Sunday, September 13, 2026
The PCA formally closed the book on women deacons this week, the ACNA finished the first week of its archbishop’s trial behind closed doors, and on Saturday Illinois became the latest state where a doctor may help a patient end his life. Three different tests of whether churches will hold a line — and a reminder that the hardest ones will reach the hospital room before they reach the assembly floor.
Annual meeting, entities, ERLC, resolutions, denominational politics.
Pastors are wary of AI reading Scripture for them — but they are using it anyway. A Barna study with Gloo, surveying 442 senior Protestant pastors in late 2025, finds 94% concerned about AI interpreting Scripture, far above practicing Christians (83%) and the general public (74%). Only 5% reject AI outright as a tool on hard passages; 60% want it to lay out the major interpretations without choosing, and 10% want it to name the right one. The number to sit with: 26% of practicing Christians say they trust AI to determine the correct interpretation. Your people may already be asking a chatbot what your sermon text means. The Pathway (BP)
ERLC’s Lenow calls for action after a court shields AI-generated child abuse images. The U.S. 7th Circuit affirmed dismissal of a possession charge against a Wisconsin man over AI-generated child sexual abuse images, relying on Stanley v. Georgia and Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition; distribution and production charges proceed. ERLC President Evan Lenow said the time is “now for action” to prohibit producing such material with AI. Expect this to become a legislative ask from Southern Baptists this fall, and a reason to revisit your church’s child-protection and technology policies. The Pathway (BP)
Twenty-five years after 9/11. Baptist Press marked the anniversary with remembrances from disaster relief volunteers, a Baptist photographer, and former New York associational workers who served at Ground Zero. A quiet reminder that Southern Baptist Disaster Relief became what it is largely in those weeks. The Pathway (BP)
Housing for Indianapolis 2027 is posted. The Committee on Convention Arrangements says affordability and proximity drove hotel selection for next June’s annual meeting — the meeting at which Willy Rice’s commission on women in pastoral ministry is expected to report. Churches planning to send messengers should look now. The Pathway (BP)
Reformed Baptist, Presbyterian (PCA/OPC), confessional churches and networks.
The PCA answers the women-deacons dissent: “Here the matter shall end.” After June’s Assembly rejected Overture 37 (Pacific Presbytery’s request to let sessions decide whether qualified women may be deacons), four teaching elders — Aaron Baker, Jeffrey Choi, Walter Henegar, and Eric Kapur — filed a dissent calling the committee’s grounds circular. A commission of Ligon Duncan, David Garner, Thomas Gibbs, Jonathan Master, and Guy Waters has now published the Assembly’s answer, making exegetical, historical, and constitutional arguments that the office is limited to men while sessions may appoint godly men and women to assist the deacons. Under the Book of Church Order, that closes the matter procedurally, though not necessarily in the presbyteries. Baptist churches with deacon debates of their own will find both documents worth reading side by side. byFaith WORLD
The OPC’s week of prayer and fasting begins today. As noted last week, the OPC General Assembly has called its congregations to pray and fast Sept. 13–19, asking the Lord of the harvest to raise up and equip men for ministry at home and abroad. OPC
Founders on the “Same, Lindsay” phenomenon. David Mitzenmacher’s Sept. 11 article follows his earlier piece on young women by examining the online sympathy for Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother whose trial for killing her three children ended in a mistrial. He argues that it reflects a “disordered empathy” and a view of children’s dependence as injury, and that Christian theology does better justice to both the goodness and the real burdens of motherhood. Also new: a Sword & the Trowel interview with Tou Thao, one of the officers convicted in the George Floyd case, on his conversion in prison. Articles and resources, not news. Founders: Mitzenmacher Founders: TS&TT
Grimké Seminary was checked directly again this week; no new dated announcements.
Major debates, books, controversies, council and committee statements.
The Global Methodist Church adopts Articles of Faith and elects its first full-time bishops. Closing Sept. 5 in Johannesburg, the GMC’s General Conference adopted a doctrinal statement covering God, Scripture, humanity, salvation, the church, sacraments, and the Christian life, and elected eight bishops to six-year terms beginning Nov. 1, including Carolyn Moore. Four years after leaving the United Methodist Church over sexuality and biblical authority, the GMC is now a confessionally defined denomination that ordains women to its highest office — a useful case study in how “traditionalist” is defined differently across communions. Christian Daily WORLD
Heidelblog: no day for conspiracy. On the 9/11 anniversary, R. Scott Clark pointed readers to Caleb Wait’s Modern Reformation essay on what Paul teaches about speculation and conspiracy theories, and this week’s Heidelminicast series addresses “evangelical Nicodemites.” Timely for any elder who has watched a church group chat drift into rumor. Heidelblog Heidelblog: Nicodemites
Religious liberty, ethics, politics affecting the church, cultural engagement.
Illinois assisted suicide takes effect — with religious exemptions only by court order. As of Sept. 12, terminally ill adults in Illinois with less than six months to live may request lethal medication under the law Gov. JB Pritzker signed last December. Only plaintiffs who sued have relief so far: a restraining order covers four physicians, the Lutheran Care Center, and Diocese of Springfield hospitals (represented by Thomas More Society), and a federal judge separately barred enforcement against the Archdiocese of Chicago, the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, and the Little Sisters of the Poor. Pastors in any state should expect to counsel families facing this choice, and should know which local hospitals and hospices will and will not participate. The Pathway (BP) Chicago Catholic
Kirk memorial held; “invite a friend to church” begins today. Turning Point USA held its “Freedom Built to Last” memorial at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10, with speakers including Glenn Beck and Frank Turek. TPUSA Faith’s campaign asking Christians to invite someone to church starts this Sunday. Visitors who come because of it deserve the same welcome, and the same gospel, as anyone else. TPUSA Deseret News
Beijing Zion Church’s lawyer leaves for Taiwan. WORLD reports that a Chinese attorney who defended leaders of Zion Church, Beijing’s largest unregistered congregation, has relocated to Taiwan after legal pressure. Pray for the church’s detained leaders, who now have one fewer advocate inside the country. WORLD
Notable controversy and media shake-ups — reported with discernment, not appetite.
ACNA’s Wood trial: first week ends, verdict far off. The ecclesiastical trial of Archbishop Steve Wood, presided over by Bishop Ryan Reed, ran Sept. 7–12 in Charleston, closed to the public, with Sept. 21–26 held in reserve. The charges remain violation of ordination vows, abuse of ecclesiastical power, and sexual immorality; Wood denies most allegations, and the court denied his motion to dismiss in June. A judgment may take up to 101 days after the trial concludes, so do not expect clarity before winter. VirtueOnline RNS
The Baptist Network is due this month. The cross-convention fellowship convened by Fuller president David Goatley, Dwight McKissic, and Warren Stewart said it would launch in September; there has been no launch report yet. Watch for it. Baptist Standard
A pastoral takeaway for your leadership team this week.
Put two numbers next to each other: 94% of pastors worry about AI interpreting Scripture, and 26% of practicing Christians already trust it to. The gap is not a technology problem; it is a teaching problem. People turn to whatever voice answers their questions quickly and confidently, and if the church has not taught them how to read the Bible — context, the analogy of faith, the humility to sit with a hard text — they will outsource that to the fastest voice available. The same is true when a family calls from a hospital in Illinois, or anywhere, with a question about ending a loved one’s suffering. So ask your board this week: do our members know how to open the Scriptures for themselves, and would they call an elder before they ask a search box? If you are not sure, consider a short class this fall on how to read the Bible, and make sure every elder knows how to answer the end-of-life question before it comes. “Always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Pet. 3:15). Prepared people are taught people.