Godbeat

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Among Southern Baptists, as well: More adults are converting, and getting baptized

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Among Southern Baptists, as well: More adults are converting, and getting baptized

Back in the Southern Baptist Convention's boom years, from the 1960s to 2010, the experts charting baptism statistics divided "children" into three groups -- starting with those under age 6.

Behind the scenes, there were discussions about when children reached the "age of accountability" and could make mature professions of faith in Jesus Christ, leading to "believer's baptism" by full immersion in water. As with many other doctrinal issues, this was settled by local-church leaders. The same was true when adults asked to be rebaptized, for various reasons.

"At the end of the day, when someone says they've decided to give their life to Christ, the local church is going to let them symbolize that by being baptized," noted Scott McConnell, executive director of Lifeway Research. "That's what Baptists do. That's who we are."

Obviously, Baptists pay close attention to baptism statistics, along with trends with church attendance and membership. In a new report, Lifeway dug into Southern Baptist Convention Annual Church Profile numbers for 2025 and reported that baptisms rose for the fifth consecutive year.

Baptist leaders quickly noted another current trend -- adults 30 and older represented 33% of all baptisms. That was higher than the baptism of those 12-17 (25%), children before age 12 (22%) and young adults between 18-29 (20%). In the past, it was common for the baptism of minors to be two-thirds of the total, noted McConnell, reached by telephone.

The "seismic development" in these numbers is the consistently rising number of conversions among Americans over age 18, noted the Rev. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

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Looking at today's Las Vegas through Southern Baptist missionary eyes

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Looking at today's Las Vegas through Southern Baptist missionary eyes

Say the word "Vegas" and most travelers think about the 30-plus casinos and resorts along the 4.2-mile stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard known as "The Strip."

The Southern Baptist "City Missionary" for Las Vegas thinks about a different set of numbers -- the 30 churches the denomination's Send Network has planted in this desert valley in the past decade. There are nearly 100 SBC churches in greater Las Vegas and 177 in Nevada.

"It's hard to narrow Las Vegas down into some kind of majority culture that fits the stereotypes. … This place is multiethnic, multicultural and we have people who are dealing with all kinds of issues and sins," said the Rev. Heiden Ratner, 37, who leads the WALK Church, a 10-year-old congregation with about 1,100 worshippers.

"Las Vegas is pretty much pre-Christian, and what I mean by that is that there has never been a revival that has swept through this city. When I was growing up here, there wasn't a single Sunday morning that I woke up and thought, 'Maybe I should go to church.' Never.”

Obviously, the Strip has not vanished, and its "Sin City" label remains relevant. The Nevada Gaming Control Board reported $8.82 billion in Gross Gaming Revenue (what operators keep after payouts) for the Strip in 2025. But the world has changed. Researchers struggle to describe online gambling today -- from $100 billion global GGR in 2025 to a Gaming Compliance International estimate of $5.9 trillion in unregulated activity.

For decades, Ratner noted, Las Vegas couldn't land big-league football, baseball, basketball and hockey because of gambling. Now the city has teams in three of the four sports, and the National Basketball Association may be next. The city hosted its first Super Bowl in 2024 and the game returns in 2029.

"That kind of credibility is leading all kinds of people and corporations to take a second look at this city," he said.

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Catholic bishop, in public letter, urges Pope Leo XIV to offer doctrinal clarity -- now

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Catholic bishop, in public letter, urges Pope Leo XIV to offer doctrinal clarity -- now

Cardinals, archbishops and bishops have many ways to communicate with Vatican officials and even the pope himself, outside of occasional personal meetings.

In the digital age, one blunt way to reach Pope Leo XIV is to write a candid letter and post it online. That's what Bishop Robert Mutsaerts of the Netherlands, auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of 's-Hertogenbosch, did recently.

"Holy Father," he began, with "reverence for the office entrusted to you as successor of Saint Peter, and in communion with the Church which Christ built upon the apostles, I address you with this open letter. I don't do so lightly."

What followed was one bishop's heart cry for the pope to speak candidly about why believers should cling to ancient truths, even while struggling with the riptides of modern life.

Peter, the first pope, "received from Christ not only the commission to unite the brothers, but also to strengthen them in the faith," wrote Mutsaerts. "Ultimately, the world gains little from a Church that merely repeats what the world itself already thinks."

After years of "synodality" meetings built on dialogue with modern Catholics and church critics, the bishop offered hard questions: "Not: how many reports were written? Not: how many people participated? But: has faith become stronger? Has Christ been proclaimed more clearly? Has Catholic identity deepened? Have more people come to convert? Is Sunday Mass better attended? Are there more priestly vocations? …Has greater reverence for the Eucharist emerged? Has the moral teaching of the Church become clearer? Has missionary courage increased?"

The auxiliary bishop's superior, Bishop Gerard Johannes Nicolaus de Korte, quickly distanced himself from these words, while debates continued online.

