5 facts about the Cooperative Program
By / Apr 9

Southern Baptists comprise a fellowship of nearly 16 million members in more than 45,000 churches in the United States and Canada. These churches work together through approximately 1,174 associations, 42 state conventions, and the Southern Baptist Convention to accomplish through voluntary cooperation far more than they could ever do alone. One of the ways they coordinate their efforts is through the Cooperative Program.

Here are five facts about one of evangelicalism’s most fruitful ventures:

1. To help cover the costs of expanding ministry opportunities, leaders of the SBC proposed, in 1919, the 75 Million Campaign, a five-year pledge campaign. The campaign was designed to fund the missions and ministries of all the state conventions as well as that of the Southern Baptist Convention. Although that program fell short of its goal, it led to the launching of the Cooperative Program in 1925.

2. The definition of Cooperative Program, as adopted by the messengers to the SBC annual meeting, is: “… Southern Baptists' unified plan of giving through which cooperating Southern Baptist churches give a percentage of their undesignated receipts in support of their respective state convention and the Southern Baptist Convention missions and ministries."

3. How the Cooperative Program works: Individuals provide tithes and offerings to their local church, and the participating churches forward a portion of their undesignated funds to their state Baptist convention. During the annual meeting of each state convention, messengers from local churches across the state decide what percentage of Cooperative Program gifts contributed by local congregations stays within the state to support local missions and ministries, and what percentage is to be forwarded to the Southern Baptist Convention for North American and international missions. At the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting, messengers from across the country decide how the gifts received from the states will be distributed among SBC entities.

4. Funds for the Cooperative Program are used to finance the North American Mission Board (namb.net),  International Mission Board (imb.org), the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), and the six Southern Baptist seminaries in America (Southern, Southeastern, Midwestern, Southwestern, Golden Gate, and New Orleans). (Although they receive no Cooperative Program support, LifeWay Christian Resources, Guidestone Financial Resources and the Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU) actively promote Cooperative Program in publications and missions resources.)

5. Cooperating Southern Baptist churches contributed $481,409,006 in Cooperative Program contributions through their respective state Baptist conventions in 2011-2012. Of this amount, $186,640,481 (38.77 percent of all CP contributions) was forwarded to the SBC for support of the Southern Baptist Convention missions and ministries. Of that amount 73 percent went to world missions, 22 percent to theological education, three percent to the SBC operation budget, and 1.65 percent to ERLC.

5 facts about substance abuse in america
By / Mar 19

This weekend many churches in America will observe Substance Abuse Prevention Sunday. In preparation for the observance, here are five facts you should know about the most commonly abused substances in America.

1. Alcohol is the most commonly abused – and most deadly — drug in America —  In 2012, 71 percent of Americans reported they drank in the past year; 56.3 percent reported that they drank in the past month. An estimated 17 million Americans have an alcohol use disorder — a medical term that includes both alcoholism and harmful drinking that does not reach the level of dependence. Each year in the U.S., nearly 80,000 people die from alcohol-related causes, making it the third leading preventable cause of death in our country.

2. Binge Drinking is common – especially among the elderly and the wealthy. – Binge drinking is the consumption of alcoholic beverages with the primary intention of becoming intoxicated in a short period of time. One in six U.S. adults binge drinks about four times a month, consuming about eight drinks per binge. While binge drinking is more common among young adults aged 18–34 years, binge drinkers aged 65 years and older report binge drinking more often — an average of five to six times a month. Binge drinking is also more common among those with household incomes of $75,000 or more than among those with lower incomes.

3. Alcohol abuse is a primary factor in injuries, assaults, and deaths among adolescents —More adolescents drink alcohol than smoke cigarettes or use marijuana. By age 15, more than 50 percent of teens have had at least one drink and the effects are frequently detrimental. Researchers estimate that each year 1,825 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die from alcohol-related unintentional injuries, including motor vehicle crashes; 696,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 are assaulted by another student who has been drinking; and 97,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 are victims of alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape.

4. After alcohol, marijuana has the highest rate of dependence or abuse among all drugs —In 2012, 4.3 million Americans met clinical criteria for dependence or abuse of marijuanain the past year—more than twice the number for dependence/abuse of prescription pain relievers (2.1 million) and four times the number for dependence/abuse of cocaine (1.1 million).

5. Most drug overdose deaths were caused by prescription drugs —Nearly three out of four prescription drug overdoses are caused by prescription painkillers—also called opioid pain relievers. The unprecedented rise in overdose deaths in the U.S. parallels a 300 percent increase since 1999 in the sale of these strong painkillers. These drugs were involved in 14,800 overdose deaths in 2008, more than cocaine and heroin combined.

