By Will Hall, Baptist Message executive editor WASHINGTON (LBM) – Forty Baptist leaders representing 22 states joined the Family Research Council to send a letter to the White House asking President Trump to stand firm in defending the unborn and to protect women and girls from the dangers of the abortion pill mifepristone. The letter also was sent to the Department of Justice and the Food and Drug Administration. The plea to President Trump comes on the heels of Southern Baptists adopting a resolution this summer calling for federal and state lawmakers to stop the “manufacture, sale, and distribution of the chemical abortion drugs” and to “enforce the Comstock Act prohibiting the mailing of abortion pills.” Meanwhile, the findings of a large-scale study about mifepristone abortions (865,727 data points from 2017-2023) were just released showing “a serious adverse event rate of 10.93 percent,” about 22 times the life-threatening complications reported by the FDA and drug manufacturers (0.5 percent). The leaders expressed appreciation for the president’s “unwavering defense of the unborn during your first term” and asked him to restore “FDA safety protocols for mifepristone, including an ultrasound requirement”, to … [Read more...]

By Will Hall, Baptist Message executive editor BATON ROUGE, La. (LBM) – Luke Ash, the bivocational pastor of Stevendale Baptist Church in Baton Rouge, was fired, July 10, as a library technician by the East Baton Rouge Parish Library because he declined to use pronouns with another library employee that did not reflect her biological sex. Speaking to a crowd of pastors, July 17, Ash indicated he was not looking for a fight, but that using male pronouns in speaking to a female coworker would have conflicted with his belief in the biblical truth about God’s creation of male and female and consequently would have been a lie. NATIONAL ISSUE The matter has erupted nationally with the chief executive of the state, Gov. Jeff Landry, and its top law enforcement officer, Attorney General Liz Murril, weighing in with concern. In response to a social media post about Pastor Ash, Landry wrote on X, July 16, “Louisianans should never lose their job because they refuse to lie! Louisiana is the real world, and in the real world, preferred pronouns don’t exist— only biological ones!” Murrill added her thoughts on X, July 17, writing, “Louisiana isn’t New York or California. State law prohibits discrimination based on religion in … [Read more...]