Author: Myriah Snyder

Nationals see divine intervention amidst persistent persecution

Editor’s note: This story is part of a series on global persecution, leading churches to pray for the persecuted church. Other articles on the persecuted church can be found at imb.org/persecuted.

During the height of their civil war, persecution was rampant and ruthless where IMB worker Edwin Hayes* serves.

While visiting a local pastor/church planter to see how he could help, Hayes heard the story of a pastor and his wife. He left humbled, wondering what he could possibly do to help a couple with such tested faith.

The husband had scars over his entire face and most of his body.

“I’d never seen an individual survive burns that bad,” Hayes said. “The amount of scar tissue was crazy.”

His wife had a scarred-over gash across half her face, and her left eye was missing.

Because of their scars, though, they both expressed that it was love at first sight.

The group in control of their war-torn country at the time was intolerant of Christianity or any opposing religion. When extremists found the husband walking down a road, they poured diesel on him and lit him on fire. They left him to die, but God had other plans.

The wife’s story is similar. Extremists found her on the road. Knowing she was a Christian, they told her to recant. She refused, and they slashed the left side of her face with a machete. Again, God’s plans for her life superseded her persecutors, and she survived.

Hayes explains that this overt type of persecution subsided after the war. But these people are far from free to openly practice Christianity. Now persecution comes from conservative religious community leaders and families. Persecution is so common, national believers have come to expect it.

Recently, a national church planter faced a hard choice. He’d moved to a community to work with believers there. He’d been in this area for three and a half years.

“Your daughter is old enough now. We’re going to rape her if you don’t leave,” local leaders promised. Hayes is sure that they would have followed through on that. The church planter relocated. The team is looking for someone within a bus ride away to continue the work there.

In a rural community, a young boy’s family found him convulsing and muttering cryptic speech. Then he began leaping, scaling walls and wailing. When the local “holy man” and other faith leaders arrived, he collapsed again, lifeless. After performing a ritual, the holy man declared the boy would be dead within three months.

A Christian couple approached his parents as they sat by the body of their son in the hospital. They asked if they and their pastor could pray for the boy. His parents welcomed the pastor out of desperation. He advised them to remove the idols and ritualistic items from their property. Then he prayed for the boy and his family.

When the family returned to the hospital after obeying the pastor’s orders, the boy had improved.

“They immediately called everyone to let them know. They eagerly wanted to meet with their Christian friends and the pastor again,” Hayes shared. “His family began attending church and learning more about God. They were immersed in a new sense of love, life and gratitude for God healing their son.”

This divine intervention was not acceptable to the holy man, though, who felt his authority had been undermined. Hayes isn’t sure what the leaders told the mother, but the family allowed them to perform another ritual on the boy days after he’d returned home healthy.

The boy passed away after obviously being poisoned. The leaders had fulfilled their own prophecy.

IMB workers and local believers haven’t given up on pushing back the darkness in that boy’s village.

“We can grit our teeth. We can be angry. We’ve cried. We’ve been disillusioned, but we still want to see [the local leaders] come to Christ. We want to see the whole place transformed. And we still think it’s possible,” Hayes shared.

Hayes is aware that this will only happen through the “strength and resolve” of the national believers in these hard places.

Although stories like this boy’s have no happy ending, others are reminders of the supernatural power of God to triumph over evil.

One woman who formerly led chants at her temple came to faith in Christ. She boldly shared her newfound faith with her family.

While walking down the road one day, she saw her brothers coming toward her with buckets. She knew they contained acid, and she knew what they intended to do.

Burying her face in her hands, she braced herself for the pain.

She heard the liquid slosh to the ground, and her brothers drop the buckets and run away screaming. She looked up and there was a circle of acid surrounding her, but she was unscathed.

Later, she confronted the one brother who would still talk to her and asked what happened.

“We threw acid at you,” he said. “But it parted and went around you.” That brother gave his life to the Lord soon after.

“There’s persecution but you see divine intervention at times inside of that,” Hayes shared. “In either case, God is going to be glorified. God is going to be doing work and amazing things in and through those people.”

For more resources on how to pray for the persecuted church, visit imb.org/persecuted.

Ways to pray for the church in this area:

Pray that believers will have boldness to share their faith at great personal risk.
Pray that those who are sharing their faith will have wisdom as they share.
Pray that the church in this area will have the strength to endure as the political climate turns more hostile to the gospel.

*Name changed for security

Myriah Snyder is senior writer/editor for the IMB.

The post Nationals see divine intervention amidst persistent persecution appeared first on IMB.

How can God’s people pursue compassion during the global refugee crisis?

Forced displacement is a global crisis that grows every year. In the face of these conditions, sympathy toward displaced people is often overshadowed by fear and concern about security, economics, and culture. As the global refugee crisis worsens, Christians need a perspective that considers Scripture and political realities and can be applied at the local church, national, and international levels.

In Refuge Reimagined, Mark R. Glanville and Luke Glanville present a compassionate approach to displaced people based on a biblical ethic of kinship. The authors apply the call of God’s people to compassion and kinship to the complexities of the global refugee crisis, challenging a fear-based ethic and casting a vision for a hopeful and generous way forward. Read below to discover more insights from the authors’ book about forced displacement and the church.

What led to your interest in studying and now sharing about biblical kinship and refugees?

We have been thinking and writing about local and national issues and global justice for refugees for some years. As we discussed refugee issues together a few years ago, we noticed that, on the one hand, Mark was finding that biblical arguments for the compassionate welcome of strangers were often met with the response: but you misunderstand politics. You have not grappled with the conceptual limits and large-scale practicalities of applying this to nations.

