Southern Baptists

A coalition of Chicago religious leaders has asked Southern Baptists to reconsider plans to bring a massive evangelistic effort to the city next summer.

Religious leaders are asking Southern Baptists to reconsider a plan to bring thousands of missionaries to Chicago next summer. Members of an interdenominational group say they fear the campaign could set off violence against Jews, Hindus and Muslims, whom the Southern Baptists hope to convert to Christianity.

Southern Baptists have been asked to pray that Jews accept Jesus as the Messiah during Judaism's High Holy Days, a move denounced by Jewish leaders as arrogant and offensive. To coincide with the High Holy Days, which began Friday night, the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board published a new prayer booklet intended to guide church members "as they intercede with God on behalf of his chosen people," according to Baptist Press, the denomination's official news service.

The president of the Southern Baptists has called on members to recruit in inner cities and shun "touchy-touchy, feely-feely" worship and creative biblical interpretation. The Baptists, the nation's largest Protestant denomination, recently wrapped up their annual convention at which they endorsed an ambitious plan to evangelize in the nation's cities--a departure for an overwhelmingly white church whose members are found mostly in suburbs, small towns and rural areas--particularly in the South.

A Baptist congregation has decided to sever ties with the Southern Baptist Convention after years of unhappiness over the denomination's increasingly conservative policies. Members of Wake Forest Baptist Church voted in January to end its affiliation with the convention, but the congregation did not make the vote public until Tuesday because of recent publicity over its stand on same-sex ceremonies. "We wanted the community to know where we stand," said the Rev.

Saying they didn't want same-sex marriages performed in their churches, Southern Baptists in Columbus, Ga., voted to exclude congregations that "endorse" homosexuality. The Rev. J. Gerald Harris, new president of the denomination's state convention, said Southern Baptists welcome gay individuals but can't allow churches to advocate their behavior.

The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's second-largest Christian denomination, raised eyebrows with the announcement that it had amended its official statement of beliefs to declare that wives must "submit graciously" to the leadership of their husbands, just as the church "willingly submits to the headship of Christ."