The Weekly is a rundown of news by the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission highlighting the week’s top news stories from the public square and providing commentary on the big issues of our day.

5 Facts About the Southern Baptist Convention

Next week, the Southern Baptist Convention meets in Dallas, Texas, for its 160th annual meeting. Here are five facts you should know about America’s largest Protestant denomination.

1. The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), a name which refers to both the annual two-day convention and the decentralized organization comprised of 47,272 local churches and 15.6 million members, is a network of autonomous churches voluntarily banded together at state, regional, and national levels to engage in missions and ministry activities designed to fulfill the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20). Each church in the SBC is an independent, self-governing local congregation of baptized believers that makes their own decisions on staffing, budget, programs, etc.

2. In 1814, Baptist churches in the U.S. joined together to create the General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination. By 1845, the churches were divided over the issue of slavery. As church historian Miles Mullin explains, Baptists in the Southern US states desired to make slavery a non-issue, while abolitionist forces in the North (and among northern Baptists) desired the convention to take a moral stand against it. The following year, a group of representatives from Southern churches created a new denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention.

3. In 1995, on the denomination’s 150th anniversary, the Convention voted to adopt a resolution on racial reconciliation that apologized for racism in its history, for condoning and perpetuating individual and systemic racism, and committed to eradicate racism in all its forms from Southern Baptist life and ministry. At its annual convention in 2012, the SBC elected as president Fred Luter Jr., the first African-American to hold the position.

4. The SBC is directed by representatives of Southern Baptist churches, called “messengers.” Each church is allowed to send two messengers from each cooperating church to the annual meeting (and up to 12 based on other conditions). The messengers meet once a year for two days to adopt a unified missions and ministry budget called the Cooperative Program allocation budget, elect trustees to oversee the ministry entities of the Convention, receive reports from the SBC entities, vote on new resolutions and transact the other business of the Convention.

5. Along with the autonomous churches, the SBC is comprised of the following entities: six seminaries; an International Mission Board (IMB), which sends and supports missionaries all over the world; an Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), providing resources and leadership on ethical issues and public policy; Guidestone Financial Resources providing financial planning, insurance, and annuities for church and denomination staff members; a North American Mission Board (NAMB), supporting the state conventions in evangelism, missions, and ministry, such as disaster relief; the Women’s Missionary Union (WMU), which serves as an auxiliary in promoting missions; LifeWay Christian Resources, the SBC publishing house; and an Executive Committee, which coordinates the day-to-day functions of the SBC.

Note: As a part of the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Global Hunger Relief Run 2018, including a 5k and Fun Run, will take place at Trinity Skyline Trail in Dallas, Texas. One hundred percent of your registration fee will go directly to feeding hungry people around the world through Global Hunger Relief. To register or find more information about the Global Hunger Relief 2018, visit globalhungerrelief.com/run.

This week on ERLC podcasts: Daniel Darling talks to Jessalyn Hutto about the pain of miscarriage. On the Capitol Conversations podcast, Matt Hawkins and Travis Wussow talk to Jeremy Tedesco, senior council at the Alliance Defending Freedom, about the nuances of the Supreme Court’s 7-2 decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. On the Countermoves podcast, Andrew Walker talks to Bruce Ashford about important issues surrounding public theology. And on a special episode of the ERLC podcast, Trillia Newbell talks about challenges with women's ministry in the local church.

Other Issues

Bioethics

Chemical abortions on hold in Arkansas
Baptist Press

The Supreme Court refused on Tuesday (June 6) to hear a lawsuit over a 2015 Arkansas law that requires abortionists to contract with doctors at nearby hospitals who can help women if complications arise from the use of mifepristone and misoprostol, drugs that work together to end early pregnancies.

Supreme Court wipes out appeals court ruling in immigrant abortion case
Politico

The Supreme Court has granted the Trump administration's request to wipe out a federal appeals court's ruling upholding the right of teens in immigration custody to seek abortions. The high court said the dispute was moot because the 17-year-old at the center of the legal fight had an abortion before the case reached the justices.

Christianity and Culture

Catholics & Evangelicals Move Apart in Their Political Priorities
RealClearReligion 

Roman Catholics and evangelicals, two Christian groups that have had overlapping political priorities in the past, find their agendas diverging in the era of President Trump and Pope Francis.Tensions between the two faith traditions are hardly new. As fierce adversaries, they once cast doubt on each other's legitimacy as heirs to the church of Jesus Christ.

American Bible Society Requires Employees to Follow Its Evangelical Shift
Christianity Today

Brand-new covenant mandates biblical beliefs and behaviors. Plenty of Christian organizations require employees to sign a statement of faith. For over 200 years, the American Bible Society (ABS) wasn't one of them. But now the Philadelphia-based ministry plans to implement an "affirmation of biblical community" next year, requiring all employees to uphold basic Christian beliefs and the authority

Drugs and Alcohol

Study: 1 in 5 deaths in young adults is opioid related
Big Think

The teenager statistics are even more shocking. Read More

65 percent of Americans say it's ‘morally acceptable' to smoke pot
WonkBlog

(Andrew Selsky/AP) Nearly two-thirds of Americans say that smoking marijuana is "morally acceptable," while 31 percent disapprove of pot on moral grounds, according to a new survey released Monday by Gallup. That's a sharp jump from 2013, when a similarly worded question in a Public Religion Research Institute survey found that slightly fewer than half of Americans said it was morally acceptable.

Another Shocking Opioid Statistic
The Atlantic

Despite everything I read as a health reporter, some statistics still floor me. Last year, it was the news that half of all murdered women are killed by their romantic partners. Here's another: A fifth of all deaths among Americans aged 24 to 35 were due to opioids in 2016, a new study finds, up from just 4 percent in 2001, before this latest opioid epidemic began.  

International Issues

148 Boko Haram sex slaves, forced laborers rescued
Baptist Press

Nearly 150 children and adults enslaved by Boko Haram terrorists for sex and labor have been rescued from a remote camp in Borno state, Nigeria's defense leaders said June 4.

Denmark is considering a ban on circumcisions—and testing its religious freedom
Quartz

Denmark just inched closer to becoming the first nation to ban circumcision. On Jun 1., a controversial citizens' petition to outlaw circumcising anyone under the age of 18 reached its 50,000th signature, a threshold that requires the Parliament to debate and vote on the measure.  

Sex traffickers are planning to exploit Russia's lax World Cup visa rules to pimp Nigerian women
Quartz

The FIFA World Cup is known for being a month-long soccer fest with fans pouring into the host country from all over the world. But Nigerian sex traffickers could take advantage of Russia's relaxed visa rules during the tournament, advocates say.  

Sexuality Issues

School Board Fights to Preserve Bathroom Policy After Judge OKs Trans Student's Lawsuit
The Daily Signal

A Virginia public school district will pursue an appeal after a federal judge ruled that a transgender student can challenge the district's bathroom access policies under federal civil rights law and the Constitution. Gloucester County Public Schools asked U.S. District Court Judge Arenda Wright Allen to allow its appeal on Friday.  

The War Against Abstinence: Blockers, American Pie, and the Last Great Sexual Taboo
Public Discourse

With a growing number of high schools and colleges offering courses in "porn literacy" and influential thinkers like Alain de Botton arguing that instead of getting rid of porn we should instead be making "better porn," the cultural taboo against consumption of pornography is crumbling before our eyes. What sexual sins are left?