On the other hand, Luke found that political arguments offering for a more compassionate approach to refugees were often met with the response: but you misunderstand the Bible. The biblical call to welcome the stranger is not as straightforward as you think.

And so we thought it could be helpful to write a book that addresses each of these responses at once, drawing on our complementary interests and expertise in biblical, missional, and political theology (Mark) and history, political theory, and international relations (Luke).

Your approach to compassion for displaced people is centered on a biblical ethic of kinship. What is a biblical ethic of kinship?

In our book, Refuge Reimagined: Biblical Kinship in Global Politics, we highlight the biblical mandate for a thick form of kinship with the displaced, a kinship that embraces and enfolds vulnerable strangers into church communities and national communities, a deeply relational kinship.

A biblical ethic of kinship is unfolded throughout the biblical story. We see it, for example, in the so-called Golden Rule, Jesus’ command: “You shall love the Lord your God . . . and your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30; Matt. 22:37–39; cf. Luke 10:27). The “love” language found in the Gospels here derives from kinship language. “Love” means to enfold and protect another person as one would a family member. It means to live in solidarity with someone who needs it, as makeshift family.

Of course, Jesus didn’t invent this command. Rather, he interprets the Old Testament law as fulfilled in his own life and ministry, as he gathered a faithful remnant, an eschatological Israel. With these words, Jesus is echoing the Pentateuch’s teaching on those to whom kinship-love is due under the covenant. Kinship-love is due to God (Deut. 6:5), to one’s neighbor (that is, one’s kinsperson; see Lev. 19:18), and also to the stranger (the outsider who is to be enfolded as kin; see Lev. 19:34; Deut. 10:18). These three kinship-loves are interdependent, expressing an organic covenant life that is emphatically oriented toward others and in particular toward the weakest among us.

What are some of the global conditions that may lead to an increase in the amount of displaced people in the coming decades?

The global number of forcibly displaced people has been increasing by millions each year for many years now, to the point that presently 80 million people find themselves displaced by persecution, violence, human rights violations, and events that seriously disturb social order. Many of these problems are becoming more drawn out and intractable: civil wars are lasting longer, displacement-generating natural and human-made events are occurring more regularly. And climate change already exacerbates these problems — and will likely continue to — as it amplifies food and water insecurity and contributes to triggering or prolonging armed conflicts in various parts of the world.

The refugee crisis is intertwined with many vast and complex issues. Where is a good place for people to start becoming informed if they feel overwhelmed by the subject?

The website of UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, offers insight into the vitality and resourcefulness of people on the move. It has up-to-date information on global conflicts that cause displacement as well as creative responses. For an orientation to engaging the topic thoughtfully, take a look at the film, “Borderstory,” produced by Erin Goheen Glanville (24 minutes).

How might you respond to those who believe that tackling the issue of refugees is too political or idealistic?

In response to the charge of being too political, we suggest that the mission of God surely includes within its scope not only the church but also the nation and indeed the world. Through Scripture, we discern God’s desire not only for Christ-followers but also for nations, and we thereby discern what the Spirit is longing to restore, and is busy restoring, in the world. Mission is the encounter with the world of a community gathered by Christ to be caught up in the Father’s reconciling purpose for all of Creation. We should strive, then, to seek to discern God’s reconciling purpose for the nation and the world concerning refugees and other displaced people.

In response to the charge of being too idealistic and the suggestion that we should argue for more “realistic” and incremental change, we acknowledge that there can be a time and a place for seeking to nudge reluctant communities and their leaders toward more compassionate rhetoric and more generous policies toward refugees; a time and a place for pursuing marginal gains in the direction of justice. But we take as the task of our book to examine God’s vision for how communities should engage with displaced outsiders and to explore how this vision might ideally shape the actions of church, national, and global communities today. Our book is idealistic in the sense that God’s desire for human society is so much more beautiful than the present reality. Only once we comprehend the ideal can we know what we ought to strive for by the power of the Spirit.

One of your chapters is titled “Relinquishing Fear, Nurturing Compassion, Institutionalizing Love.” What are some steps we can take to foster a more loving and compassionate, less fearful approach to the refugee crisis?

A first step is to cultivate tenderness (Mark 1:40-41). Some of us live close to refugees, and some of us don’t. Yet, all of us live nearby to struggling single parents, aging seniors, people who are lonely, mentally ill, addicted, anxious, hungry, or depressed. Indeed, are we not all broken in some of these ways?

Is Christ inviting you into a time of discernment around ways in which you might express the tenderness of Christ? For example, are you being called into your local school to assist children who need help in reading? Is your church being called to start a program to offer meaningful work for underemployed people in your neighborhood? Is Christ leading you to be a companion to lonely people in your church, lonely people like you? Are you being called to care for the creation, our common home? Our tenderness is a sign that the Spirit of Christ is moving among us (Phil 2:1).

A second step toward creative kinship is sharing life in diversity, as we explore in chapter five of our book. Both as households and as churches we need to remodel our kinship circles around the example of Christ. How can your worshiping community begin to reflect the diversity of your neighborhood? Do you need to sing in other languages? Do you need to prioritize those with little as you set your table, as Christ did? Do you need to contemplate a broader range of issues than your preaching and Bible studies tend to address?

A third step is learning with others. Perhaps some friends would join you in a book group, for example.

What can the church learn from our displaced brothers and sisters around the world?

Can we tell you a story from our book? Both of us are Australian, though Mark resides in Vancouver. Our book describes how people arriving by boat to seek asylum in Australia are mandatorily detained in facilities on Manus Island and Nauru. We speak about the injustice of this policy and the harm that it does to already vulnerable people.