The context for the Mutsaerts letter is larger than headline grabbing debates about the use of the Latin Mass, bleak attendance trends in Western nations, Catholic politicians clashing with church teachings and same-sex union blessings in many European Catholic churches.

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Once upon a time, most churches had "choirs" and there were even "choir directors"

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Once upon a time, most churches had "choirs" and there were even "choir directors"

For most of the 20th century, the typical American church had a room containing rows of chairs, shelves stacked with music and cabinets full of robes and contrasting stoles for sopranos, altos, tenors and basses of various sizes.

This was a "choir room" and these singers were led by a "choir director."

Times have changed. These days, most up-to-date churches have "praise bands," with a few skilled vocalists, guitarists, drummers and keyboardists with stacks of synthesizers. And most church members have smartphone calendars with zero room left for a choir.

"It's often about time, now more than ever, especially for 20- and 30-somethings. A lot of them have children, but people had children in the '60s," said Mark Cabaniss, president and CEO of the Jubilate Music Group, near Nashville. "That was a different era and a different world. It's hard to even get kids into children's choirs, today. … They're too busy playing soccer or T-ball or whatever."

Cabaniss has directed choirs for 40 years, while composing and arranging music for ensembles of all kinds. He joined a choir at age 6 and began directing church choirs in college.

"You have to be very sensitive to people's time," he stressed, reached by Zoom. "The days of two-hour rehearsals are over. Even a 90-minute one is a tough stretch. … It's all about time, time, time, if you're trying to recruit people into the choir."

While the COVID years were a disaster, the trends -- shrinking choirs, with mic'd up praise bands on stage -- had been clear for several decades.

In 1998, the National Congregations Study said the number of U.S. churches with choirs was already down to 50%, noted Will Whittaker, writing for Baptist News Global. He is the author of the book "Cultivating Intergenerational Worship."

Churches with choirs fell to 40% by 2019 -- before the pandemic.

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Anglican Church of Canada offers new liturgies to bless Medically Assisted Dying

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Anglican Church of Canada offers new liturgies to bless Medically Assisted Dying

Gathered near the patient, the priest helps the worshipers prepare for Holy Communion, using a new liturgy prepared by the Anglican Church of Canada.

The text offers this introduction: "We gather today in a space that may be foreign to us. There are sounds, lights, and activity outside of this room that can distract and take us away from this space. But God meets us here, in this time and place, a thin-space that is sacred. We gather as friends and family [and health care professionals] with our hopes, our dreams, and our differences.

"While some of us may not always agree with the choices of others, we are united in our common love and compassion for [name]. May we know the presence of God as we pray together. … May God's purpose steady us."

The Divine Liturgy text openly discusses tensions that loom over this rite, since it is drawn from "Pastoral Liturgies at the Time of Death in Contexts of Medically Assisted Dying," approved in June by the denomination's Council of General Synod.

The document's preamble tells clergy: "Medical Assistance in Dying evokes strong and opposing views amongst some persons and communities, including amongst health care providers and amongst Anglican Christians. Some Christians, including clergy, find that MAiD violates their understanding of the ethical values to which Christians are called. …

"The Anglican Church of Canada is not of one voice on the topic, but leaders generally are in agreement that the Church has a duty of pastoral care to all. … Regardless of how people arrive at the decisions they do regarding their end-of-life plans, all persons should be able to call upon the pastoral ministry of the church at the time of their dying."

The Medical Assistance in Dying option was legalized in 2016 and many Canadians -- over age 18, eligible for public health care, with a grievous condition and mentally competent to grant consent -- have allowed medical professionals to end their lives. At the end of 2024, Health Canada officials reported 76,475 approved MAiD procedures.

The Anglican Church of Canada is a poignant church to develop these liturgies, since it has already lost 75% of its membership since the 1960s.

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New rites and painful old wrongs as tattoo culture spreads in modern America

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New rites and painful old wrongs as tattoo culture spreads in modern America

Struggling with the loss of her child, a mother asked Father Peter Jon Gillquist a question that pastors are hearing more often -- about getting a tattoo.

"When her child died," he explained, she "wanted to have the child's name tattooed across her heart. Why? Grief. She wanted to always carry the name of that child as close to her heart as she could possibly get … and bear it."

Getting, or keeping, a tattoo is "not a legalistic thing," he said, during a forum recorded at All Saints Orthodox Church, his parish in Bloomington, Indiana. "The question is, 'If you have a tattoo, why do you have a tattoo? What is it for?' "

Searchers find clashing answers online. Many believers quote Leviticus: "You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh … nor tattoo any marks on you." Others note this biblical instruction to the Corinthians: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God?"

Some believers, noted Gillquist, argue that since their body is a temple, they can decorate it. Others say tattoos are linked to paganism or, in the Roman world, represented punishment, torture or identity, such as markings on soldiers or slaves.

