Category: News

The Southern Baptist Convention has seen a drop of over 450,000 members, according to a new report by Lifeway, which they record as “the largest single-year numerical drop in more than 100 years.”

While baptisms are up 16%, in-person worship attendance is up by 5%, and giving by 2%, membership dropped to 13,223,122 compared to 13,680,493 in 2021.

The SBC membership levels have been trending downward since the mid-2000s and are now back to where they were over 40 years ago.

According to Lifeway Research Executive Director Scott McConnell: “Much of the downward movement we are seeing in membership reflects people who stopped participating in an individual congregation years ago and the record keeping is finally catching up.”

It’s not just churches that are seeing significant losses, but SBC seminaries have followed suit, with some like SEBTS seeing full-time enrollment dropping 40% in the last two years and SWBTS down 30%.

With the SBC roiling from a fresh crop of scandals and seemingly unable to learn their lessons, we only expect this trend to continue.

Chandler David Moore is a singer-songwriter based in Atlanta who has become popular in recent years as the lead singer for Maverick City Music, winning accolades like multiple Billboard awards, Dove awards, and Grammys. 

We’ve written about him on a few occasions, after he issued a defiant apology” following his salacious wedding photos going viral, as well as when he appeared on ‘The View’ and sang a worship song while dancing with Christ-hating host Whoopi Goldberg. In a video shared by Robin Martyr, Moore reveals his mission of branching out to sing more sex-focused secular songs:

I’m on a mission to give Christians globally more life music. Music that speaks to more than your relationship with God. Because the Bible does (unintelligible), Proverbs is all about wisdom in life, wisdom in relationships. You have a whole book, Song of Solomon, it’s about relationships, love, sex. So I’m on a mission to give us music that explores that, this kingdom mindset in mainstream songs and melodies.

 It’s unclear if this will be the new direction of Maverick City Music or rather a solo project. News site The Dissenter was pessimistic about this plan from Moore, writing:

“These self-proclaimed Christian bands are doing nothing except using the Church as a means to launch their secular careers in music. Time after time, these bands go through the same cycle of deconstruction, using Christianity to become famous, speaking out against what the Bible says on social or moral issues, and then ultimately abandoning the faith altogether…..Every single Christian rapper who has sold their soul to the secular music market has deconstructed and apostatized.”

Bonus:

h/t The Dissenter

In a new statement from disgraced pastor Carl Lentz, the former head of Hillsong NY revealed that he and his wife are in a great place, that he’s been ignoring all the lies and half-truths about him for the last three years to focus on his family, and that he’s eager to begin working at Transformation church to help others on the same path as him.

In November 2020, Carl Lentz was ousted from the pastorate after it was revealed that he was having an adulterous affair with a New York City-based designer named Ranin Karim. Though his bombshell got him fired ( he should have been terminated a long time ago for having wretched theology and spending church money like a drunken pirate), it was only one of many affairs, according to leaked audio from Hillsong leadership.

Rather than a so-called “one-time mistake,” which is inexcusable but at least partially understandable, Lentz exemplified predatory sexual behavior for years, including long-term grooming behavior and allegations of sexual abuse, which resulted in several sexual encounters and acts of deviance that he instigated.

Last month it was announced that Lentz, who for the previous 30 months had been quiet on all his social media channels, was joining Mike Todd’s Transformation Church in the role of Church strategist, with Executive Pastor Tammy McQuarters offering:” After two years of Carl being in his own discovery and healing process, he has shown readiness to use his God-given gifts towards the local church again. We believe in Carl, his marriage, his skill set, and his restoration.

In a new statement posted to his Instagram, Lentz explains:

For the last 3 years my entire focus has been fighting for my wife and my kids, my family has been my only priority. In order to do that, seeking sobriety and healing had to run parallel with those goals. Honestly nothing else mattered. None of the noise, the lies, none of the half truths that were said about me and or us, mattered. All I wanted was to prove to my wife and kids that I could show up for them like I had never done before.

Although we have a long way to go, with a lot of work, a lot of honesty and a lot of prayer, we have found ourselves in a beautiful, happy and deliberately honest place. So much so that we not only celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary on may 5th but we got to do that in the purest way. Unfortunately that came through a lot of humiliation embarrassment and heartache.

