More than 16,000 “messengers” of the gospel are gathering in Nashville this week for the first meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in two years. They’re expected to vote on several hot button issues, including women’s ordination, approaches to racial justice, resolving sexual abuse and electing a new president. As a temperature check from the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S, the results may be an indicator of the ideological direction of American White evangelicalism and will likely cause further division within the group.
Read MoreAnger is timely, along with grief, as waves of #MeToo and #ChurchToo messages about sexual abuse and domestic violence have triggered a series of stunning headlines. Most have been linked to the work of Paige Patterson after news about sermons in which he critiqued a teen-aged girl's body, knocked female seminary students who weren't striving hard enough to be attractive, and advised an abused wife to stay with her husband rather than seeking legal help.
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