in areas with large landmasses. Now the team plans to pursue the answer to the question: When exactly did the continents emerge, pushed out of the ocean by tectonic plates crashing together? In this next step of their … [Read more...]

By Will Hall, Message Executive Editor NASHVILLE, Tenn. (LBM)—J.D. Greear, pastor of The Summit in Durham, North Carolina, and serving his second term as SBC president, has named Ed Stetzer as the chair of the 2020 Resolutions Committee. Stetzer likely will be considered a controversial choice by many Southern Baptists. He is the interim teaching pastor for the Moody Church in Chicago, Illinois, a non-SBC congregation that ordains women as deaconesses and is elder-led. He is not the first controversial choice put forth by Greear. Despite promising to nominate candidates that looked like the rest of the Southern Baptist Convention, in 2019 Greear named his Committee on Committees, the group that shapes all trustee boards and the various SBC committees, with 31 percent identified as Calvinists by their beliefs and practices, compared to 10 percent of all Southern Baptists. One of the pastors on the list identified himself to his local newspaper as a non-denominational church with “Baptist” as its middle name. Greear also favored mega-churches over the small congregations that typify the Southern Baptist Convention. The average attendance among the committee members’ churches was 597. Meanwhile, just five percent … [Read more...]

By Will Hall, Message Executive Editor NASHVILLE, Tenn. (LBM)—The Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention formed a task force, Feb. 18, and charged it to investigate “past and present activities” of the Ethics & Religious Liberties Commission relating to “whether the actions of the Commission and its leadership are affecting Cooperative Program giving or the further advancement of the Cooperative Program.” It is the second time the ERLC, under the leadership of its president, Russ Moore, has come under fire in the last four years. In February 2017, the Executive Committee set up two investigative panels to study the ERLC after dozens of congregations either withheld funds to the SBC or left the SBC altogether after Moore made harsh comments about President Trump and his supporters. Among the prominent congregations that escrowed money was the historic Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, which withheld about $1 million in cooperative ministry funds. Meanwhile, only months earlier, during its 2016 annual meeting, the Louisiana Baptist Convention voted to set up study of its own regarding the ERLC “with regard to issues of concern to Louisiana Baptists.” Moore apologized in March 2017; … [Read more...]

By Will Hall, Message Executive Editor NASHVILLE, Tenn. (LBM)—The Southern Baptist Convention Pastors’ Conference has declined a request from the SBC Executive Committee to change its lineup of speakers and entertainers. The SBC EC passed a resolution offering the pastors group use of the 2020 SBC Annual Meeting spaces in Orlando if it made changes to its proposed program, which was described as “sufficiently beyond the parameters of the faith and practice of Southern Baptists,” and made a payment of $100,000 (only a partial reimbursement of the actual cost of the facilities). Instead, the Pastors’ Conference, which has always been treated as a friend of the SBC although it has not official status with the denomination, said the First Baptist Church in Orlando, would pay the full cost for use of the spaces but not make any lineup changes. The amount of the full cost for use of the facilities has not been publicly released. David Uth, chairman of the Pastors’ Conference, also is pastor of First Orlando. It is not clear if the SBC EC will agree to this counter offer. At dispute are a number of platform personalities including David Hughes, pastor of Church by the Glades in Coral Springs, Florida. His Southern … [Read more...]

By Will Hall, Message Executive Editor BOSSIER CITY, La. (LBM)—Brad Jurkovich, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Bossier City, announced on Valentine’s Day the launching of the Conservative Baptist Network, a grassroots movement of Southern Baptists “concerned about the current direction and perceived future of the Convention.” In just three days, more than 3,200 churches and individuals had signed onto the initiative to restore conservative Southern Baptist views of Scripture, Jurkovich told the Baptist Message. CONSERVATIVES Jurkovich is joined in leadership of the movement by a number of pastors and laymen, but two of the most prominent supporters are: Rod Martin, described as a “tech guru” by Fox Business News and noted especially for his work as a member of the startup team that developed and launched PayPal, and who serves as a member of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee; and, Chuck Kelley, a longtime Southern Baptist leader who recently retired after serving 24 years as president of the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. BATTLING RADICAL IDEAS During a radio broadcast about the announcement Jurkovich told Todd Starnes, a conservative Southern Baptist, formerly with Fox News, … [Read more...]