Sunday, July 26, 2026
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.
Annual meeting, entities, ERLC, resolutions, denominational politics.
Survivors ask Willy Rice and Jack Graham to retract “hoax.” An open letter signed by 86 people — including Rachael Denhollander, Karen Swallow Prior, Jules Woodson, Tiffany Thigpen, Dave Pittman, and Boz Tchividjian — is calling on newly elected SBC President Willy Rice and Prestonwood pastor Jack Graham to apologize for describing the denomination’s abuse-reform effort as a “ruse,” a “snipe hunt,” and a “reckless hoax.” The letter’s core claim is pastoral, not political: publicly branding the crisis a hoax tells people in the pews not to believe survivors who come forward. Neither man had responded to requests for comment as of the reporting. Watch whether Rice answers as a denominational president or as the candidate who campaigned against reform — the two are not the same office. Religion News Service MinistryWatch
A quieter picture of the SBC’s actual mission. While the leadership fight makes the headlines, a Midwestern Seminary team spent ten days in Manta, Ecuador (May 29–June 7), partnering with Iglesia Bautista el Palmar and IMB associates to train local believers in evangelism — a trip that grew out of a request from the Ecuadorian church itself, not a program shipped in from Kansas City. Baptist Press ran it July 8. Worth naming for your congregation as a corrective: the denomination’s arguments are loud, but its ordinary work is disciples training disciples. Baptist Press The Christian Index
Reformed Baptist, Presbyterian (PCA/OPC), confessional churches and networks.
Grimké’s “Churchman” conference opens tomorrow. Grimké Seminary’s inaugural men’s conference runs July 27–29 at Remnant Midtown in Richmond, with a preaching pre-conference the morning of the 27th and faculty including Bryan Laughlin, Doug Logan, Doug Ponder, Joe Holland, and Mark Becton. The theme is deliberately unglamorous — not leadership platform or conference-circuit celebrity, but the ordinary dignity of being a faithful member and servant in a local church. That framing is itself the news: it marks where confessional-Baptist training energy is being pointed. Grimké Seminary
9Marks keeps working the law-and-covenant question. A recent 9Marks piece (July 9) by Ryan Currie and Samuel Parkison on how Christ fulfills the law and inaugurates the New Covenant is a useful, compact treatment of a debate that keeps resurfacing in Reformed Baptist circles — and a timely one, given that Founders has set “The Law and the Gospel” as the theme of its 2027 national conference. Good background reading before that conversation reaches your own leadership table. 9Marks
Major debates, books, controversies, council and committee statements.
The pro-life movement is dividing over whether to prosecute women. Christianity Today’s Daniel K. Williams surveys a widening split: “abolitionist” activists introduced bills in twelve states this year to classify abortion as homicide with criminal liability for the women who obtain one — all twelve failed — while the Texas GOP reaffirmed a platform plank calling for “equal protection” language that mainstream pro-life groups warn could expose women to life in prison or the death penalty. The fault line is theological before it is legislative: is the woman who aborts primarily a perpetrator or also a victim? For decades the mainstream answer was “victim.” That consensus is now contested, and elders in states with active legislation will be asked where they stand. Christianity Today
Religious liberty, ethics, politics affecting the church, cultural engagement.
DOJ rewrites its religious-liberty guidance for the first time since 2017. A July 23 memorandum from the Justice Department directs every federal agency to weigh religious-liberty and parental-rights concerns early — before litigation forces the issue — and lays out 21 principles drawn from recent Supreme Court rulings on church autonomy, equal access to grants and programs, and parents’ authority over their children’s religious upbringing. It reaches federal employment, contracting, rulemaking, benefits, and enforcement. Guidance is not law and a future administration can revise it, so read this as a real but reversible shift in posture rather than a settled protection. Still, for religious schools, ministries, and employers navigating federal programs, the practical footing just improved. Daily Signal National Catholic Register
Notable controversy and media shake-ups — reported with discernment, not appetite.
A megachurch resignation with almost nothing explained. Chris Lindberg has resigned as senior pastor of Life Fellowship Church in McKinney, Texas, after he and his wife spent more than two months on leave with no public explanation; the decision was reached jointly with the elders and Assemblies of God leadership, and Lindberg acknowledged unspecified “past personal struggles” and a restoration process. Leaders disclosed no allegations, no investigation, and no details. Reported here not to speculate but because the pattern is instructive: a congregation that gave itself to a pastor for fifteen years was told, in effect, only that it should stop asking. The question of how much a church owes its members when a leader falls is one every eldership should settle before it becomes urgent. The Roys Report
A pastoral takeaway for your leadership team this week.
Two of this week’s stories turn on the same hinge: what a church does with the person who says, “something happened to me.” Eighty-six survivors are asking Southern Baptist leaders to stop calling their wounds a hoax, and a Texas congregation is being asked to accept a pastor’s departure with no account of why. In both, the temptation for those in charge is the same — to treat the inconvenient claim as a threat to be managed rather than a person to be heard. Scripture gives elders a harder and better standard: “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him” (Prov. 18:17). Believing a survivor is not the same as convicting the accused, and taking a claim seriously is not the same as assuming guilt — but a church that cannot bear to hear the claim has already failed the more basic test. A question for your leadership: If someone in our congregation came forward tomorrow with an accusation against one of us, is our first instinct to protect the flock or to protect ourselves — and would the person coming forward be able to tell the difference?
State of the Church Today · Compiled July 26, 2026. Reply with corrections or tips. Forward to a fellow elder.