Part of the healing from that heartache led us to the decision to be a part of a documentary that we do not control, that we don’t have any say in and that we haven’t even seen yet. We’ll see it when the world does. We were not interested in blame shifting or responsibility deflection, we focus on my mistakes and the context for what transpired. I can honestly tell you that when you get to a place of honesty and freedom in your life, when you’ve gone through hell and you realize God is still with you.. It is so freeing. It’s the freedom I wish for all of the many people that I know that are called by God and wrestle with secrets and the feeling of not being worthy. Trust me it led me to some dark places.

And even though I’m at an amazing church that loves and supports us, I’m no longer in ministry. Im not preaching, not overseeing people, my role is to help give perspective and insight where I can. I can also say that what gives me joy and hope is knowing that what I have been through, what I have made it past can help so many others. I can do that in so many different ways, inside and outside the church.

I’m not the first man to be in this situation and I won’t be the last, but I can promise you I’ll be the guy
standing with his arms open wide for anyone who’s been on this path of addiction and destruction. I can say I understand it and my relationship with Jesus in a way that I couldn’t from the pulpit. Repentance and life change is proven over time with consistent choices and that’s a road I look forward to.

It truly makes me wonder if this is what all of this pain was all about. From the lows of where I’ve been, to the grace and forgiveness that God has granted me, I have something to share and so does Laura and my kids. With that said I just want to thank you for even taking a moment to read this.

More later.
Sincerely:
Carl

Bonus: While we remain unswayed and skeptical, at least Lentz’s apology wasn’t the pathetic and insincere offering that comedian John Crist’s was.

Last week, Charles Stanley’s grandson announced that following the passing of the famous preacher, he rooted through his office and desk had acquired some personal memorabilia that he was auctioning off to pay the bills.  These included an engraved pocket watch, which ultimately sold for $2,375.00 and a signed picture which sold for $3,650.0.

At the time, Matt Brodersen acknowledged that some people were giving him grief for his actions, including his family, but offered up a non-apology apology.

It turns out, the anonymous buyer of the items purchased them so that he could guarantee they’d be returned to the Stanley family. Brodersen explained:

“The guy that won the pocket watch….bought the items, won the auction, and is sending them back to my family. Because apparently when he was younger and his grandfather died … his brother and his cousin … went and grabbed his grandpa’s things and they went and auctioned it off right away and he did not like it.

And so, I talked to him on the phone for like 30 minutes today, and we had a great conversation and it was a little jaw-dropping. he was very nice to me, he was basically saying , ‘I wish my family had not auctioned off my grandpa’s stuff. I would have liked to keep some of those things. I’m so glad I got to buy them and send them back to your family for you.

So that is when it really all sank in about how creepy or weird that was of me to do that.”

The $3,650 bid for the photograph fell through and he initially relisted the item, but then pulled it down after speaking to the anonymous buyer.

“When he told me his story, I just died inside, and I realized how selfish I was being, so I canceled the other eBay auction for the picture frame and the coin collection and I have mailed those back to my uncle. So technically, nothing has gotten sold on eBay. Everything is going back to its right property owners.”

Governor Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma recently vetoed a bill that would have funded the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority (OETA) through 2026. Stitt has been vocal about his concerns with the increase in LGBTQ content aired on the station, including on the popular children’s show Sesame Street. 

The governor rightly claimed that the content on the station is leading to the “indoctrination and over-sexualization” of children in defending his decision to defund OETA. In a press conference discussing his veto of the bill, Stitt stated that he does not believe Oklahomans want their tax dollars used to “indoctrinate kids.” 

He went on to say that some of the content on the station “overly sexualizes our kids.” Stitt has also called OETA an “outdated system” and questioned why taxpayer dollars are being used to prop up or compete with the private sector in running television stations. 

The governor’s office has pointed to specific examples of content being aired on OETA as evidence of the “indoctrination and over-sexualization” of children. This includes a segment of the program “Let’s Learn” where a character called “Lil Miss Hot Mess” reads a book called “The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish.” 

We’ve covered the alarming trend of promoting degenerate lifestyles on public television.  Gay characters are often featured in PBS programming as the government continues to saturate everything in queerness in an attempt to turn an entire generation into lost and confused souls who don’t know their right hand from their left when it comes to basic human biology. 

 Governor Stitt’s veto and comments are a step in the right direction. Unless conservatives fight back against this demonic agenda, an entire generation may be lost to this reprobate ideology.