Saddleback was among five churches with female pastors who were deemed “no longer in friendly cooperation” with the denomination at a meeting of the SBC Executive Committee in Nashville on Tuesday. The Lake Forest, California, congregation ordained three women from the stage in May 2021, a decision that rattled some Southern Baptists who believe the role of pastor is reserved for men. Then last year, Saddleback selected Andy Wood as Rick Warren’s successor and the church’s lead pastor, and his wife Stacie Wood came on as a teaching pastor. (Shellnutt, Christianity Today)
Read MoreSeattle leaders voted to ban discrimination by caste, a hierarchical system going back thousands of years in India that some South Asians say has affected them in the U.S. Seattle’s City Council added caste as a category to its antidiscrimination laws in a 6-1 vote Tuesday. (Ansari, The Wall Street Journal)
Read MoreIn a case with the potential to alter the very structure of the internet, the Supreme Court did not appear ready on Tuesday to limit a law that protects social media platforms from lawsuits over their users’ posts. (Liptak, The New York Times)
Read MoreThe Gallup survey of 2022 data also shows that the number of U.S adults who identified as LGBTQ has more than doubled in a decade: In 2012, Gallup found that 3.5% of U.S. adults said they were LGBTQ. That number surged to 7.1% in 2021 before holding steady last year. The fact that the numbers stabilized in 2022 after recent dramatic jumps is not unexpected, Gallup Senior Editor Jeff Jones told USA TODAY. (Miller, USA Today)
Read MoreTIU announced on Friday plans to move its undergraduate program fully online following the end of the semester, among the first Christian colleges to shut down in-person learning as a result of the “new reality” facing higher ed. The Deerfield, Illinois, institution—which includes a graduate school and law school in addition to an influential evangelical seminary, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS)—will continue to offer in-person education through its divinity school in Illinois and law school in California. (McClellan, Christianity Today)
Read MoreAfter an estimated 50,000 Christian worshippers, celebrity pastors and onlookers flocked to a rolling revival meeting at Asbury University over the past 13 days, the school’s administration announced a new, limited schedule for prayer services in hopes of restoring order to the campus in this tiny Central Kentucky town. (Morgan, Religion News Service)
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