5 facts about global Christianity in 2015
By / Feb 26

Each year the International Bulletin of Missionary Research lays out in summary form an annual update of significant religious statistics. Here are five sets of facts you should know from their latest report:

1. Global population by religion: 

Christians – 2.38 billion
Muslims – 1.7 billion
Hindu – 1 billion
atheists – 136 million
Jews – 14 million
(Unevangelized population – 2.1 billion; Unevangelized as % of world: 29.2 percent.)

2. Membership by 6 ecclesiastical megablocs:

Catholics – 1.2 billion
Protestants – 441 million
Independents – 407 million
Orthodox – 280 million
Anglicans – 92 million
Unaffiliated Christians – 110 million

3. Number of Christians by 6 continents, 21 UN regions: 

Africa (5 regions) – 520 million
Asia (4 regions) – 368 million
Europe (including Russia; 4 regions) – 561 million
Latin America (3 regions) – 562 million
Northern America (1 region) – 229 million
Oceania (4 regions) – 25 million

4. Christian organizations:  

Denominations – 45,000
Congregations – 4.7 million
Service agencies – 30,000
Foreign-mission sending agencies – 5,000

5. Scripture distribution (all sources, per year): 

Bibles – 80 million
Scriptures including gospels, selections – 5 billion
Bible density (copies in place) – 1.8 billion

5 facts about vaccines
By / Feb 5

Vaccines have proven to be one of humankind’s greatest inventions and the single most powerful and effective way of reducing disease and improving global health. Here are five facts you should know about vaccines:

1. When a critical portion of a community is immunized against a contagious disease (typically between 85-95 percent), the remaining members are also protected because there is little opportunity for an outbreak. Even those who are not eligible for certain vaccines—such as infants, pregnant women, or immunocompromised individuals (e.g., children with leukemia)—get some protection because the spread of contagious disease is contained. This is known as "community immunity" or “herd immunity” and is the primary benefit of vaccines both to individuals and to society.

2. For each virus, statisticians are able to calculate the minimum percentage of community immunity necessary to achieve herd immunity and prevent an outbreak. Though we only need about 85 percent of the community to have immunity to rubella, smallpox, and diphtheria to prevent an outbreak, diseases such as whooping cough (pertussis) and measles require at least 94 percent immunity. This is why public health experts argue that exemptions to vaccinations should be limited to those who are unable to vaccinate because of health reasons. When parents refuse to vaccinate their children for philosophical reasons, they increase the risk of disease exposure for the entire community.

3. Annual use of recommended vaccines for children has been estimated to avert up to 3 million deaths per year globally, with even greater numbers of prevented cases of illness and substantial disability. For children born in the U.S. in 2009, routine childhood immunization will prevent an estimated 42,000 early deaths and 20 million cases of disease, with savings of $13.5 billion indirect costs and $68.8 billion in societal costs.

4. In 2011, the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences and an independent, nonprofit organization that works outside of government to provide unbiased and authoritative advice to decision makers and the public, performed an analysis of more than 1,000 research articles on vaccines. The analysis by a committee of experts concluded that few health problems are caused by or clearly associated with vaccines.

The review of possible adverse effects of vaccines found convincing evidence of 14 health outcomes—including seizures, inflammation of the brain, and fainting—that can be caused by certain vaccines, although these outcomes occur rarely. In addition, the evidence shows there are no links between immunization and some serious conditions that have raised concerns, including Type 1 diabetes and autism.  

5. Despite nearly thirty years of research, there has been no causal connection established between vaccinations and autism. However, the claim that vaccines caused autism was given credence in 1998 by the publication of a fraudulent research paper in the British medical journal The Lancet.

That paper was later retracted when it was discovered that the chief researcher, a British surgeon named Andrew Wakefield, had manipulated the data and failed to disclose that he had been paid more than $600,000 by lawyers looking to win a lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers. Wakefield also was found to have committed numerous breaches in medical ethics, including using some of the children named in the lawsuit in his study. In May 2010, British regulators revoked Wakefield’s license, finding him guilty of “serious professional misconduct.” They concluded that his work was “irresponsible and dishonest” and that he had shown a "callous disregard" for the children in his study.

Despite being discredited for fraud and unethical conduct, Wakefield is still considered the primary source and champion for those who erroneously believe in the connection between autism and vaccines.

5 facts about Martin Luther King, Jr.
By / Jan 15

Next Monday Americans will observe Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a United States federal holiday marking the birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It is observed on the third Monday of January each year, which is around the time of King's birthday, January 15.

Here are five facts you should know about MLK:

1. King's literary and rhetorical masterpiece was his 1963 open letter "The Negro Is Your Brother," better known as the "Letter From Birmingham Jail." The letter, written while King was being held for a protest in the city, was a response to a statement made by eight white Alabama clergymen titled "A Call for Unity." An editor at the New York Times Magazine, Harvey Shapiro, asked King to write his letter for publication in the Magazine, though the Times chose not to publish it.

