In finishing its work on Tuesday (June 19) the Overtures Committee passed the following recommendations to be presented to the General Assembly:

Brad Atkins moved that the seminaries consider lessening their budgets slightly to increase the International Mission Board funding formula. I’d vote for it, but it ain’t gonna happen.

Emmanuel McCall, longtime director of black church relations for the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board, dates real progress toward racial reconciliation in the SBC to 1957, when the HMB—since reorganized into the North American Mission Board—hired Victor Glass as liaison with the National Baptist Convention.

…more than 650 other Southern Baptists, ranging from laymen to SBC state directors, have signed the more specific articulation of a "Traditional Southern Baptist" soteriology in an effort to rebuff the "New Calvinism" —a movement whose growth, both in and beyond the SBC, garnered it a spot on Time's 2009 list of "10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now."

Currently, the PC(USA) allows Presbyterian ministers to bless same-gender unions, in services that do not use the same liturgy as marriage services and are not presented as being weddings. The denomination’s constitution defines Christian marriage as being between a man and a woman.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the wood* of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the wood* are for the healing of the nations. Revelation 22:1-2

"The Stated Clerk of the PCA is presently serving as the Chairman of the NAE Board of Directors and Executive Committee and an ex officio member of the Board of World Relief…the PCA has contacts with other evangelical Christian denominations, organizations, individuals, and ministries, shares in the mercy ministries of the World Relief Commission, participates in world evangelization, and has a greater voice and influence in civic engagement through the NAE…" (Extract from Permanent Committee)

On Monday afternoon, most of the major Committees of Commissioners met to go over reports from Boards and Agencies, as well as the SuperCommittee of Commissioners, known as the Overtures Committee, that deals with most overtures.

Now is not the time to water down our Baptist distinctives, seek unity at the level of ecclesiology, and pretend that all evangelicals are the same. Allies in WWII did not give up their sovereignty or their countries’ distinctive traits. But neither did they treat each other as opponents This week, I will be in... Continue Reading

The quality and message of the film were praised by many sources, including Paul Asay of pluggedin.com, a Focus on the Family sponsored website that reviews entertainment. "It's not a pristine portrayal, either artistically or ethically. But I was moved by the story and walked out of the theater smiling,"