--- type: newsletter-issue title: State of the Church Today — Issue 13 issue: 13 date: 2026-08-16 audience: Pastors & Elders status: draft created: 2026-08-16T07:00 updated: 2026-08-16T07:05 --- # State of the Church Today *A weekly digest of Southern Baptist, Reformed, and broader theological news — curated for pastors and elders.* **Issue 13 · Sunday, August 16, 2026** > 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. --- ## ⛪ SBC & Convention Watch *Annual meeting, entities, ERLC, resolutions, denominational politics.* **Hunt's case is over.** Chief U.S. District Judge William L. Campbell Jr. of the Middle District of Tennessee entered final summary judgment on Aug. 12 on the last remaining claim in former SBC president Johnny Hunt's defamation suit against the Southern Baptist Convention, its Executive Committee, and Guidepost Solutions. Campbell had dismissed every other claim on March 31, 2025; the survivor concerned a 2022 tweet by then-president Bart Barber that mentioned Hunt. Hunt had amended his demand to "not less than" $15.4 million, plus up to $45 million each for reputational harm and emotional distress. Filed in March 2023, the suit is now fully dismissed. — [Baptist Press](https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/final-claim-dismissed-in-johnny-hunt-lawsuit/) · [The Roys Report](https://roysreport.com/johnny-hunts-last-defamation-claims-rejected-by-federal-judge/) **"The lawsuit is over. The abuse crisis isn't."** Karen Swallow Prior's Aug. 15 opinion piece makes the point that a verdict in the convention's favor settles a legal question, not a pastoral one. Elders reading the outcome should be careful about the temptation it creates: the ease of treating a favorable ruling as vindication, and vindication as the end of the matter. Worth reading alongside the Baptist Press account rather than instead of it. — [The Roys Report](https://roysreport.com/johnny-hunts-lawsuit-is-over-the-sbcs-abuse-crisis-isnt/) **Pawleys Island closes its academy.** Following up last week's lead: Pawleys Island Community Church has closed Pawleys Island Christian Academy amid the ongoing criminal investigation and multiple lawsuits involving the registered sex offender who had access to the campus. Whatever the litigation eventually establishes, this is what the practical cost of a failed safeguard looks like — a school gone, and families scattered mid-summer. — [The Roys Report](https://roysreport.com/pawleys-island-community-church-closes-academy-amid-sex-offender-investigation/) **Derek Allen elected to lead Alabama Baptists.** Trustees of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions approved Derek Allen, pastor of First Baptist Church Tillman's Corner in Mobile, as executive director-elect on Aug. 11, following the unanimous recommendation of the search team that began work in February. He succeeds Rick Lance, who plans to retire in January 2027. State-convention leadership transitions rarely make national noise, but they shape which churches get planted and which pastors get supported for a decade. — [Baptist Press](https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/derek-allen-named-new-alabama-baptist-state-leader/) · [The Alabama Baptist](https://thealabamabaptist.org/allen-named-incoming-leader-of-alabama-baptist-state-board-of-missions/) **Send Relief moves into Colombia after a 7.4 quake.** The Aug. 9 earthquake in western Colombia killed at least 216 with more than 2,500 injured, and destroyed over 1,100 homes with another 8,300 damaged. A Send Relief Disaster Assistance Response Team went to Cali and then Pereira, coordinating supply distribution through local churches and long-serving IMB personnel. As in the Northwest wildfire response, the ask is money and prayer, not teams. — [Baptist Press](https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/send-relief-resources-churches-partners-in-colombian-earthquake-response/) **Adults now account for most SBC baptisms.** Aaron Earls reports new Lifeway analysis showing that as Southern Baptist baptisms rise, a growing share of those baptized are adults rather than children of member families. That is a different kind of growth than most SBC churches were built to expect, and it changes what membership classes, catechesis, and follow-up have to carry. — [Baptist Press](https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/adults-account-for-most-baptisms-in-sbc-congregations/) --- ## 📖 Reformed & Confessional *Reformed Baptist, Presbyterian (PCA/OPC), confessional churches and networks.* **The schism question got a full treatment this week.** Everett Henes published a two-part examination of the "Redeemed Zoomer" argument that faithful Reformed Christians should remain in mainline denominations and reform them from inside (Aug. 11 and Aug. 12), and the Heidelblog ran Machen's own 1930s essay "Are We Schismatics?" alongside it on Aug. 10. Note the comment counts — thirteen, twenty-nine — which tell you how live this is. If you have young men in your congregation being catechized by online debate, they are working through Machen's question without knowing his name. — [Heidelblog, Part 1](https://heidelblog.net/2026/08/schism-and-the-redeemed-zoomer-part-1-protestant-retreatism/) · [Part 2](https://heidelblog.net/2026/08/schism-and-the-redeemed-zoomer-part-2-examining-zoomers-claims/) · [Machen](https://heidelblog.net/2026/08/machen-are-we-schismatics/) **"Rome, Constantinople, or Geneva" reaches the sacraments.