Introducing
@CTmagazine
's redesign and rebrand!
This has been a huge, long-awaited, inspired process, and we are so proud to get to put it in the world. 🗞️🤩
Five years ago, a Christian CEO took a pay cut to establish a $70K minimum wage at his company (see: ). Since then, his business has tripled, the staff saw a huge baby boom, and many were able to purchase homes for the first time.
One common line I'm seeing from pro-lifers is like, "Now we really have to care for vulnerable women and families."
Christians who've really invested in this cause have been doing so all along. More in the church should be saying, "Thank goodness we have care for them already."
During Biden team prayer call,
@ShaneClaiborne
prays the fruits of the spirit over the US, asks forgiveness for idolatry of our nationalism and the ugliness of our racism, asks for a renewed imagination for our country. "Purify our anger so that we will transform our country."
I'm also moving into a new role at
@CTmagazine
—I'll serve under
@drmoore
as editorial director of news and online.
I'm approaching a decade at CT, and I've never been happier about our team of journalists and never more convicted about the work before us. 🙏
Pastor
@jdgreear
's outgoing message as president suggests it's Pharisaical for the SBC to hide behind "legal smokescreens or NDAs", police complementarianism while maligning female abuse victims, focus on condemning CRT rather than lamenting racial bigotry.
#SBC21
A friend who works at the hospital said she stopped asking who's president as part of her questions to assess orientation. Patients still want to debate.
Biden's victory speech ended with "God bless you, may God bless America, and may God protect our troops."
Trump's 2016 speech on election night did not mention God. He had been the first president in over 30 years to not conclude his speech with “God bless America.”
College ministry leaders at multiple Texas schools continued to send students to be counseled by a man they knew was a sex offender.
At his home.
Overnight.
Now, more allegations of grooming and sexual abuse are coming to light. My latest for CT:
I stand by my reporting, which wasn't "lies," but verified by documentation, court records, and my a multitude of sources beyond those referenced in the article.
George Floyd was a mentor and "person of peace" who opened doors for ministry in Houston's Third Ward.
I was honored to hear from leaders who knew him and served alongside him.
@CoreyPaulMusic
@pngwolo
@ReconcileUs
@JustNijalon
Josh Duggar found guilty on two counts of downloading and possessing child pornography (material that depicts the sexual abuse of children). Jury came back with the verdict this morning after a two-week trial.
I'll have a story up later today at
@CTmagazine
.
@JonathanMerritt
I'm so sorry. My doctor friends keep saying, "It's not just older people. Millennials are on ventilators." I pray for her and pray that we all take this as seriously as we can.
More tragic details: The man killed in the Taiwanese church shooting was a 52-year-old doctor who went after the gunman.
He was not part of the church but "had taken his mother there for the first time Sunday since his father passed away a month ago."
My husband accused me of “not making a big enough deal” of our son learning to walk, but I think the kid has made a big enough deal of it himself.
#hisownbiggestfan
Beloved, impactful, faithful pastor Tim Keller has died at age 72.
He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer three years ago and continued to write about the gospel, God, heaven, and suffering throughout his treatment.
From
@CTmagazine
:
Grace Community Church leaders did not respond to my requests for interviews, even to discuss their approach to counseling, abuse, and discipline in broad terms.
But last night they issued a statement:
What happened at McLean Bible Church has become a pattern in evangelical churches.
Addressing issues like diversity and racism, even from a biblical perspective, sets leaders up to be accused of liberal drift.
Story from
@CTmagazine
:
I babysat for a family who taught their young kids to pray whenever they heard an ambulance go by. I was not a Christian, and the habit really struck me.
I feel like Twitter's like that sometimes. Tragedy after tragedy hurling past me, and the least I can do is say a prayer.
I asked
@bartbarber
about becoming president after what
@edlitton
went through. I didn't expect it, but he got emotional:
"Every way that I have served Southern Baptists have left scars. But this family of churches is worth it. It’s worth enduring slings and arrows."
#SBC22
Maybe one of the most lighthearted moments of the annual meeting so far: During seminary reports, the animated young messenger who came to the mic to ask the AC be turned on, returned to praise
@DannyAkin
and ask him to unblock him on Twitter. 😂
Mark Dever asks: "If you were converted as a child, 11 or younger, please stand. Now if your mother had nothing to do with that, please be seated."
With hundreds standing, he uses the crowd as evidence that women are not limited in their evangelistic gifts.
