(RNS) — For most of their history, Southern Baptists have opened their meetings with a gavel named for a slaveholder. 

The president of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination now says that gavel should be retired. 

“Southern Baptists, I think it is time to retire the Broadus gavel,” said J.D. Greear in a Wednesday (June 10) statement. “While we do not want to, nor could we, erase our history, it is time for this gavel to go back into the display case at the Executive Committee offices.”

The gavel, first used by SBC officials in 1872, was named for John A. Broadus, a Confederacy supporter and a founding faculty member of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, the SBC’s flagship seminary.

The SBC president said he had felt uneasy using the gavel at the 2019 meeting in Birmingham, Alabama. He was aware of Broadus’ racial views but also said he “did seem to change some of his positions later in life.”

Greear said the gavel’s presence was sending a mixed message from a denomination that was founded in 1845 in defense of missionaries who owned slaves.

“Here we were, a convention of nearly 48,000 independent, autonomous churches, meeting in a city that has been filled with (a) horrific history of civil rights abuses making historic moves in the areas of diversity, abuse and mission, using a gavel named after a Southern Baptist who owned slaves and was…

Church of the Highlands, the largest church in Alabama and one of the largest in the United States, has come under fire in recent weeks after its pastor liked social media posts that some in the community considered racist and offensive. A teacher who does not attend the church noticed that Pastor Chris Hodges, who founded the Birmingham-based church in 2001, liked posts by Turning Point Founder Charlie Kirk and brought attention to it on social media.

After weeks of controversy, the Birmingham Housing Authority ended a partnership with the church that started in 2017. The church has hosted outreach programs and social services in public housing communities operated by the Housing Authority.

The next day, the Birmingham School Board voted to end its lease agreement with the Church of the Highlands. Two of the church’s campuses met at Birmingham City Schools and the School Board chose to exercise a clause that allows them to end the lease as long as they give the church a 90-day notice.

Pastor Hodges addressed the controversy in a Memorial Day weekend sermon. He told the church in an online sermon, “I understand how this has made you feel and I apologize. Honestly, it’s understandable to me. I don’t take it personally. I know people are hurting right now and they want clarity. I would love for you to not just look at a microscopic zoom-in but look at the totality…

Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California has long been warning Christians not to allow the line between social justice and the church to blur.

According to Faithwire, the eighty-year-old pastor cautioned that the “social justice” movement can be divisive.

In 2018, MacArthur wrote an introductory post to a blog series entitled “Social Injustice and the Gospel,” noting how evangelicals endorsing the social justice movement “seem to have a very different perspective” of the Gospel.

“Their rhetoric certainly points a different direction, demanding repentance and reparations from one ethnic group for the sins of its ancestors against another.” MacArthur wrote. “It’s the language of law, not gospel—and worse, it mirrors the jargon of worldly politics, not the message of Christ.

He added, “It is a startling irony that believers from different ethnic groups, now one in Christ, have chosen to divide over ethnicity. They have a true spiritual unity in Christ, which they seem to disdain in favor of fleshly factions.”

MacArthur also noted the “significant shift” taking place with evangelicalism’s “newfound obsessions” with social justice.

“I’m convinced it’s a shift that is moving many people (including some key evangelical leaders) off message, and onto a trajectory that many other movements and denominations have taken…

Churches and other religious groups are contending for their religious rights across the northeast in resuming in-person gatherings.

CBN News reported that Gov. Phil Murphy is facing a federal religious liberty lawsuit by the Thomas More Society – a conservative-leaning law-firm – after a Jewish rabbi and a Catholic priest felt that their religious rights were violated following Murphy’s COVID-19 stay-at-home orders.

On Tuesday, according to the Thomas Moore Society, Murphy indicated that he would be lifting the stay at home order in New Jersey but would maintain restrictions that limit indoor gatherings to 25 percent of a building’s capacity or 50 people total.

