CP giving below previous year’s pace
Year-to-date contributions to Southern Baptist national and international missions and ministries received by the SBC Executive Committee are 2.10 percent below the same time frame last year. As of Aug. 31, gifts received by the Executive Committee for distribution through the Cooperative Program allocation budget totaled $174,475,554, or $3,742,859 behind the $178,218,414 received at the end of August 2010. Designated giving of $186,318,000 for the same year-to-date period is 0.53 percent, or $990,388, below gifts of $187,308,389 received at this point last year.
SD: ‘Existing relationship’ clause upheld
A pregnant woman considering abortion in South Dakota must be informed she “has an existing relationship with that unborn human being,” a federal appeals court has ruled. In its opinion, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, Mo., overturned a federal judge’s decision that had struck down the “relationship advisories” section of South Dakota’s 2005 informed consent law. The law’s supporters, however, fell short of a complete victory in the opinion by the three-judge panel. In a 2-1 split decision, the judges upheld the lower court’s invalidation of a section requiring women to be informed of the risk of suicide from abortion. The dissenting judge said he would have upheld the entire law, including that requirement. The Eighth Circuit’s Sept. 2 ruling in support of a state’s right to inform a woman she has a relationship with the child living in her womb was a victory for pro-life advocates, not only in providing full information for pregnant women but also in establishing protection for unborn children.
All SBC annuals now searchable online
SBC annuals dating to 1845 now are available online in a searchable PDF format following a joint digitization project by the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives and Baylor University Central Libraries. To access the files, visit www.sbhla.org and click on Collections to find “SBC Annuals” on the list. The archives can be searched using names, keywords or phrases. The files are indexed through Google Search and can be located through that search utility as well.
Dick Baker, composer & musician, dies at 84
Richard D. “Dick” Baker, a prolific composer and former minister of music, died Sept. 5 in Plano, Texas. He was 84. Baker began composing songs in 1947 and continued writing throughout his lifetime, publishing more than 300 gospel compositions, with several of them translated into other languages. Baker’s hymns include “All to Thee,” “Longing for Jesus,” “His Way Mine” and “Have You Been to Calvary.”
Primetime cartoons filled with explicit content
Children watching the most popular primetime cable cartoons are exposed to a “shocking” amount of adult content, a new Parents Television Council (PTC) study says. According to a PTC news release, the study, called “Cartoons Are No Laughing Matter,” tracked the animated primetime programming that Nielsen data indicates children ages 12-17 most frequently watch on basic cable: Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, Disney Channel and Nick at Nite. The study found an abundance of sexual content, violence, drug references and depictions, and profanity, mostly on Adult Swim.