Southern Baptist Church

A single student circulated a letter accusing a widely respected, longtime seminary professor of wrong teaching. The jarring result was an extensive investigation involving the interrogation of nearly all the professor's students about his views. The drastic, inquisitorial process at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., flagship of the denomination's ministerial education, reflects the mistrust pervading the country's largest Protestant body.

After the nightmares started, Davien Graham avoided his bicycle. In his dreams, he pedaled his silver BMX bike through his neighborhood, heard gunfire and died. If I stay off my bike, I'll be safe, he thought. He placed it in a backyard shed, where it sat for months. But Jan. 12, 2008, dawned so spectacular that Davien decided to risk it. He ate Cap'n Crunch Berries cereal, grabbed the bike and rode a half-mile west to Calvary Grace, a Southern Baptist church that was his haven.

Michael D'Antonio's piece on the division in the Southern Baptist Church ("The Great Divide," Nov. 17) is a scathing portrait of the theological disease known as fundamentalism. Their ministers preach exactly what their congregations want to hear, that Jesus only loves white, conservative, married, heterosexual people with two children. WILLIAM H. ALEXANDER Redondo Beach

The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination, has approved an alternative name that will allow churches to distance themselves from the organization's past ties to slavery and racism. Great Commission Baptists, the alternative name, was endorsed by 53% of the 4,800 ballots cast at the convention's annual meeting in New Orleans, officials said. The change marks another step in the predominantly white denomination's efforts to become more inclusive.

Funeral services for the Rev. Laurence L. Hammond, a 22-year resident of the Cypress-La Palma area, were conducted this week at First Southern Baptist Church of Lakewood, his family said Friday. Hammond died Monday at Los Alamitos Hospital of an apparent heart attack, his wife, Madge, said. He was 66. Burial services were on Thursday at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Cypress.

The Rev. Jess Moody, a large-framed Southern Baptist preacher with visions as big as his native Texas, put his brand of evangelical churchmanship on the San Fernando Valley for 19 years before retiring in 1995. Moody arrived in 1976 to pastor the First Baptist Church of Van Nuys, an independent congregation with some 10,000 members. Eight years before, he established Palm Beach Atlantic College while pastor of a Southern Baptist church in Florida.

The Southern Baptist threat of a boycott against Walt Disney Co. businesses over gay-rights issues this week was not welcomed by conservative Christians in the San Fernando Valley who minister to people working at Burbank-based Disney and other entertainment companies. "A lot of good people at Disney are going to be affected," said actor Robert Hanley, who founded the Encino-based Entertainment Fellowship, which is expanding to six Catholic parishes.

Re "Baptist Group Rebukes Disney, Urges Boycott," June 13: It is a shame the very people who try to teach the word of God are sending the message of hate, discrimination, separatism, bigotry and conditional love. I thought the church was to teach love, understanding and unity. It is time to ignore these vicious individuals who obviously think their way is the only way. I feel that organizations such as the Southern Baptist Church have no understanding as to what makes up a homosexual person.

The Southern Baptist Convention in Dallas on Wednesday overwhelmingly declared a sweeping boycott of the Walt Disney Co., for decades the symbol of innocent family amusement, to protest what delegates called the entertainment giant's "gay-friendly" policies. Delegates urged the 15.7 million Southern Baptists--the largest Protestant denomination in the United States--to "refrain from patronizing the Disney Co.

California's Southern Baptists will urge their 430,000 members to boycott Walt Disney Co. products, alleging the company has turned its back on family values. About 800 delegates of the denomination's 56th annual state convention met Wednesday in Pasadena and passed a resolution asking members to shun Disney theme parks, movies and merchandise to protest Disney's adult-themed entertainment and gay-friendly employment policies. The Rev.

For delegates attending the national conventions of three mainline denominations, the last two weeks have been an intense period, a time to debate hot-button issues and make difficult choices over who can best lead their churches. Combined, the Southern Baptist, Presbyterian and Episcopal churches represent more than 20 million Americans. The three clergy elected to head the churches are all relatively unknown faces on the national religious scene -- and all are surprise choices.

The sermon at Glendale Baptist Church one recent Sunday recalled how Jesus mingled with tax collectors and prostitutes, refusing to snub people for the unpopular things they did. "What does it mean that God's love is for everyone?" asked Eileen Campbell-Reed, a member of the congregation and doctoral student in religion. "What will happen when we move from the center to the margins, and make friends ... with those that our society smugly thinks of as the disinherited and marginalized?

The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination, spent much of its annual gathering this week defending the right of evangelicals to proclaim their religion as the only path to salvation. "There are forces that attempt to silence us, who say, 'Don't intrude on our lives,' " said the Rev. Jack Graham, the Southern Baptist president. "We cannot resist the love and the call of God to penetrate our world."

The Southern Baptist Convention announced a new initiative Tuesday to convince gays that they can become heterosexual if they accept Jesus Christ as their savior and reject their "sinful, destructive lifestyle." At the denomination's annual meeting, leaders urged their more than 42,000 churches nationwide to reach out compassionately to gays with a message about how Christianity can save them.

The Tennessee Baptist Convention has severed ties with a Baptist church that appointed a lesbian pastor. Laurann Whetham, president of the Tennessee Baptist Convention, said Glendale Baptist Church went too far by placing a homosexual in a leadership position. Associate Pastor April Baker, who told church leaders she was a lesbian, is the only full-time ministerial staffer at Glendale, which has about 200 members. The Baptist Convention voted May 30 to eject the church from the association.

A shortfall in contributions has forced the Southern Baptist International Mission Board to cut 61 jobs, a week after the Richmond-based agency said it was limiting the number of new missionaries it would send overseas through next year. The board said it notified 37 staff members that their jobs were being eliminated. The board said it also planned to cut some positions that were vacant. Before the cuts, the agency had about 500 jobs.

When James Chiu moved to Anaheim 18 years ago, he had to drive to Los Angeles to buy a Chinese-language newspaper and to shop in a Chinese grocery. Finding a church where he could worship in his native language was just as difficult. Now, Chiu can drive to Westminster or Garden Grove to shop. His spiritual needs, and those of hundreds of other Chinese-Americans who are Christian, are met at the church that he started, the Chinese Baptist Church of Orange County.

Never mind that Chuck Erikson is 75 and still limping from knee surgery. There's a crisis afoot -- hungry people in war-torn Iraq -- and so the longtime Southern Baptist has whirled into action, just as he's done ever since he retired more than a decade ago to devote his life to disaster relief. At Chapman Avenue Baptist Church in Garden Grove this week, Erikson coordinated Southern California contributions to his denomination's national campaign to collect food boxes for needy Iraqis.

The Southern Baptist Convention has told its overseas missionaries they have until May 5 to affirm the denomination's revised statement of faith -- a document that opposes female pastors and says wives should submit to their husbands -- or they could be fired. The message was directed at a couple of dozen holdouts, since nearly all the denomination's 5,500 missionaries already have agreed to support the 2000 Baptist Faith & Message, said the Rev.