Tuesday, June 9, 2026
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.
Annual meeting, entities, ERLC, resolutions, denominational politics.
The Annual Meeting is underway in Orlando. More than 11,000 messengers convened June 9–10 at the Orange County Convention Center. Executive Committee CEO Jeff Iorg told trustees the leadership wants the focus on missions — a deliberate pivot away from a decade of headlines about decline, internal disputes, and the abuse crisis. Religion News Service
Mohler’s “Truth & Unity Amendment” reaches the floor. The amendment would bar churches that affirm, appoint, or endorse women as pastors — and specifically names women who preach. Two prior runs (the Law and Sánchez amendments) cleared a majority but fell short of the two-thirds bar; even if this one passes, it needs a confirming vote in 2027 to take effect. The vote is the week’s flashpoint. Albert Mohler Religion News Service
Presidential race collides with the abuse-reform debate. Willy Rice (Clearwater, FL) and Josh Powell (Taylors, SC) are the announced nominees. Both have publicly minimized the SBC’s abuse crisis — Rice has called the convention’s response overblown — a posture that has drawn sharp pushback from survivors and reform advocates, even as plans for a national database of abusive pastors have been largely abandoned. Religion News Service
Immigration resolution drops the path-to-status language. “On Immigration, Human Dignity, and the Rule of Law” affirms “lawful immigration enforcement” and rejects both nativism and amnesty — but, unlike past SBC statements, makes no mention of a path to legal status. It follows the ERLC’s exit from the Evangelical Immigration Table last fall. Religion News Service
IMB to commission 63 missionaries and seek a budget boost. The International Mission Board will recognize 63 new missionaries and ask messengers to approve a $2M+ annual increase; if adopted, 51% of the total SBC budget would go to missions — the tangible side of the leadership’s “force for good” framing. Religion News Service
Reformed Baptist, Presbyterian (PCA/OPC), confessional churches and networks.
PCA’s Christian Nationalism committee files a partial report ahead of Louisville. The Ad-Interim Committee on Christian Nationalism has submitted a partial report into the General Assembly supplement, two weeks before the 53rd GA convenes June 22–26 in Louisville. The open question is whether the committee brings recommendations to the floor or asks for more time — a bellwether for how the PCA will handle the theonomy/nationalism conversation. byFaith PCA GA partial report (PDF)
Confessional Baptist calendar. For Reformed Baptist elders tracking the associations: the Confessional Baptist Association met May 5–7 on a Spurgeon theme, and the Reformed Baptist Network’s General Assembly is set for Sept. 21–23 in McKinney, Texas, with Joel Beeke speaking. Reformed Baptist Network
Major debates, books, controversies, council and committee statements.
The “civil disobedience” debate keeps running through evangelical writing. In what some have dubbed “the Year of the Bible,” evangelicals continue to argue over politics, the limits of obedience to the state, and when faithfulness requires resistance — a debate that maps closely onto the same fault lines now playing out at the SBC and in the PCA’s nationalism study. Worth reading before it lands in your own congregation’s conversations. Christianity Today
Religious liberty, ethics, politics affecting the church, cultural engagement.
Church autonomy heads back to the Supreme Court. In U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops v. O’Connell, the justices are weighing whether to take up how far the First Amendment’s church-autonomy doctrine reaches — specifically, whether it is an immunity from suit (shielding a church from intrusive discovery) or merely a defense to liability after the fact. Fifteen amicus briefs urged review. The practical stakes are wide: any congregation facing litigation over internal governance could be affected by where the Court draws the line. SCOTUSblog
Pentagon narrows its recognized-religions list after backlash. The Defense Department revised its list of recognized faith groups — paring it to roughly 30 after an earlier move to drop more than 175 drew outcry — a development with real consequences for military chaplaincy and religious accommodation. Religion News Service
Notable controversy and media shake-ups — reported with discernment, not appetite.
Bethel Church announces sweeping accountability reforms. Months after suspending a top leader over a sexual-assault allegation, the Redding, California megachurch said in a late-May letter that it will deplatform Todd Bentley, Mike Bickle, Shawn Bolz, and Bob Hartley, reshape its conferences, and bring in outside consultants to review its governance and culture. A notable case study in how a charismatic-network church is handling accountability under public scrutiny. The Roys Report
Phoenix Seminary to be acquired by Biola University. The two schools announced an acquisition that folds Phoenix Seminary into Biola — one more sign of the consolidation pressures reshaping evangelical theological education. Religion News Service
A marriage vote in the PC(USA). As polyamory gains cultural visibility, the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA) faces a vote touching its understanding of monogamy — a reminder of how differently the confessional and mainline branches of Presbyterianism are moving. Religion News Service
A pastoral takeaway for your leadership team this week.
Three of this week’s threads are really the same thread: a convention debating who may stand in the pulpit, the Supreme Court weighing how far courts may reach into a church’s internal life, and a megachurch reckoning with leaders it should have removed sooner. Each is about authority and accountability — who guards the church, and who guards the guardians. It is tempting to want the first without the second: clear doctrinal lines drawn boldly, but no hard look inward. A question for your elders this week: Are we as eager to hold ourselves accountable — in finances, in conduct, in how we treat the vulnerable — as we are to defend our convictions in public? The flock can tell the difference.
State of the Church Today · Compiled June 9, 2026. Reply with corrections or tips. Forward to a fellow elder.