S. Craig Sanders

DURHAM, N.C. (BP) – To preach verse-by-verse through Isaiah -- from 2008 until February of this year -- Andy Davis memorized all of the book's 1,292 verses. It's a discipline he developed while working as a mechanical engineer in 1986, several years after becoming a Christian. To this day, fellow students from his doctoral studies at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary recall seeing Davis walk the streets near the campus as he committed entire books of the Bible to memory. When Davis finished his Ph.D. in church history in 1998, he accepted the call as ...

PHOENIX (BP) -- Christian unity should transcend differences on Calvinism, politics and race for the advancement of the Gospel, panelists told more than 800 attendees June 13 at the ninth annual Baptist21 luncheon during the Southern Baptist Convention's meeting in Phoenix. "Our world is going straight to hell and we need to be one in telling people about Jesus and not letting these secondary things divide us," said SBC President Steve Gaines, senior pastor of Memphis-area Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn.

A new book co-edited by two African-American faculty members at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary aims to equip Southern Baptists for healing racial wounds in the denomination, which was founded in 1845 in a split from Northern Baptists so slaveholding families could serve on the mission field.

Let My People Go, an anti-trafficking network founded by Raleigh Sadler, seeks to enlist local churches to help free and restore victims of modern-day slavery.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP) -- Theological reflection must counteract an uncritical approach to technological advancements that threaten human existence, bioethicist C. Ben Mitchell said in a lecture series at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. "We have to reject uncritical consumeristic adoption of digital technologies," said Mitchell, provost, vice president for academic affairs and Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy at Union University in Jackson, Tenn.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP) -- Though he didn't have a personal faith in God, Chad Nuss was incredulous as his father stood firm in atheism before dying from lung complications in 1996. Nuss experienced an existential crisis, sensing that family and friends were wrong when they said that his father was "in a better place." Not having grown up in church, Nuss said his knowledge of God extended only to what he perceived in creation, alluding to Romans 1 in the New Testament.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP) -- With the approaching 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, the need for clarity on the commonalities and differences between Catholics and Protestants grows ever more urgent, according to the authors of "The Unfinished Reformation." Gregg R. Allison, professor of Christian theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Chris Castaldo, lead pastor of New Covenant Church, Naperville, Ill., provide a thorough and careful examination of the issues at stake. Both authors have experience with Catholicism: Allison served with CRU, formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ, at Notre Dame and was a missionary to Italy, and Castaldo was raised Roman Catholic and later converted to evangelicalism.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP) -- Trustees of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary unanimously approved the election of church historian Michael A.G. Haykin to the faculty during their Oct. 10 meeting at the Louisville, Ky., campus. Messengers also approved a response to a motion on SBC entities' media policies referred from the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in June. "The election of Michael Haykin brings to Southern Seminary's permanent faculty a scholar of world renown and a Christian of such wonderful heart," SBTS President ...

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (BP) -- Southern Baptists must sacrifice traditions that hinder biblical unity and intentionally seek new ways to approach missions and evangelism, said panelists at the eighth annual Baptist 21 luncheon June 14, during the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting in St. Louis, Mo. J.D. Greear, pastor of The Summit Church of Raleigh-Durham, N.C., told moderator Jon Akin that he attributed the denominational decline in baptisms to a "loss of evangelistic intentionality," in addition to the lack of reporting churches.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP) -- Trustees of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary unanimously approved all recommendations in the board's April 18 meeting, which included the election of two faculty members, the budget for the 2016-17 academic year, and a $14-million renovation plan for Fuller Hall. n what Southern Seminary is calling a "historic measure," trustees approved the recommendation of its Financial Board for the 2016-17 budget of $48 million, an increase of 9.9 percent over the previous year.