** R. Scott Clark's long-running series hit Part 9 on Aug. 16, working through the sacramental system as the third installment on that subject. The series exists because a real number of discontented evangelicals are leaving for Rome and Constantinople in search of history, transcendence, and a higher view of the Supper. The Reformed answer is not that those hungers are wrong — it is that Geneva already fed them, and most American Protestants were never told. — [Heidelblog](https://heidelblog.net/2026/08/heidelcast-for-august-16-2026-rome-constantinople-or-geneva-part-9-the-sacramental-system-3/) **Founders makes the case for confessions — and works through the 1689 on justification.** Tom Ascol and Graham Gunden devoted recent *Sword & Trowel* episodes to why a church needs a confession at all and to the 1689's chapter on justification. For elders in churches that hold the confession nominally but never teach it, these are usable as-is for an officer training hour. — [Founders Ministries](https://founders.org/podcasts/tstt-why-your-church-needs-a-confession/) · [1689 on Justification](https://founders.org/podcasts/tstt-the-1689-confession-justification/) **Asahel Nettleton and the sin of speaking too little.** Tyler Ivey's new Founders essay takes up the case of a gifted man who withheld what he had to say — an unusual angle in a season when most ministry commentary warns about saying too much. Aimed squarely at the quiet elder who has a judgment he has not voiced. — [Founders Ministries](https://founders.org/articles/when-the-right-man-speaks-too-little-lessons-from-asahel-nettleton/) --- ## 🕊️ Theology & Doctrine *Major debates, books, controversies, council and committee statements.* **One in four Americans attends church weekly — again.** The American Bible Society's latest *State of the Bible* release, reported Aug. 13, finds weekly attendance flat at roughly a quarter of Americans, unchanged year over year. Flat is not decline, and after a decade of falling numbers that is worth noticing. It is also a reminder that the people not in the room on Sunday are mostly not hostile — they are simply elsewhere, and a quarter of the country still shows up. — [Baptist Press](https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/only-a-quarter-of-americans-attend-church-weekly-state-of-the-bible-reports/) **Warfield was not a theistic evolutionist, a new study argues.** The Heidelblog flagged research on Aug. 13 contesting the Noll–Livingstone reading of B. B. Warfield, concluding that Warfield held a principled openness to scientific inquiry governed by his commitment to the harmony of general and special revelation — alongside a sustained critique of evolution's scientific and theological adequacy. If Warfield gets cited in your circles as the Reformed precedent for theistic evolution, this is the citation to check. — [Heidelblog](https://heidelblog.net/2026/08/contra-noll-livingstone-warfield-did-not-become-a-theistic-evolutionist/) **"God really showed up": Daniel Hyde on the presence of God.** Hyde explains why he wrote *A Christian's Pocket Guide to the Presence of God*, opening with the way believers narrate a service like weather — saturated, dry, He showed up. The pastoral problem is exact: when presence is measured by feeling, the sacraments and the preached Word become optional and Sunday becomes a search for a sensation. — [Heidelblog](https://heidelblog.net/2026/08/chasing-a-feeling-missing-a-face-why-i-wrote-a-christians-pocket-guide-to-the-presence-of-god/) **Clark on the problem with conspiracy theories.** A two-part Heidelminicast (Aug. 12–13) on why conspiratorial thinking is a discipleship issue, not merely a political one. Most elders have at least one member for whom this has quietly become a governing hermeneutic. — [Heidelblog, Part 1](https://heidelblog.net/2026/08/heidelminicast-a-major-problem-with-conspiracy-theories-part-1/) · [Part 2](https://heidelblog.net/2026/08/heidelminicast-a-major-problem-with-conspiracy-theories-part-2/) --- ## 🏛️ Culture & Church-State *Religious liberty, ethics, politics affecting the church, cultural engagement.* **Kevin Rideout is free.** The American missionary pilot taken hostage by armed men outside his home in Niamey, Niger, in October 2025 has been released in good health, SIM confirmed Aug. 14 — nine months of captivity, ended. Many congregations prayed for this one without a name attached; now there is a name. — [Baptist Press](https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/kidnapped-u-s-missionary-to-niger-released-safely-sending-ministry-confirms/) · [The Roys Report](https://roysreport.com/missionary-pilot-kidnapped-in-niger-is-free/) **Arizona's high court shields clergy confessions from mandatory reporting.** On Aug. 4 the Arizona Supreme Court held that state law and the First Amendment protect clergy from being compelled to report information learned in confidential religious communication. The case arose from a Latter-day Saints member who confessed to child abuse; police did not learn of it for six years, and then only because he posted video of his crimes. Constitutional scholars read it as a win for religious autonomy; survivor advocates read it as a loss for children. Reformed Baptists have no confessional seal, which means we do not get to sit this one out on a technicality — a pastor hearing such a disclosure in our polity should assume he is a mandatory reporter and act accordingly. — [WORLD](https://wng.org/roundups/how-unreported-abuse-sparked-a-religious-liberty-case-1785871207) **Religious liberty depends on your zip code.