State of the Church Today

Tomorrow the Anglican Church in North America puts its own sitting archbishop on trial — the first time in its short history — while the PCA and OPC both call their churches to fast and pray this month for renewal and for laborers. One communion is testing whether its discipline works; two others are admitting that structure alone will not fill their pulpits.

SBC President Willy Rice named a commission to settle how the ban on women pastors will actually be applied — and the G3 network dissolved after its president admitted to anonymously mailing the plagiarism dossier against Tom Buck that this digest covered last week. One story is about drawing a boundary; the other is about what happens when men police a boundary in the dark.

A Texas appeals court held this week that an independent, elder-governed church is entitled to the same constitutional protection from judicial review as a diocese with a code of canon law. Read alongside the death of a 20-year-old in a Southern Baptist missionary boot camp, the week poses one question twice: if the courts will not examine how elders investigate and govern, who will?

Johnny Hunt's three-and-a-half-year defamation suit against the SBC ended Aug. 12 with a final summary judgment against him — and in the same week, the Pawleys Island academy closed its doors. The convention won in court. The underlying problem did not go away.

A proposed federal class action out of Pawleys Island named the Southern Baptist Convention itself this week — testing whether "autonomous local church" holds as a legal shield, and putting every elder board's child-protection file back on the table.

A decade-old reference letter from Wheaton's president resurfaced this week and put a hard question on every elder's desk: what do our commendations cost the people who trust them?

Eighty-six abuse survivors and advocates have asked the SBC's new president to take back the word "hoax." How he answers will tell Southern Baptists more about the next four years than any resolution did.

A hard week for pastoral credibility: a Tennessee pastor confirmed federal agents raided his home over church finances, and a Texas pastor was indicted for allegedly defrauding his own congregants of $3.2 million. Meanwhile the quieter, better story — four SBC seminaries sending one joint mission team — is the one worth telling your church.

The week after Independence Day, the church's relationship to the nation is the through-line: the White House Religious Liberty Commission's public-comment window closes tomorrow, July 13, as Southern Baptists mark America's 250th with resources on faithful citizenship — even while the Reformed world buries Paul Kooistra, one of the great Presbyterian missions statesmen of the last half-century.

A quiet post-convention, post-holiday week turns on transitions and money: Southern Baptists have voted the International Mission Board up to 51% of Cooperative Program dollars, cementing missions as the budget's top priority; Phil Johnson's cancer-driven retirement from Grace to You closes another chapter of the MacArthur era; and the Johnson Amendment fight sharpens as the White House commission's public-comment window closes July 13.

The White House Religious Liberty Commission has released a 224-page draft report recommending twelve federal actions — including repeal of the Johnson Amendment — with public comment open only through July 13; meanwhile the SBC's longest-serving seminary president prepares to hand off the reins, and the OPC quietly stands up a study committee on race.

The PCA's 53rd General Assembly adjourned in Louisville: messengers decisively turned back an overture to ordain women as deacons and advanced — but pointedly did not finalize — a committee report rejecting the harder forms of Christian nationalism, while the Supreme Court handed down a narrow but consequential religious-liberty loss in *Landor v. Louisiana*.

The Reformed world's attention moves north this week: the PCA's 53rd General Assembly convenes tomorrow in Louisville, where the long-awaited Christian Nationalism report arrives unfinished — its committee asking for another year rather than a verdict — while a dozen overtures press again on who may serve as deacon.

Orlando has adjourned: Willy Rice is the new SBC president, Mohler's "Truth & Unity Amendment" cleared its first two-thirds vote, and missions giving hit a long-sought milestone — but the new president's press-conference claim that the abuse crisis was "weaponized" has reopened the wound the convention spent the week trying to close.

Orlando is in session: more than 11,000 messengers are gathered for the SBC Annual Meeting, with Al Mohler's "Truth & Unity Amendment," a contested presidential race, and an immigration resolution that quietly drops the convention's old path-to-status language all set to be decided this week.

All eyes turn to Orlando this week: the SBC Annual Meeting convenes June 9–10, with Al Mohler's revised "Truth & Unity Amendment" on women in the pastoral office set to be the flashpoint, a two-man presidential race, and a new ERLC president stepping onto the stage for the first time.