“With his stay-home orders, Governor Murphy ripped away the Constitutional rights of the people of New Jersey,” said Thomas More Society Special Counsel Christopher Ferrara. “With his latest edict, he is deigning to restore them one drip at a time, as with an eyedropper.”

“Governors may not be allowed to act like petty tyrants – they must be held accountable.” Ferrera continued. “Our lawsuit seeks to be the catalyst that will end New Jersey’s experiment in absolute monarchy.”

In Massachusetts, the mayor of Somerville, MA, Joseph Curtatone, was given a letter by First Liberty Institute and the Massachusetts Family Institute on behalf of several churches in Somerville who plan to reopen this Sunday.

The letter noted that…

Texas Pastor Matt Chandler of the Village Church rebuked churches for being silent on matters of race, in a message on Sunday.

According to Faithwire, on Sunday, Chandler abruptly stopped his sermon to express his disappointment in the church’s overarching response to racial injustice.

“When you say, ‘Hey, we’re not going to get involved, let’s just preach the Gospel to that’ — which by the way I find so hypocritical,” Chandler began. “You don’t just preach the Gospel on sex trafficking; you don’t just preach the Gospel on the issue of life and abortion. No, you act!”

“It’s like this brain-broke disjoint that’s got us acting absurd and then critiquing this movement as being evil and dark when we have given up our inheritance!” Chandler exclaimed. “You cannot point out all the flaws in this current movement while you have abandoned the place that we were meant to play,” Chandler asserted, noting the church’s prominent role in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.

“You cannot point out all the ‘well this means this, and this believes this, and that’s this and that’s this’ and ignore the sorrow and lament of 12 to 13 million image-bearers in our country!” he continued. “You can’t do that!”

Chandler then urged for churches to “mourn with those who mourn.”

“And yes, there are demonic and evil ideologies at play, but that’s where…

About a quarter of Americans say they see President Donald Trump somewhat or strongly as a “man of faith.”

According to the Politico-Morning Consult poll, 55 percent of respondents said they somewhat or strongly disagree that the president is a “man of faith.”

“Even after nearly 3 in 4 voters saw coverage of President Trump’s photo-op at St. John’s Episcopal Church last week, only about 1 in 4 believe he’s religious,” Morning Consult Vice President Tyler Sinclair said, according to Politico.

Sinclair was referring to a photo Trump took with a bible in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C.

Officials reportedly removed peaceful protestors from the area so Trump could take the photo.

Trump has recently faced an onslaught of criticism and a loss of support from Christians. His approval ratings have dipped overall because of his response to the coronavirus pandemic and his response to nationwide protests following the killing of George Floyd.

On Twitter this week, Trump said a 75-year-old man who was hospitalized after being knocked down by police during a protest may have been an “antifa provocateur.”

The man, Martin Gugino, is a pacifist member of the Catholic Worker Movement.

In an interview with former White House press secretary Sean Spicer last week, Trump was asked about how much he’s grown in faith since taking office. His response drew 

A leading online evangelism ministry reached a major milestone in May by delivering its 2 billionth gospel presentation, some 15 years after it was founded by one of the original employees of Apple.

Global Ministry Outreach, which celebrated its 2 billionth online gospel presentation on May 19, reaches the world’s lost population through search engines and social media by targeting keywords and directing people to a website catering to their needs. 

It was founded in 2005 by Walt Wilson, who worked under Steve Jobs in the early days of Apple. 

The ministry operates more than 100 websites in 13 languages. It also has 3,500 volunteer online missionaries in 110 countries who contact individuals who make decisions for Christ. 

Since its founding, more than 230 million people have indicated they became a Christian through the ministry.  

“We reach people at their point of need, all over the world with the gospel,” John Thompson, director of marketing for Global Ministry Outreach, told Christian Headlines. “When an individual goes online and searches for, ‘How do I know God?’ [or] ‘How do I find peace?’ … they will run across one of our ads or a link, and it will link them to one of our websites in that particular language that they are searching for.” 

More than 60 percent of the ministry’s activity takes place outside the United States. About two-thirds of its budget…