Our friend, Ebony Birchall, is a gifted and compassionate Christian lawyer in Sydney, Australia, who uses her professional skills in solidarity with refugees. Birchall both serves these refugees and considers working with refugees to be a gift. For example, when she expressed compassion to one Christian refugee, the man said to her: “Don’t worry. I know that the Australian Government isn’t the most powerful thing in the world. I trust in God, and I know that this will end.”

Birchall was struck in that moment by the contrast between the many Australian Christians who support this policy and this man who is still pointing to God amidst the suffering of detention. She reflects: “There is a gift in knowing that life isn’t about buying a house and going on holidays. It is this work that gives me joy and fulfillment. This is the sort of thing that builds my character and my faith in God.”

The truth is, there are more Christians in the global south than in Western nations. Many Christians are coming to Western nations as refugees — the gospel is coming to us! A greater spiritual passion and vitality often characterize churches birthed by refugees.

How can the church best serve displaced people in their communities?

If you have this opportunity for a relationship with newcomers, engage humbly, anticipating that you will transform and enrich each other just like two friends would. Be curious as to how ‘helper’ dynamic might be flipped. Ideally, we were both giving and receiving. This is one step on the road toward friendship, which is something that all of us need to flourish. Here are three ideas:

1. Reach out to a refugee resettlement organization within your community, such as World Relief. The map of all resettlement orgs is found here.

2. Reach out to a pastor of a church in your community that worships in a language other than English, build a relationship and look for opportunities for fellowship and mutual encouragement

3. In the current context where many children are arriving alone, there’s a significant need for families willing to become licensed foster families.

Finally, we can always pray. Pray that God would draw refugees to himself through Jesus. Ask him to use you and your church to help meet their needs, both physical and spiritual. And pray that the Father would comfort, protect, and encourage refugees in the midst of circumstances that are often difficult.

Refuge Reimagined can be purchased here.

Desperation, need for hope seen as chaplains arrive at Surfside condo collapse

SURFSIDE, Fla. (BP) — A day after the 12-story Champlain Towers South Condo collapsed on itself, Pines Baptist Church Pastor Luis Acosta was as close to the smoldering rubble as authorities allowed.

Acosta said while at the site Friday (June 25), he sensed on the faces of the victims’ family members gathered nearby “desperation, the need for hope, the need to hear their loved ones are safe,” he told Baptist Press today (June 28). “I’ve been reading into their looks they’re probably wanting any word. It’s a search and rescue now, but sooner than later it’s going to be a recovery.

“Barring a miracle where the floors just fell in such a way that it created a vault where people can hold on until they’re rescued, barring that kind of a miracle … I am expecting the death toll to begin to rise.”

The tower in the small community just north of Miami Beach partially collapsed in the early hours Thursday (June 24).

Acosta led a small group of Florida Baptist Convention (FBC) Disaster Relief personnel to the site to help determine the best response. They’ve issued a call for 50 chaplains and the dispatch of a combination laundry-shower unit. Ten residents are confirmed dead and about 150 remain missing, the Associated Press reported today.

FBC Disaster Relief Director David Coggins was conducting regional DR training at Acosta’s church in Pembroke Pines when the tragedy occurred just 20 miles away. Three chaplains had already deployed to the collapse site today and at least three others were on their way, Coggins said.

“We’ve extended a call out to about 50 (chaplains), and we’re just waiting to see how they respond. That call didn’t go out until late Friday night,” Coggins told Baptist Press. “It will mainly be a ministry of presence. We’re going to station them with the laundry unit as well, and just have them to be there and connect with family members. [Authorities] are sending family members to certain hotels to gather information, and so we’re just going to have our chaplains walk through those places.”

Coggins spoke with victim advocates, emergency response leaders and others in determining ways to help.

“Our main objective is to provide comfort and support. We want the people, the families especially, to know that they’re cared for,” Coggins said. “We want to provide scriptural support for them when they get news about their loved ones, when that comes. And also if we have opportunities, we want to be able to support the search and rescue, and the first responders.”

Southern Baptist DR volunteers and personnel are not certified to conduct search and rescue at the site where five days later, firefighters, sniffer dogs and search experts continued to painstakingly dig for survivors and human remains.

“Miami-Dade has one of the premier search-and-rescue units in the country, literally in the world,” Coggins said. “But we want our presence there so that we can provide support.

“We’re also asking our chaplains to try to connect with the local Jewish community, because it’s a strong Jewish community,” he said. “The rabbis there have been holding some prayer gatherings. So we’re just going to ask our chaplains to connect with them and just show support for them, show solidarity with them and offer assistance … without intruding into their process.”

No Southern Baptist congregations are located in Surfside, according to the Annual Church Profile. Acosta has offered to help the FBC response efforts and hopes churches can work together in the region to help those impacted by the tragedy.

“We’re pretty far from the place, not so much in distance but just density. We’re an hour away,” he said. “Hopefully a month from now we can still do some ministry and provide the hope of the Gospel. And as we meet physical needs, share Christ. That’s our hope.”

WRAP-UP: SBC elects Litton, takes control of EC investigation

NASHVILLE (BP) – From the moment the gavel dropped – or actually, with the gavel that dropped – calling them to order, it was clear messengers to the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting June 15-16 in Nashville were ready to make changes and challenge traditions in the name of advancing the Gospel.

SBC President J.D. Greear had previously retired the Broadus Gavel, which was named for slaveowner John Broadus and had been used continuously at annual meetings by SBC presidents since 1872. Instead, he gaveled the convention to order with the Judson Gavel, named after Baptist missionary Adoniram Judson.

Incoming SBC President Ed Litton (left) pauses for selfie with outgoing SBC President J.D. Greear, who had just passed off the gavel to Litton. Photo by Robin Jackson

The convention’s 15,726 messengers – the most since 1995 – seemed to follow Greear’s lead, taking action to protect victims and hold leaders accountable even when it meant overturning the decisions of convention committees – especially the Executive Committee.