For some Christians, such as Egyptian Copts, tattoos -- inked on wrists -- are more than symbols. Cross tattoos tell persecutors: To remove these crosses you will have to cut our wrists.

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Baseball cap wars: Can the biblical rainbow coexist with a Pride Night rainbow?

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Baseball cap wars: Can the biblical rainbow coexist with a Pride Night rainbow?

After the great flood in the Book of Genesis, God offered a timeless symbol of hope.

The Bible says God promised: "I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever … the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life."

Nevertheless, clashing rainbow symbols recently created a storm in Major League Baseball when powers wielded by team owners clashed with the religious beliefs of players.

The big question: Can the biblical rainbow coexist on the same Pride Night baseball cap with the today's rainbow celebrating LGBTQ+ rights?

This controversy raised legitimate First Amendment issues, but also helped clarify the workplace rights of employers, said Hal Frampton, senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom and director of the group's Center for Conscience Initiatives.

The clash between MLB leaders and several San Francisco Giants pitchers "was about both issues, really," he said, reached by telephone. "It was about not being discriminated against" in the workplace, especially if there were questions about whether an employer was "enforcing a rule consistently," or only enforcing it when there was "religious expression that was seen as troublesome" to employers.

The firestorm began when Giants starting pitcher Landen Roupp, along with relievers J.T. Brubaker and Ryan Walker, wrote Bible verse references -- variations on Genesis 9: 12-16 -- next to the rainbow logo on their Pride Night caps. Relief pitcher Sam Hentges chose to wear his standard black-and-orange Giants cap, without the rainbow logo.

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Memory eternal: Wichita's smiling bookstore hero is gone, but his dream lives on

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Memory eternal: Wichita's smiling bookstore hero is gone, but his dream lives on

Theologians will travel far and wide searching for the perfect book, but few would think to shop near the Flint Hills of Eastern Kansas. 

Metropolitan Saba Esper, leader of the Antiochian Orthodox archdiocese in North America, was searching for a rare book by Oliver Clément of Paris -- the translation of a complex work written in French. While in Wichita two years ago, he went to Eighth Day Books to consult with owner Warren Farha.

"He smiled with his familiar joy, went to a far corner of the bookstore, and brought it to me. I could hardly imagine that he would have it -- yet there it was, in English," said the archbishop, in a letter read to mourners who filled the Cathedral of St. George for the May 26 funeral rites for Farha.

Metropolitan Saba, originally from Syria, first encountered Farha during a 1995 trip to America that included a lengthy stay in Wichita.

"I was struck by his bright and cheerful face, which seemed to tell you that he came to you from a world purer and more radiant than the one in which we live," he added. "His warm smile, his spontaneous innocence, his quiet voice, and his remarkable calm -- these were all signs of God's presence within him and indications of a light descending upon him from on high."

Farha was more than an entrepreneur who built what the New York Times once described as a touchstone that "serves as a secret handshake among Christian book lovers, and its following reaches far beyond the heartland city it serves." It became a hub for conferences and projects with traditional Catholics, Lutherans and the Orthodox.

In an age of cookie-cutter chains and Internet stores, Eighth Day Books only sells books that its team truly wants visitors to read. The shelves are packed and floors stacked with around 46,000 books on its three stories and in the "Hobbit Hole" basement for children.

Farha was constantly asked if he was running a "Christian bookstore."

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Concerning God, UFOs, angels, demons and centuries of mystery

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Concerning God, UFOs, angels, demons and centuries of mystery

For centuries, stargazers of many kinds have debated the meaning of unidentified objects in the heavens and encounters with mysterious beings on earth.

"Each new discovery, even every new theory, is held at first to have the most wide-reaching theological and philosophical consequences. It is seized by unbelievers as the basis for a new attack on Christianity," noted Oxford don C.S. Lewis, in a 1958 essay, "Will We Lose God in Outer Space?" This was years after the Christian apologist finished his science-fiction trilogy that imagined contacts between humanity and extraterrestrials. 

After the "novelty has been chewed over by real theologians, real scientists and real philosophers, both sides find themselves pretty much where they were before," Lewis added. The big question remains: Are there other beings with "what we call 'rational souls'?"

In 2014, the Jesuit brother Guy Consolmagno wrote a book with this title, "Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial?" He stated, with "whatever authority I have as a scientist and as one of the 'Official Astronomers' at the Vatican Observatory: Neither I, nor anyone I know, has any evidence that extraterrestrials exist."

The latest media storm was triggered by this Truth Social post by President Donald Trump: "Based on the tremendous interest shown, I will be directing the Secretary of War, and other relevant Departments and Agencies, to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters. GOD BLESS AMERICA!"

The first release included 170-plus files, beginning in the 1940s, ranging from encounters reported by farmers to videos filmed by U.S. military pilots.