2. In 1964, King became the second African American — and the third black man — to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

3. A decade before he was assassinated, King was nearly stabbed to death in Harlem when a mentally ill African-American woman who believed he was conspiring against her with communists, stabbed him in the chest with a letter opener. He underwent emergency surgery, and remained hospitalized for several weeks but made a full recovery. The doctor who performed the operation said, "Had Dr. King sneezed or coughed the weapon would have penetrated the aorta. . . . He was just a sneeze away from death"

4. On April 4, 1968, King was assassinated by the #277 man on the FBI's Most Wanted Fugitives list. In 1967, James Earl Ray escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary by hiding in a truck transporting bread from the prison bakery. After being convicted for the murder of King Ray was sentenced to 99 years in Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. In 1977, Ray became the #351 on the FBI's Most Wanted Fugitives list after he and six other convicts escaped from the prison. He was recaptured three days later and given another year in prison, bringing his sentence to 100 years.

5. The campaign for a federal holiday in King's honor began soon after his assassination in 1968, but Martin Luther King, Jr. Day did not become a U.S federal holiday until Ronald Reagan begrudgingly signed the holiday into law in 1983. (Reagan was concerned that a paid holiday for federal employees would be too expensive.) Only two other persons have U.S. national holidays honoring them: George Washington and Christopher Columbus.

5 facts about chemical weapons
By / Jan 2

On January 2, 1915—one hundred years ago today—German forces in World War I made the first chlorine gas attack, ushering in the modern age of chemical warfare. Since then the use of chemical weapons has been one of the most controversial ethical issues in warfare.

Here are five facts you should know about chemical weapons:

1. The general and traditional definition of a chemical weapon is a toxic chemical contained in a delivery system, such as a bomb or shell. The Chemical Weapons Convention (the international treaty that bans chemical weapons) applies the term to any toxic chemical or its precursor that can cause death, injury, temporary incapacitation or sensory irritation through its chemical action.

2. The toxic chemicals that have been used as chemical weapons, or have been developed for use as chemical weapons, can be categorized as choking, blister, blood, or nerve agents. The most well known agents are choking agents—chlorine and phosgene; blister agents—mustard and lewisite; and blood agents—hydrogen cyanide, and nerve agents—sarin, tabun, VX.

3. During World War II, Japan was the only country to use chemical weapons on the battlefield. Adolf Hitler refrained from the use of chemical weapons in war, though not from the use of poison gases in concentration camps, likely because of fear of reprisals in kind. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union both maintained enormous stockpiles of chemical weapons, amounting to tens of thousands of tons. The amount of chemical weapons held by these two countries was enough to destroy much of the human and animal life on Earth.

4. As of February 2013, 78.57 percent, of the world's declared stockpile of 71,196 metric tons of chemical agent have been verifiably destroyed. Iraq, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, the Russian Federation, and the United States all have declared they have remaining stockpiles. Combined they must destroy 8.67 million items, including munitions and containers containing in total, 71,196 metric tons of extremely toxic chemical agents. By comparison, a tiny drop of a nerve agent, no larger than the head of a pin, can kill an adult human being within minutes after exposure.

5. Over 98 percent of the world's population lives within territories where the Chemical Weapons Ban has become the law of the land. The two states that have signed the treaty but have not yet ratified it are Israel and Myanmar. The five states that have neither signed nor acceded to the Chemical Weapons Convention are Angola, Egypt, North Korea, South Sudan, and Syria.

5 facts about modern slavery
By / Dec 2

Today is the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, a commemoration of the date of the adoption, by the General Assembly, of the United Nations Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others (resolution 317(IV) of 2 December 1949). 

Here are five facts you should know about modern slavery.

1. Modern-day slavery, also referred to as “trafficking in persons,” or “human trafficking,” describes the act of recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining a person for compelled labor or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud, or coercion. There are more slaves today than were seized from Africa in four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In fact, there are more slaves in the world today than at any other point in human history, with an estimated 21 million in bondage across the globe.

2. For most of human history slaves were expensive, the average cost being around the equivalent of $40,000. Today, the average slave costs around $90. A 2003 study in the Netherlands found that, on average, a single sex slave earned her pimp at least $250,000 a year. Trafficking in persons is estimated to be one of the top-grossing criminal industries in the world (behind illegal drugs and arms trafficking), with traffickers profiting an estimated $32 billion every year.

3. Human trafficking disproportionately affects communities of color. Including here in the United States, the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that over 77 percent of trafficking victims in the United States are people of color. According to a report by the FBI, confirmed sex trafficking victims were more likely to be white (26 percent) or black (40 percent), compared to labor trafficking victims, who were more likely to be Hispanic (63 percent) or Asian (17 percent). Four-fifths of victims in confirmed sex trafficking incidents were identified as U.S. citizens (83 percent), while most confirmed labor trafficking victims were identified as undocumented aliens (67 percent) or qualified aliens (28 percent).