Messengers called for creation of a task force, appointed by the new SBC president, to oversee an independent review of the Executive Committee over allegations of mishandling reports of sexual abuse. They overwhelmingly defeated a revision of the SBC Business and Financial Plan proposed by the EC.

Ed Litton, pastor of Redemption Church in Saraland, Ala., was elected SBC president in a runoff with a 52 percent majority over Georgia pastor Mike Stone, immediate past chairman of the SBC Executive Committee and a steering council member for the Conservative Baptist Network (CBN), a group alleging leftward drift in the convention. Litton has suggested the CBN is unnecessary because Southern Baptists are unwaveringly conservative.

Albert Mohler (left) and Ed Litton (right) brought a moment of unity when the two publicly affirmed one another during Mohler’s Southern Baptist Theological Seminary report. Photos by Abbey Sprinkle and Robin Jackson

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Albert Mohler and Northwest Baptist Convention executive director Randy Adams also were nominated for president but failed to make the two-person runoff.

Southern Baptists “are a family, and at times we may seem dysfunctional,” Litton told reporters after his election. “But we love each other.”

Messengers presented 32 motions from the convention floor, the most since 2010.

While at times tense, the debate was punctuated with moments of unity. A day after the presidential election, Litton took a floor microphone as a messenger to commend Mohler as a “statesman” and “gift of God” to Southern Baptists during Mohler’s Southern Baptist Theological Seminary report. Mohler responded by congratulating Litton publicly on his victory.

Committees face resistance

The Executive Committee (an 86-member body charged with acting on the SBC’s behalf between annual meetings) drew opposition at multiple junctures, with messengers claiming the EC had too much authority and needed to be held accountable.

Tennessee pastor Grant Gaines moved that the new SBC president appoint a task force to oversee a previously announced investigation into alleged EC mishandling of sexual abuse claims. Initially, the motion was referred to the EC by the Committee on Order of Business, but messengers overturned the ruling by a two-thirds vote and overwhelmingly adopted the motion Wednesday (June 16).

The EC had voted June 14 not even to consider a similar proposal by one of its own members, Jared Wellman of Texas.

EC President Ronnie Floyd said in a statement following the convention’s action, “Today’s decision, in whose outcome we are confident, will have the ultimate blessing of removing all doubt in the minds of our community of Southern Baptists allowing us to chart a more confident future, together.”

Messengers line up to speak to a motion. Photo by Karen McCutcheon

The EC encountered an overwhelming defeat in a proposed revision to the SBC’s Business and Financial Plan. EC officer Robyn Hari said the proposal sought to strike a balance between accountability and autonomy of the SBC entities. But messenger Vance Pitman of Nevada called the proposal “an unprecedented expansion of the Executive Committee powers.” The recommendation failed on a raised-hand vote.

The convention approved Vision 2025, a five-year plan setting a series of goals for Great Commission advancement. Messengers added to the EC’s five proposed Vision 2025 goals on missions, evangelism and CP giving a sixth stating the convention’s intent to eliminate all incidents of racism and sexual abuse. They also amended a goal placing emphasis on reaching teenagers to those under age 18.

Another EC recommendation rejected by messengers was a proposed revision of Lifeway Christian Resources’ Mission and Ministry Statement. The proposal, initiated at the request of Lifeway trustees, was defeated on a ballot vote after messenger Michael Schultz of Kentucky spoke against its adoption due to a proposed deletion of Lifeway’s responsibility to assist churches with “homeschool ministries.”

The EC also lost an officer when Tom Tucker, a vocational evangelist from South Carolina, was not given a second term by messengers, who voted against an attempt to overturn the Committee on Nominations, which had declined to renominate him. Tucker, a member of the CBN steering council, had been reelected as vice chairman June 14 by the EC, which acted despite the knowledge that while eligible to serve, his term was expiring and he was not among nominees to the EC for the coming year, and that he could only fulfill the post if messengers amended the 2021 Committee on Nominations report to include Tucker among nominees.

Tucker’s term was originally set to expire in 2020, but was extended a year by the cancellation of the 2020 SBC Annual Meeting because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tucker was then elected EC vice chairman in June 2020.

Messengers vote by raised ballot during a business session of the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting. Photo by Eric Brown

Messengers accepted EC proposals granting the second of two required approvals to an SBC constitutional amendment listing racism and mishandling sex abuse as grounds for disfellowshipping a church.

The EC was not the only committee to have a recommendation overturned by messengers. The Resolutions Committee declined to bring to the floor a resolution submitted by Oklahoma messenger Bill Ascol that called for abolishing abortion, but messengers voted by a two-thirds majority to consider it. Then they adopted the resolution after a one-word amendment to soften its initial rejection of any “incremental approach to ending abortion.”

Diversity

The SBC constitutional amendment against racism was among several ways messengers attempted to catalyze ethnic diversity in the convention.

Juan Sanchez, pastor of High Pointe Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, became the first Hispanic elected convention preacher. He will deliver the convention sermon next year in Anaheim, Calif. Messengers also elected a Hispanic first vice president, Ramón Medina, lead pastor of the Spanish ministry at Champion Forest Baptist Church in Houston. Medina was elected in a runoff over another Hispanic nominated for the post, Georgia pastor Javier Chavez.

Southern Baptists tapped to serve on committees likewise were diverse. A majority (51 percent) of Greear’s presidential appointments to committees were non-Anglo, as were 30 percent of those elected to serve on boards and committees.

In his final presidential address, Greear drew a standing ovation when he addressed racial tension within the SBC and told “people of color”: “We need you.”

