3,567 churches represented at SBC
Official registration figures for the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in San Antonio were recently released July 12 by SBC registration secretary Jim Wells. Texas Baptists sent the largest number of messengers, 1,605, of the 8,630 who registered. Texans comprised 18.52 percent of the registration. Other leading states were Tennessee, with 653 messengers (7.6 percent); North Carolina, 627 (7.3 percent); Georgia, 602 (7 percent); and Florida, 525 (6.1 percent). South Carolina tallied 428. Last year’s SBC registration total in Greensboro, N.C., was 11,639.
CP: 2.7 percent ahead of last year
Year-to-date contributions through the Southern Baptist Convention’s Cooperative Program are 2.71 percent ahead of the same time frame in 2006. As of July 31, the year-to-date total of $172,141,653 for CP missions is $4,539,069 ahead of the $167,602,584 received at the same point in 2006. For the month, receipts of $17,166,646 were 5.14 percent, or $838,536, ahead of the $16,328,109 received in July 2006. Designated giving of $195,565,394 for the same year-to-date period is 6.99 percent, or $12,785,048, above gifts of $182,780,345 received at this point last year. The $8,930,590 in designated gifts received last month is $913,016 below, the $9,843,607 received in July 2006, a decrease of 9.28 percent.
Tablet linked to obscure O.T. figure found
British Museum officials announced recently the discovery of a two-inch-wide, 2,500-year-old cuneiform tablet that contains details of a financial transaction by a “Nabu-sharrussu-ukin,” who is called in the tablet the “chief eunuch” of Babylon King Nebuchadnezzar. That’s the same person mentioned in Jeremiah 39:3 as the chief officer of Nebuchadnezzar who was in Jerusalem when the Babylonians overtook the city around 587 B.C. Conservative biblical scholars say it’s another affirmation that the Bible is true. “This is a fantastic discovery, a world-class find,” the British Museum’s Irving Finkel said, according to The London Telegraph. “If Nebo-Sarsekim existed, which other lesser figures in the Old Testament existed? A throwaway detail in the Old Testament turns out to be accurate and true. I think that it means that the whole of the narrative takes on a new kind of power.”
‘JESUS’ film now in 1,000 languages
The “JESUS” film reached a major milestone in July when it debuted in its 1,000th language, Lanka Kol, spoken by more than 1 million people in India. As the most translated film in movie history, the JESUS film outpaces translations of blockbusters like “Gone with the Wind,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Star Wars,” “Titanic” and “The Lion King” combined, according to a news release. The JESUS film, produced by Campus Crusade for Christ, opened in theaters in the United States in 1979 and has achieved more than 6 billion viewings worldwide. More than 200 million decisions for Christ have been made as a result of the film. Project coordinators have plans to continue translating the JESUS film into 500 new languages. That includes every language with more than 100,000 speakers.
Creation Museum passes 100,000 mark
Open for less than two months, the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky., just outside of Cincinnati, received its 100,000th visitor July 21 and is on pace to break its own projection for first-year attendance. The high-tech, $27 million, 60,000-square-foot museum and planetarium – both of which present a scientific view of the biblical creation account – opened Memorial Day weekend to large crowds and hasn’t slowed much since. Initial projections by museum officials were for attendance to be in the range of 250,000 this year. But that may be surpassed.
Iraqi religious minorities continue to suffer
Conditions for religious minorities in Iraq “have deteriorated very considerably” in the last three to four months, the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) was told recently. The panel heard testimony July 25 about the plight of Chaldo-Assyrian Christians and other minorities in the first Washington hearing involving representatives of those communities. The witnesses’ testimonies also seemed to affirm the USCIRF decision in May to place Iraq on a “watch list” because of the “alarming and deteriorating situation for freedom of religion and belief,” as described by the commission. Andrew White, vicar of St. George’s Anglican Church in Baghdad, told the commission that members of religious minorities have been kidnapped, tortured and killed. When White visited with his Iraqi congregation two weeks before, he learned 36 of his parishioners had been kidnapped in the previous week, he testified. Witnesses provided the following estimates on the extent of the persecution of Christians: As much as 50 percent of the Iraqi Christian population has fled the country, and more than 30 churches have been destroyed.