@9marks
#SBC23
Good morning from
@CTmagazine
’s new senior news editor! So excited to take on this role AND to add another editor to our team: ✨ This has been a long-awaited opportunity—and quite honestly, an answered prayer—for us to get to expand our coverage.
John Piper on the election: "It is naive to think that a man can be effectively pro-life and manifest consistently the character traits that lead to death."
"…My allegiance to Jesus set me at odds with death — death by abortion and death by arrogance."
Me: I'm on my computer like 14 hours a day. News can be really unpredictable... especially with Trump as president.
Eye doctor: I dedicated half a year to campaigning for Trump!
Me: Oh, well, you know that he is keeping the media busy...
Doctor: I'm just kidding. He's crazy.
One hospital where workers tried to claim religious exemption over the development of the vaccine was like "Sure but I guess you can't take Tylenol anymore either"
"They were right. I was wrong to call sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention a crisis," writes
@drmoore
.
"Crisis is too small a word. It is an apocalypse."
"We have utterly failed God. We protected our own institutions and status more than his name or his people. What we have taught people is that the institution is what God loves, not the sheep." -
@DianeLangberg
I realized why I hadn't been particularly struck by
#MeToo
.
It's because I assume every woman I know has been hollered at, grabbed, insulted, objectified, or violated at some point.
It's terrible that that's the norm. And me too.
Bruce Frank addresses the Guidepost pride tweet: "In the Bible, our book tells us that God is so sovereign that he can even take pagan nations and chastise his own people…The issue is not what does Guidepost think about LGBT; it’s what do Southern Baptists think about abuse."
Messenger gets applause for speaking against: “What does it say when we’re slow on the take of sexual abuse of women but quick on the draw to disqualify them from non-lead pastor roles?”
#SBC23
Breaking: The report into the SBC Executive Committee's abuse response just released.
For years, EC leaders listened to lawyers who told them “say nothing and do nothing” about abuse rather than heeding survivors' cries for help.
CT's story:
We made it! Thanks all for following. If you're new from
#SBC21
, I am the senior news editor at
@CTmagazine
, and I cover evangelicalism overall. Stick around for more stories but less parliamentary procedure.
Overthinkers: Do you ever rehearse telling someone something so much that you cannot remember if you've actually done it or just imagined it your head?
Our elderly neighbor took in our trash, blew leaves off our driveway, left bones for our dog, and happily greeted our kid—even as his Alzheimer's progressed and he didn't recognize us.
This week, his obituary said he "lived to help others" and loved his neighbors. 🏘️
Pretty much a worst-case scenario for Christian families using a health care sharing ministry called Sharity: They stopped reimbursing claims, then filed for bankruptcy, then shut down.
They still have $50 million - $300 million in unpaid bills.
After I read to him, my toddler likes to "read" a book himself by flipping the pages and offering his own retelling.
Tonight was the Easter story. He grabbed the book for his turn.
"This book is WHY DID JESUS HURT?"
🥺🥺🥺
Two years ago, ahead of the SBC annual meeting, I heard from Megan Lively, Jen Lyell, Beth Moore, Trillia Newbell, Jules Woodson, and others.
These women knew and saw firsthand how the SBC mishandled abuse, yet at the time held out hope for better.
I'm proud to have won a first place prize in reporting from the Evangelical Press Association for my story on
@Tish_H_Warren
's Amazon counterfeit scandal. The piece came out last summer, and authors continue to report similar issues on a smaller scale.
Editing a piece where I read Shane & Shane's full names for the first time. I'm CCM illiterate, and for some reason I always assumed they were brothers? Now that I think about it, obviously a family wouldn't have two kids with the same name.
A pastor just moved that the new president get all the documentation from Guidepost and submit it to the "national police department," which as far as I know does not exist
#SBC22
When my son's class began rehearsing for their Easter service, the kids were shocked that their parents already knew the words. "How did YOU know our song??"
The song:
I don't know if this is naive to say, but I doubt that Anthony Bourdain—who was so open about addiction and his other demons—just needed to "ask for help" or "reach out." There seems to be a pain and brokenness weighing on people that goes far deeper than that.
If you thought we'd go an annual meeting without a dig at Beth Moore, you'd be wrong. Messenger complains about
@lifeway
selling her material.
Pres
@BenMandrell
: "Have you read Beth Moore's memoir?" A mix of cheers and boos from the crowd.
#SBC23
The motion is have new president
@EdLitton
appoint the task force to oversee the EC investigation is passed overwhelmingly. Barely any opposed.