Critical race theory (CRT) – the subject of a 2019 SBC resolution that has sparked controversy over the past two years – drew several mentions during the convention, including messenger motions and resolution submissions calling for its denunciation as well as questions to SBC presidents during their reports. Yet no official convention action addressed CRT by name.

Instead, messengers adopted a broad resolution regarding race and racial reconciliation. The resolution repudiated “any theory or worldview that denies that racism, oppression, or discrimination is rooted, ultimately, in anything other than sin.” It also reaffirmed a resolution regarding racial reconciliation on the SBC’s 150th anniversary in 1995 in which messengers apologized to African Americans for “condoning and/or perpetuating individual and systemic racism.”

Other resolutions adopted by messengers covered, among other topics, the Equality Act, the Hyde Amendment and permanent disqualification from the pastorate of those who have committed sexual abuse.

In other business:

Messengers elected Lee Brand Jr., a Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary administrator, as first vice president over California pastor Anthony Dockery. Medina was elected second vice president in a runoff over Sanchez. Brand and Sanchez are members of the CBN’s steering council. Missouri Baptist Convention executive director John Yeats was reelected recording secretary for the 24th time over Virginia pastor Adam Blosser.
Don Currence, administrative pastor at First Baptist Church in Ozark, Mo., was reelected registration secretary by acclamation. He was nominated by Kathy Litton, wife of Ed Litton, who was elected registration secretary over Currence in 2019 but stepped down when her husband’s candidacy for SBC president was announced.
Sixty-four new International Mission Board missionaries were appointed June 14 in a Sending Celebration. They will join 3,631 IMB missionaries already on the field around the world. The vast majority of the new missionaries stood behind a screen during the service, as they could not be identified due to security concerns in their locations of service.
The North American Mission Board reported that Southern Baptists have planted more than 8,200 churches in the past decade. They comprise nearly 17 percent of all Southern Baptist churches and represent nearly 19 percent of all baptisms reported in the SBC.
Florida pastor Willy Rice preached the convention sermon, urging Southern Baptists to avoid factions and build their testimony on the Gospel.

Next year’s SBC Annual Meeting is slated for June 14-15, 2022, in Anaheim, Calif.

Explainer: The Supreme Court affirms faith-based foster care and adoption providers

In a decisive win for religious freedom, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia that faith-based foster care and adoption providers, such as Catholic Social Services in Philadelphia, can continue serving children and families according to their convictions.

“The government has many God-given duties, but punishing a group for its theology is emphatically not one of them,” said Daniel Patterson, acting president of the ERLC, in response to the Court’s decision this morning. Patterson’s comment continued:

“It’s important to note as well that this decision prohibits no one from serving children — it simply ends state discrimination against religious groups. We must all remember what matters most is caring for children. If the government boxes out religious organizations and prohibits them from providing foster care and adoption services, the net effect is a massive shortage of available homes. Children in need should not be collateral damage in a culture war.”

While there were several concurring opinions, the justices, the Court held unianimously that the “refusal of Philadelphia to contract with Catholic Social Services (CSS) for the provision of foster care services unless CSS agrees to certify same-sex couples as foster parents violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.”

What is this case about?

In 2018, a reporter from the Philadelphia Inquirer informed the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Human Services that two of its private foster care agencies, including CSS, would not work with same-sex couples as foster parents. The city investigated the allegation, which it considered a violation of the City’s anti-discrimination laws. When the agencies confirmed their religious views on marriage as essential for placement—although no same-sex couple had ever attempted to partner with CSS—the department ceased referring foster children to them and demanded they change their religious practices or close down their ministries.

The plaintiffs in this case are Sharonell Fulton and Toni Simms-Busch, foster moms who wanted to continue caring for children in need. Fulton and Simms-Busch filed a lawsuit on behalf of CSS claiming the Philadelphia government had violated their rights under the First Amendment’s Free Exercise, Establishment, and Free Speech Clauses, as well as under Pennsylvania’s Religious Freedom Protection Act. The lawsuit asked the courts for an order requiring the city government to renew their contractual relationship while permitting CSS to maintain their religious convictions. In July 2018, the district court denied the request, and the case was immediately appealed to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. However, the Court ruled against CSS and refused to protect the agency while its litigation proceeded to the U.S. Supreme Court.

On the day of the oral arguments in D.C., Simms-Busch noted her gratitude that the justices “took our arguments seriously and seemed to understand that foster parents like me just want to provide loving homes for children.” Fulton added, “As a single woman of color, I’ve learned a thing or two about discrimination over the years—but I’ve never experienced the vindictive religious discrimination the City’s politicians have expressed toward my faith.” For more of the background on this case, see our explainer.

What is the significance of this case?

Today’s decision in Fulton is a critical win for religious liberty and children in need. People of faith have a right to serve children in need free of discrimination from the state. Now that the Supreme Court has clarified protections under the First Amendment, CSS can continue serving in Philadelphia at a time in which the city has called for more homes due to a foster care crisis.

“Today’s Fulton decision is good news for children and families because we need a foster care system that welcomes all who are qualified to serve all who are in need,” noted Chelsea Patterson Sobolik, policy director for the ERLC, on the importance of the ruling for the child-welfare community.

Sobolik also explained that, “Christians and the institutions formed from our churches are critical to the foundation of foster care in this country. Children are best served when we all work together.” Recent research from Barna revealed that practicing Christians are more than twice as likely to adopt relative to the general population, as highlighted by Becket Fund for Religious Liberty in a fact sheet on faith-based communities involvement in foster care.

There are 423,997 children in the U.S. foster care system, and approximately a fourth of those children are eligible for adoption. The Supreme Court’s ruling today means that more children will find safe, permanent, and loving homes, because CSS will continue to be able to serve those in need.