** WORLD's Aug. 10 *Legal Docket* covered the new *Religious Liberty in the States 2026* index, which scores all fifty states across fifty legal protections with no subjective weighting. Arkansas and Tennessee lead; New York and Vermont trail. The surprises are instructive: Illinois cracks the top ten on the strength of conscience protections passed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, while Colorado sits near the bottom. Statutory protections outlive the culture that produced them, in both directions. — [WORLD Legal Docket](https://wng.org/podcasts/legal-docket-freedom-depends-on-your-zip-code-1786299318) · [WORLD opinion](https://wng.org/opinions/the-state-of-religious-liberty-in-the-states-1784097747) **$2 billion in federal aid heads to faith-based groups.** The administration announced Aug. 11 that close to $2 billion will go to faith-based and community organizations for health and humanitarian assistance in more than a dozen countries, following earlier cuts. Money of this size reshapes incentives; ministries that have never taken government funds will now be deciding whether to, and on what conditions. Watch the strings, and watch which organizations restructure to qualify. — [The Roys Report / RNS](https://roysreport.com/after-cuts-trump-administration-gives-2b-to-christian-groups-for-global-aid/) **Ukraine's churches keep serving under fire.** Baptist Press carried a Baptist Standard report Aug. 14 on Ukrainian congregations continuing relief and worship amid ongoing attacks. A useful corrective to the assumption that a war stops being real when it stops leading the news. — [Baptist Press](https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/under-fire-ukraines-churches-continue-to-serve/) --- ## 🔥 Also Worth Noting *Notable controversy and media shake-ups — reported with discernment, not appetite.* **A former Wheaton director says the college introduced him to an alleged predator during onboarding.** In an Aug. 13 report, a former Wheaton College director says that as part of his own hiring process the college arranged for him to meet Dennis Massaro, now facing allegations of abuse. The claim, if borne out, is not about a background check failing — it is about a man being formally presented to new staff as a person of standing. Institutions transmit trust by introduction as much as by policy. — [The Roys Report](https://roysreport.com/former-wheaton-director-college-had-me-meet-alleged-predator-dennis-massaro-during-onboarding/) **Vermont child evangelism director arrested in an FBI sting.** The FBI arrested the Vermont state director of a child evangelism organization in a child sex sting last week. There is no comfortable way to report this. The relevant fact for an elder board is structural: parachurch children's ministries operating alongside your church are not covered by your church's screening, and volunteers frequently move between the two. — [The Roys Report](https://roysreport.com/director-of-vermont-child-evangelism-organization-caught-in-fbi-child-sex-sting/) **Phil Johnson's cancer has returned.** The longtime Grace to You executive, who retired last month while battling multiple myeloma, said Aug. 12 that his cancer appears to be returning after a brief remission. A prayer item, plainly. — [The Roys Report](https://roysreport.com/phil-johnson-says-cancer-has-returned-weeks-after-retirement/) **Grace Community Church asbestos plaintiff: "they knew, and they lied."** A plaintiff in the asbestos-exposure suit against John MacArthur's church alleged in an Aug. 13 podcast interview that church leaders knew about the hazard and misrepresented it. This is an allegation, not a finding, and the litigation will test it. Noted here because it is the second week running that the story has moved. — [The Roys Report](https://roysreport.com/podcast/plaintiff-in-lawsuit-claims-grace-community-church-knew-about-asbestos-lied/) --- ## 🧭 For the Elder's Desk *A pastoral takeaway for your leadership team this week.* > Three stories this week share one shape. A convention successfully defended its reputation in federal court. A college is said to have handed a man its own credibility by introducing him to new staff. A church closed the school it had built rather than continue under investigation. In each case the institution's name was doing work — protecting, vouching, or finally collapsing under what it had vouched for. That is what institutional trust *is*: borrowed credibility, extended faster than it can be verified. Your church does this every Sunday. A man teaches the four-year-olds because someone said he was fine. A volunteer joins the van rotation because he has been around a while. Paul told Timothy to lay hands on no one hastily and not to share in the sins of others (1 Tim. 5:22) — a command about the speed of vouching, not the sincerity of it. So this week's question for the elders: *Name every person currently serving in your church whose fitness rests on someone's word rather than on a process you can describe. Who vouched for them, when, and did anyone ever check?* If the honest answer is "several, and no," you have found the thing that needs doing before the fall calendar starts. --- *State of the Church Today · Compiled August 16, 2026. Reply with corrections or tips. Forward to a fellow elder.*