This also shows how many Southern Baptists are behind the calls for transparency, accountability, and care being led by a vocal few.
Rick Warren's discussing the exegesis that led him to change his mind. “You will hear my opponents say, ‘If you believe in the ministry of women, you have a low view of Scripture.’ That’s NONSENSE.”
He spoke about this with
@drmoore
earlier this year:
Hey everyone. I wanted to say thanks to all those who took the time to read my article on Bethlehem and share their feedback over the past few days. I'm grateful for the candid critique, and I'm listening to the discussions that have come out of it.
Every October I think of an Irish friend living in the US who complained how hard it was to carve a pumpkin for the first time.
She sent a picture of her jack-o-lantern attempt, and she had carved a butternut squash. 🔪
Two survivors in Anaheim,
@juleswoodson11
and
@ThigpenTiffany
, hugged and cried as the vote passed.
Jules told me this is the moment she was waiting for and the reason she came, to see those yellow ballots: “I want to feel some sense of acknowledgement, some sense of action.”
CT News's latest investigation looks at our own ministry.
Women at CT experienced repeated incidents of sexual harassment—unwanted touch, remarks about their looks, inappropriate conversations—from two former leaders.
HR didn't hold them to account.
Rachel Held Evans became such a mainstay on the Christian Internet that I think we forget how different things were when she got started.
My take on how she's changed the online landscape for Christian women in particular:
Currently debating: Resolution on whether to permanently disqualify anyone who has committed sexual abuse from becoming a pastor.
But opponents worry that such a restriction undermines the power of conversion. Its authors say pastors must be held to a higher standard.
How does a nationally-renowned journalist known for criticism of Evangelicals and Evangelicalism become a Christian baptized by
@JDGreear
at
@SummitRDU
?
Listen to
@CollinHansen
’s interview with Molly Worthen on
#Gospelbound
.
Evangelicals voting for Biden—Anybody want to answer a few questions about how you're feeling this campaign season vs. 2016? Working on a short
@CTmagazine
piece coming up.
After defense attorney Kevin Gough's "no more Black pastors" remark, hundreds of Black pastors have shown up outside the courthouse in Brunswick, Georgia, where three men face murder charges for the killing of
#AhmaudArbery
.
Pastor Jai Haithco and his wife Brenda Young Haithco are here from Savannah.
They came to show the family that “ministers from all over are here with them to show support.”
Mike Stone dismisses Rick Warren's claims in his nominee speech: "When it comes to women pastors,
@tomascol
knows it doesn't matter how many you baptize or how many classes you've got, we've got a book" (the Bible)
#SBC22
"He wanted to see them correct the mistakes of their past and do better in the future. Instead, he discovered they appeared to be repeating them."
My latest for CT:
A former Grace Community Church elder and former members who sought help from their abusive marriages are calling out “awful patterns of counseling” at John MacArthur’s church.
The church planting network Acts 29 forced out its CEO this week after discovering what former members and colleagues at his church told me they've known for a long time: a pattern of overbearing leadership and "gospel gaslighting"
Pastor
@jdgreear
condemns a vocal minority for trying to keep the denomination apart and says the exaggerations, lies, mischaracterizations leaders have had to deal with over the past year is “disgraceful.” (Danny Akin has voiced similar concerns...)
#SBC21
My pastor this morning: Reaction to
@CTmagazine
's Trump editorial has revealed how many people believe the advancement of the church depends on who is in office in our country, rather than the King of Kings.
@Ben_Riche
@redemptionga
In my latest for
@CTmagazine
, I tried to get at the conflict beneath the conflict at Bethlehem Baptist Church and Bethlehem College and Seminary.
Let's just say there's a lot going on. This is the longest article I've ever written.
I got to hear a little from
@ThigpenTiffany
, who says the news of the vote still hasn't set in yet. She teared up just thinking back to it.
“It’s a victory in so many ways because people’s hearts changed, and that’s something only God can do.”
#SBC22
CT's
@drmoore
on Paul Pressler:
"It does not matter how loudly one sings the words, 'the Bible tells me so,' if one’s life and character contradict the words, 'Jesus loves me, this I know.'
Conviction without character destroys lives … ."
The Biden team is planning to ramp up refugee admissions, which Mr. Trump slashed to 15,000 — a record low. The incoming Biden admin. plans to set a 125,000-person cap.
Mr. Biden has also vowed to grant certain Venezuelans in the U.S. TPS to shield them from deportation.