What did the Court rule?

The Court held that the City of Philadelphia infringed Catholic Social Services’ free exercise rights by refusing to renew its contract with CSS on the basis of the City’s agency contract and citywide Fair Practices Ordinance. These ordinances were in conflict with CSS’s core beliefs related to marriage and sexuality, and Philadelphia provided no religious exemption for CSS or groups like CSS.

This ruling was based on several arguments. First, the Court held that the City’s policies and ordinance were not “generally applicable,” and therefore were subject to a greater degree of scrutiny by the courts. The Court further argued, “Government fails to act neutrally when it proceeds in a manner intolerant of religious beliefs or restricts practices because of their religious nature.” Second, the Court held that CSS was not a “public accommodation” under the City’s ordinance. And third, the Court held that the City’s government interest in expanding LGBT rights was not sufficiently compelling to override CSS’s religious freedom rights.

On this last point, it is worth quoting this key section of the Court’s reasoning:

The question, then, is not whether the City has a compelling interest in enforcing its non-discrimination policies generally, but whether it has such an interest in denying an exception to CSS. Once properly narrowed, the City’s asserted interests are insufficient. Maximizing the number of foster families and minimizing liability are important goals, but the City fails to show that granting CSS an exception will put those goals at risk. If anything, including CSS in the program seems likely to increase, not reduce, the number of available foster parents.

How did the ERLC engage in this case?

The ERLC has been involved in this case specifically, and these issues more broadly, for years. For Fulton, submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court alongside a diverse coalition of churches and religious institutions.

The brief argued that Employment Division v. Smith should be overruled because it’s “unworkable standard” has been a “disaster for religious freedom.” This matters for Fulton because “Philadelphia violated the Free Exercise Clause when it excluded Catholic Social Services as a foster care provider.” The Employment Division v. Smith case ruled that burdens resulting from neutral and generally applicable laws that target specific religious practices are not subject to strict scrutiny under the Free Exercise Clause. The ERLC also filed an amicus brief at the Third Circuit before the case reached the Supreme Court.

What about Justice Alito’s Concurrence?

Some advocates note that Justice Alito was concerned about the durability of this ruling. In his concurring opinion, Justice Alito wrote, “this decision might as well be written on the dissolving paper sold in magic shops” because “if the City wants to get around today’s decision, it can simply eliminate the never-used exemption power.” Justice Alito goes on to predict that “the City will claim that it is protected by Smith; CSS will argue that Smith should be overruled; the lower courts, bound by Smith, will reject that argument; and CSS will file a new petition in this Court challenging Smith.” Justice Alito goes on to critique Smith by stating that “we should reconsider Smith without further delay. The correct interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause is a question of great importance, and Smith’s interpretation is hard to defend.”

Justice Alito may be right that the Court will soon need to squarely decide whether Employment Division v. Smith is good law, and indeed, there are several cases on their way to the High Court that invite the Court to answer that question. In the meantime, this unanimous decision by the Court affirming the religious freedom rights of child welfare providers provides welcome answer to a question dividing courts today.

What does today’s ruling mean moving forward?

The Court’s decision strengthened and clarified the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. This case provides reassurance for religious institutions at a time when the meaning and scope of civil rights laws are in flux. This will benefit religious institutions across that country that seek to serve children in need without violating their sincerely held beliefs.

The child welfare system needs as many agencies seeking to care for vulnerable children as possible, and the Fulton decision simply means that the state should not punish providers and families for their faith. Children are best served when we all work together.

The ERLC will continue to engage our culture with the gospel of Jesus Christ in the public square to protect religious liberty and promote human flourishing. We will continue to work to ensure that vulnerable children in our nation can find safe, permanent, and loving homes.

For Further Reading:

Explainer: What you need to know about Fulton v. Philadelphia by ERLC StaffExplainer: Supreme Court to hear case about faith-based foster care by ERLC StaffWhat happened at the SCOTUS case on foster care and religious liberty? by Policy StaffLori Windham on Fulton v. Philadelphia, the Supreme Court foster-care case

Send Relief reports help and hope amid pandemic

NASHVILLE (BP) – In an introductory video that played before Send Relief President Bryant Wright’s report, he said: “Together, we can meet needs and change lives for people on the other side of the world and right down the street. Together, as Southern Baptists, we can be an unstoppable force of hope,” as clips of compassion projects rolled.

With a staff composed of personnel from both the International Mission Board (IMB) and the North American Mission Board (NAMB), Send Relief is an operative model of Southern Baptist cooperation.

Send Relief became a partner ministry of the International Mission Board (IMB) and North American Mission Board (NAMB) mere weeks before COVID-19 became a global crisis touching every country around the world. And in the middle of these extraordinary circumstances, 2.8 million people served through missionaries and local believers in the first year of partnership.

Nearly 1,000 U.S. churches and hundreds of international missionaries participated to distribute help and hope. And most important, they recorded more than 23,000 new professions of faith.

Wright shared these statistics at the first ever Send Relief Report to SBC messengers at the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting in Nashville.

International operations are led by seasoned missionary Jason Cox, while the North American ministry efforts are managed by former student minister and public servant Josh Benton. The two division leaders have focused the past year’s efforts on equipping local churches through trainings at one of Send Relief’s 17 national ministry centers and through supporting international ministry projects and partners.

Wright shared the sobering details of one of these international projects in his report.

“In South Asia, a family was dying of starvation. The mother and father made the heartbreaking decision to poison themselves and their children, so they wouldn’t have to endure a lingering death,” Wright told the audience. “In the final excruciating hours before executing their plan, a Send Relief partner arrived on their doorstep with emergency food rations, saving all of their lives. As a result, both the parents came to know Christ.”

