Sunday, July 12, 2026
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.
Annual meeting, entities, ERLC, resolutions, denominational politics.
Southeastern’s presidential handoff is now three weeks out. Danny Akin’s 22-year tenure as president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary ends July 31, with provost Scott Pace — a two-time SEBTS alumnus elected unanimously by trustees in April — taking office August 1 as the seminary’s seventh president. Akin has been effusive (“exactly the right man”), and Pace inherits a stable, confessionally settled institution rather than one in crisis. Worth watching how a long-tenured, high-visibility presidency transfers to a quieter successor — the test of any healthy institution is whether it outlasts the man who built its reputation. SEBTS Baptist Press
Otherwise a genuinely quiet mid-summer week across the entities — the Orlando annual meeting is a month behind us and most offices are in vacation-Bible-school rhythm.
Reformed Baptist, Presbyterian (PCA/OPC), confessional churches and networks.
Paul Kooistra dies at 83. Dr. Paul D. Kooistra — president of Covenant Theological Seminary (1984–1994), coordinator of Mission to the World (1994–2014), and later president of Erskine College and Seminary — died July 1 after a battle with cancer. Under his leadership Covenant became one of the fastest-growing seminaries in the country, and MTW grew into the largest missionary-sending agency in Presbyterian history. For PCA churches especially, this is the passing of a formative missions statesman; for the rest of us, a reminder that the men who quietly build institutions of gospel reach are worth honoring while we have them. byFaith Mission to the World
Two Reformed summer intensives land the same week, July 27–31. Grimké Seminary’s inaugural “Churchman” men’s conference (July 27–29, Richmond) and Reformed Baptist Seminary’s five-day expository-preaching module with Brian Borgman and Robert Elliott (July 27–31, Minden, NV) both fall at month’s end — a useful snapshot of where confessional-Baptist training energy is going right now: ordinary churchmanship and the recovery of expository preaching, not celebrity platform. Late notice, but on the radar for elders shaping continuing-education plans. Grimké Seminary Reformed Baptist Seminary
Major debates, books, controversies, council and committee statements.
America turns 250 — and the church debates what “Christian patriotism” should mean. With the semiquincentennial of the Declaration now upon us, Southern Baptist and Reformed outlets are pressing the theological question underneath the fireworks: how do citizens of God’s kingdom love an earthly nation without idolizing it? The ERLC’s booklet One Nation Under God: Reflections on 250 Years of Faith and Democracy (with prayer guides and bulletin inserts) and Founders’ recent Sword & Trowel conversation on “rightly loving the nation” both aim at the same target — gratitude for common grace and religious liberty, without confusing the republic with the church. A fitting week to preach the difference between the two cities. ERLC Baptist Press
Religious liberty, ethics, politics affecting the church, cultural engagement.
The Religious Liberty Commission comment window closes tomorrow. Public comment on the White House Religious Liberty Commission’s draft report — which recommends, among other things, rethinking a strict “separation” framing and repealing the Johnson Amendment — is open only through July 13. The legal backdrop remains unsettled: after a Texas court dismissed the National Religious Broadcasters v. Bessent settlement on March 31, the seventy-year bar on pulpit candidate endorsements is technically still in force for the November election even as the administration signals it won’t enforce it against speech “in the context of religious services.” Elders should decide now, on biblical grounds, what they would do with a freedom that may or may not fully arrive — before an election cycle forces the question. Washington Stand PBS NewsHour
A “monumental” religious-liberty term is teed up at the Supreme Court. With the 2025–26 term closed — headlined by Chiles v. Salazar, where an 8–1 Court in March required strict scrutiny of Colorado’s limits on what a Christian counselor may say to clients — attention turns to next term’s docket. Watch a pending cert petition on church autonomy (USCCB v. O’Connell, testing how far courts must stay out of internal church affairs) and First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, over a state’s demand that a Christian nonprofit surrender its donor list. The direction of travel continues to favor robust free-exercise and free-speech protections. First Liberty SCOTUSblog
Notable controversy and media shake-ups — reported with discernment, not appetite.
Another SBC pastor arrested on child-exploitation charges. A longtime South Carolina Baptist pastor was arrested July 1 and charged with sexual exploitation of a minor after authorities reported finding explicit material of children on his phone; he was released on bond and the case is proceeding. It is a grievous story, reported here not for detail but because it is exactly the kind of case our churches’ abuse-prevention and reporting policies exist to catch and refer. Let it prompt a sober check of your own safeguards rather than any sense of distance. Baptist Press The Roys Report
A pastoral takeaway for your leadership team this week.
The news this week keeps circling the church’s posture toward the nation: a 250th anniversary, a commission weighing how tightly church and state should be bound, an old federal rule on pulpit politics that may be loosening. It is easy in such a season to grasp at freedoms we are being offered. A question for your elders: If the Johnson Amendment fell away tomorrow and we could endorse candidates from the pulpit without penalty — would we? What would we gain for the gospel, and what would we risk giving away of our first allegiance? Decide it now, from Scripture and in unhurried counsel, not in the heat of an election when the pressure to speak — or to stay silent — will be its own kind of temptation.
State of the Church Today · Compiled July 12, 2026. Reply with corrections or tips. Forward to a fellow elder.