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Baptist Message

"Helping Louisiana Baptists Impact the World For Christ"

Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio expose SBC rift caused by ERLC’s Moore

By Will Hall, Message editor ALEXANDRIA – In a surprise development, two prominent national news outlets have investigated the turmoil created by a Southern Baptist leader because of his relentless attacks against fellow evangelicals who chose to support Donald Trump during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. The Wall Street Journal and National Public Radio published separate election post-mortem investigations into the 45-year-old Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, who has made himself a high-visibility figure during the presidential campaign with his inflammatory social media posts and much-publicized editorials against evangelicals printed by the liberal New York Times and Washington Post. For his part, Moore posted an online article – the same day the Wall Street Journal article was released – titled “Election Year Thoughts at Christmastime,” giving his advice about how to “move forward” after a “divisive election.” Moreover, he appeared, at least at one point, to recast the imbroglio among Southern Baptists as a situation of others taking aim at him. “Over the last month, there have been some pointed conversations in my denominational family … [Read more...]

‘Tis the season for soul-winning for SBC president

By Will Hall, Message Editor MEMPHIS, Tenn. – While Christmas means a lot of things to a lot of people, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention sees it as an opportunity to put the exclamation point in “Jesus is the reason for the season!” by soul-winning, and this year that means 400 new believers are professing “Jesus is Lord!” because of a Christmas program. Steve Gaines, pastor of the historic Bellevue Baptist Church in the Cordova area of Memphis, Tenn., is quick to credit others, with special praise for the tradition of soul-winning at his congregation to the leadership of former long-time pastor Adrian Rogers, as well as the vision for the presentation of the “Singing Christmas Tree” to former music minister James Whitmire. Still, under Gaines’ leadership this flagship congregation continues to use every opportunity, especially Christmas, to reach others for Christ, and the evidence is in the results. During 2015, the church averaged more than 7,000 in worship attendance and witnessed almost 600 baptisms – that is a per capita average of one baptism resulting for every 12 people who are active attenders (or 12:1). For the Southern Baptist Convention, the ratio is about 19:1 for established churches and … [Read more...]