Wright ended the presentation with a call back to the Great Commission and a reaffirmation of Send Relief’s goal to be more than just another humanitarian aid organization, but rather a compassion ministry with Christ at the center.

Outgoing SBC president J.D. Greear followed the report by leading the room of thousands to pray for Wright and Send Relief out loud, so Wright could “hear Southern Baptists calling out to God on his behalf.”

In comments to Baptist Press following his formal presentation to messengers, Wright clarified that Send Relief plays a support role to their primary disaster response partner, Southern Baptist Disaster Relief (SBDR).

“Our role is to provide SBDR with supplies, materials and equipment,” he said. “The best way Southern Baptists can support their state’s disaster relief efforts is to give and volunteer through their state conventions.”

Natalie Sarrett writes for Send Relief, and K. Faith Morgan Wroten writes for the North American Mission Board.

Rice urges Southern Baptists to build on what lasts

NASHVILLE (BP) – Florida pastor Willy Rice gave Southern Baptists somewhat of an investment pitch Wednesday (June 16). Go for gold, silver and precious jewels, he said, not the wood, hay and straw that has its short-term advantages but little benefit in terms of longevity.

Rice, senior pastor of Calvary Church in Clearwater, Fla., delivered the convention sermon for the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting based on 1 Corinthians 3:3-17. The passage, he explained, gives a clear picture of division in the early church that grew out of competing allegiances to leadership. Such misplaced devotion, he pointed out, can be observed today.

While the Corinthian church also dealt with challenges over doctrinal confusion and moral compromise, Rice noted there was a greater internal threat. Four factions had emerged of those declaring their devotion to Paul, Apollos, Peter and the Lord Himself. Rice added that Southern Baptists could take note of those divisions in order to heal the current rift in the Convention.

One of those is being sure of your leader’s allegiance.

“There is no evidence of the individuals [in this passage] sowing division,” said Rice. “But clearly, there were those in the Corinthian fellowship using unhelpful labels and promoting division.”

In short, Rice explained, a kind of early church “celebrity culture” had appeared. In the letter to the Corinthian church, Paul was moving quickly to condemn it.

“We have seen the product of a celebrity culture, where pastors and leaders become the star of the show, photobombing Jesus at every turn,” Rice preached. “What does it say about us when we have more green rooms than prayer rooms?”

While attending the annual meeting is good in its own right, Rice encouraged messengers in remembering the real point of their ministry.

“Hell does not quake when the SBC passes a resolution and Heaven does not rejoice when we raise our ballots in the air,” he said. “… The real work of Southern Baptists is out there, not in here.”

That “real work,” he said, shows itself in the student pastor setting out chairs for a Bible study. It appears in volunteers blowing up balloons for Vacation Bible School. It manifests in a couple arriving in a faraway land, ready to present the Gospel to an unreached people group.

“What happens in here (the annual meeting) only matters to the extent that it sustains and provides for what happens out there,” Rice said.

The Gospel – pure and unadulterated – is the gold, silver and precious stones upon which Christians are to build their testimony, Rice maintained. The eventual fire of judgement reveals our witness and ministry for what it really is.

“Whenever we substitute the message of truth for worldly ideologies or flawed philosophies, we trade precious gold and precious jewels for wood, hay and straw,” he said.

Rice pointed to the discussion over critical race theory, which he said “offers a flawed diagnosis, hopeless prognosis and writes a powerless prescription rooted in materialistic humanism and political power. … It cannot cure the deepest ills in the human heart.

“Every idea,” he continued, “every teaching must be tested against the message of Scripture, and we must always anchor ourselves to those truths or we will drift where we do not want to go. ”

While Rice said topics like CRT and Marxism are real subjects that cannot be overlooked, he said neither can the fact that a lot of Christians on social media just act like jerks.

“If you seek to contend for the truth but don’t do so in the fullness the Holy Spirit, has it occurred to you that you’re doing more damage to the truth than your most virulent adversary?” he asked, adding that the fruit of the spirit needs to be modeled not only for unbelievers, but for brothers and sisters in Christ with whom we simply hold a disagreement.

At the end of the day, he said, a Gospel witness is tarnished.

“I do not want to compromise the truth, but neither do I want to be known as the church of angry old men with rocks in their hands,” Rice said.

Regarding the subject of justice, he continued on where the topic has its roots.

“Justice is not an idea born in the halls of Ivy League schools or the hearts of atheistic philosophers,” Rice preached. “It’s born in the heart of God, who is just. We wouldn’t even know what justice is if it weren’t from God. It comes from God and His word and Jesus told us to pursue it.”

He then pointed to Southern Baptists’ ongoing process of addressing racial reconciliation.

“We must be for biblical justice. … We should value the voices of those who have suffered injustice, including many of our Black brothers and sisters,” Rice said. “It is beyond the pale of comprehension that a Christian body against an all-too-familiar backdrop of a not-too-distant history would engage in sideshow debates that shut down, shut out and shut up our own brothers and sisters in the faith.”

That principle also applies to valuing women in ministry.

“We did not build one of the largest missionary forces in the history of Christendom by telling Lottie Moon to go home,” Rice said. “Most of our daughters, sisters and mothers only desire to obey the demand of the risen Christ and submit to every word of His authority. Yet, some grow disheartened when shepherds in the church become more agitated over peripheral debates than they are over leaders who have betrayed their sacred duty to care for the flock.”

In closing, Rice encouraged Southern Baptists to dwell on what’s at stake in their interactions and witness, saying, “Only an eternal perspective grants us both wisdom and courage to face the challenges of this present moment.

