Chicago Tribune religion writer Steve Kloehn looks beyond the headline grabbers at the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)—the ban on female head pastors, the dropping of "the priesthood of the believer" from the denomination's statement of faith—to the largely symbolic resolutions passed at the annual convention. The SBC supported broadcaster Laura Schlessinger, capital punishment, and the use of B.C. and A.D. (instead of B.C.E. and C.E.). It condemned persecution in China and Sudan, fetal-tissue trafficking, and the "judicial oppression of the Boy Scouts of America." But it refused a measure to place Pentecost on the official denomination calendar. "Next they'll want to put Mardi Gras on the calendar," Kloehn quotes one delegate as responding to the proposal.

The president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has an op-ed piece in today's New York Times saying that "Southern Baptists are engaged in a battle against modernity, earnestly contending for the truth and authority of an ancient faith." The denomination is driven toward such actions as limiting the office of pastor to men because it is "applying the brakes" to culture. Mohler's piece is full of catchy lines like "Southern Baptists experience family trouble like everyone else, but at least they know how God intended to order the family" and "If faithfulness requires the slings and arrows of outraged opponents, so be it."

The growing Christian anti-poverty network, now backed by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) and other evangelical groups, ...