“We know eternity is coming, and with it both a day of reward and ruin. When the fire comes, we’ll see the gold, silver and precious stones for what they are.”

Rice further cautioned others against “tak[ing] a careless sledgehammer to the house of God just to make a name for yourself. Eternity is coming, and God is watching.”

Over recent days, he admitted, his heart had been broken for how many had compromised their witness.

“I thought, ‘We’re better than this.’ But then again, maybe we’re not,” Rice said. “We may not be better than this, but Jesus is.”

It comes back to the basics of our testimony and faith, he added.

“The foundation Jesus sets will endure,” Rice testified. “And because that foundation endures, so will we. Because it will continue to hold, we will continue to work.”

A full day of workshops equip and encourage Hispanics

NASHVILLE (BP) – The Send Conference en Español training sessions Monday morning (June 14) at the Music City Center preceding the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting attracted dozens of Hispanics to each of the workshops designed to equip, enrich and encourage them in missions.

Each of the workshops was specifically designed in Spanish to equip each member of the family to take the Gospel to their city, community and nation while developing disciples that would do the same.

Oscar Tortolero, Hispanic mobilizer for the International Mission Board (IMB), led a workshop for pastors, wives and lay leaders on mobilizing the church for international missions. South Asia missionary Maria* told pastors that more Hispanics are needed in the field and are essential to mission work.

She explained that Hispanics’ ability to blend into the local community because of how they look is incredibly useful to take the Gospel further, even in places where evangelizing can result in jail time.

At the workshop “¿Que Significa Vivir Enviada?” led by Hispanic Council member and author Clara Molina, women learned what a woman on mission looks like and the values she embodies.

“You have to recognize that God is the one who sends you, God decides where you’re going, how long you’re going for and when you’re coming back and you rejoice in the results of the work He does through you,” Molina said.

Ramon Osorio, the North American Mission Board’s (NAMB) director of ethnic church planting, laid out all the discipleship resources available for ministering effectively to immigrants.

During the 45-minute workshop, at which chairs were quickly scarce, Osorio went over the process of gathering demographic information on immigrant populations, determining the spiritual health of a community and the predominant psychographics affecting immigrants in America.

“Understanding these factors is essential to properly engaging and ministering to immigrants in your area,” he said. Some of the most important psychographics influencing immigrant behavior in the United States includes a sense of insecurity and a lack of empowerment in all areas of life.

The new social media platform Equipa by Lifeway was introduced to a group of more than a dozen Hispanic pastors during one of two Lifeway workshops. Ariel Irizarry, leader and developer of Lifeway’s Equipa, helped attendants sign up for the platform and gave them a tour of its discipleship capabilities.

“Equipa is designed for all tech levels, all Spanish language variations and different spiritual maturity levels,” said Irizarry.

Other workshop sessions zeroed in on ministry to fathers, leaders developing other leaders, improving Sunday worship service, church planting and Christ-centered discipleship.

Those who attended the workshop sessions commented afterwards the sessions were useful, and they soon hoped to implement their new knowledge in their local contexts.

GALLERY: Secure system for messenger ballots

NASHVILLE (BP) — What happens to a messenger’s ballot after it’s placed in an usher’s bucket? Photographer Eric Brown — with approval from SBC Registration Secretary Don Currence — captured moments along the journey of the ballots from the first round of the June 15 SBC presidential election as they made their way from the floor to the SBC Tellers’ counting room.

EC to elect new vice chair after failed messenger attempt to retain Tom Tucker

NASHVILLE (BP) – South Carolina pastor Tom Tucker’s reelection Monday (June 14) as vice chairman of the SBC Executive Committee became moot Wednesday (June 16), when messengers to the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting rejected a motion to nominate him to a second term on the Executive Committee.

The Executive Committee elected Tucker to a second term as vice chair during its meeting Monday with the knowledge that while eligible to serve, his term was expiring and he was not among nominees to the Executive Committee for the coming year, and that he could only fulfill the post if messengers amended the 2021 Committee on Nominations report to include Tucker among nominees.

Messenger Lewis Richerson, pastor of Woodlawn Baptist Church in Baton Rouge, La., offered a motion Wednesday to nominate Tucker, a vocational evangelist from South Carolina, in place of nominee David Sons, lead pastor of Lake Murray Baptist Church in Lexington, S.C. Richerson said it was customary for EC members to be nominated to two consecutive terms.

But Andrew Hopper, chairman of the Committee on Nominations and pastor of Mercy Hill Church in Greensboro, N.C., said in response that the decision to exclude Tucker from the nominees was a unanimous decision made more than a year ago.

His term was set to expire in 2020, but was extended a year by the cancellation of the 2020 SBC Annual Meeting because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tucker was then elected EC vice chairman in June 2020.

“Our committee has sought to honor the way that the bylaws and these things are written, and the traditions that we all hold dear. And I think that we have done that,” Hopper said. “In this situation, our committee and especially our nominators from South Carolina decided not to do that for a simple reason.”

Hopper noted that while Tucker had only served one full term – plus the extra year after the cancellation of the 2020 Annual Meeting – his tenure on the EC had begun when he filled a vacancy for an EC slot in a previous term that had two years remaining.

“While you are correct that Mr. Tucker had served one term, he had come in on a previous term,” Hopper said. “He had not only served two years of a previous term, but then served his full term, and then was going to be given another term. So it’s not really about a second term. What we’re talking about is kind of a super-term — a long term.”

In its meeting Monday, the EC chose Tucker over Oklahoma physician Micah Nix. The EC is expected to hold an election for vice chair to fill the vacancy during its next called meeting, which is scheduled for September.

Tucker is a member of the Conservative Baptist Network’s steering council.