4. Traffic of children in Asia assumes a more significant proportion of overall trafficking than in other regions of the world. Younger children are found in the sex industry as customers seek to avoid AIDS, and much Asian sex tourism features children and minors of both sexes. In India, children are maimed to be more effective beggars. In China, babies are trafficked for adoptions abroad, with boys commanding more than girls. In Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and the Philippines, children are trafficked as child soldiers.

5. Most trafficking in teens is for sex slavery. The average age a teen enters the sex trade in the U.S. is 12 to 14-year-old. According to Shared Hope International, children exploited through prostitution report they typically are given a quota by their trafficker/pimp of 10 to 15 buyers per night, though some service providers report girls having been sold to as many as 45 buyers in a night at peak demand times, such as during a sports event or convention. Utilizing a conservative estimate, a domestic minor sex trafficking victim who is rented for sex acts with five different men per night, for five nights per week, for an average of five years, would be raped by 6,000 buyers during the course of her victimization through prostitution.

Other Articles in the 5 Facts Series:

HIV and AIDS  •  Thanksgiving • Cooperative Program  •  Military Suicides • Gambling in America • Truett Cathy • Hunger in America • Suicide in America • Christian Persecution • Civil Rights Act of 1964 • Supreme Court’s contraceptive mandate decision • Fathers and Fathers Day • Euthanasia in Europe • Marriage in America • March for Life • Abortion in America • ‘War on Poverty’

5 facts about HIV and AIDS
By / Dec 1

World AIDS Day is held each year December 1 as an opportunity to raise awareness about the fight against HIV, show support for people living with HIV and to commemorate people who have died from AIDS.

Here are five facts you should know about HIV and AIDS:

1. AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome: Acquired means you can get infected with it; Immune Deficiency means a weakness in the body's system that fights diseases; Syndrome means a group of health problems that make up a disease.

AIDS refers to the most advanced stages of HIV infection (human immunodeficiency virus), defined by the occurrence of any of more than 20 opportunistic infections or related cancers. Being HIV-positive, or having HIV disease, is not the same as having AIDS. Many people are HIV-positive but don't get sick for many years. 

2. HIV can be transmitted through: unprotected sexual intercourse or oral sex with an infected person; transfusions of contaminated blood; the sharing of contaminated needles, syringes or other sharp instruments; or the transmission between a mother and her baby during pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. 

3. Globally, an estimated 35.0 million people were living with HIV in 2013, and 3.2 million of these were children. The vast majority of people living with HIV are in low- and middle-income countries. An estimated 2.1 million people were newly infected with the virus in 2013. An estimated 39 million people have died from AIDS-related causes so far, including 1.5 million in 2013. 

4. According to 2013 figures, an estimated 3.2 million children are living with HIV.  Most of these children live in sub-Saharan Africa and were infected by their HIV-positive mothers during pregnancy, childbirth or breastfeeding. Over 240 000 children became newly infected with HIV in 2013. Mother-to-child-transmission of HIV is almost entirely avoidable, though access to preventive interventions remains limited in many low- and middle-income countries.

5. HIV is the result of multiple cross-species transmissions of simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs) naturally infecting African chimpanzees. While no one knows how the cross-species transmission occurred, the origin of the AIDS pandemic has been traced to the 1920s in the city of Kinshasa, in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. An international team of scientists say a "perfect storm" of a roaring sex trade, rapid population growth, and unsterilized needles used in health clinics probably spread the virus.  HIV spread in the Congo for almost sixty years before it recognized as a new disease in 1981.

Other Articles in the 5 Facts Series:

Thanksgiving • Cooperative Program  •  Military Suicides • Gambling in America • Truett Cathy • Hunger in America • Suicide in America • Christian Persecution • Civil Rights Act of 1964 • Supreme Court’s contraceptive mandate decision • Fathers and Fathers Day • Euthanasia in Europe • Marriage in America • March for Life • Abortion in America • ‘War on Poverty’

5 facts about Thanksgiving
By / Nov 27

Today, Americans celebrate a national holiday set aside to give thanks for the blessings of the preceding year. But there is more to Thanksgiving than you may realize. Here are five facts you should know about the holiday:

1. The Pilgrims who traveled on the Mayflower and landed on Cape Cod were not the first Americans to celebrate Thanksgiving. The “Feast of the First Thanksgiving” was held near El Paso, Texas in 1598 — twenty-three years before the Pilgrims' festival. And at the Berkeley Plantation on the James River in Virginia, settlers celebrated Thanksgiving on December 4th, 1619 — two years before the Pilgrims' festival. As historian Robert Tracy McKenzie, author of The First Thanksgiving, notes, the early Plymouth settlers celebrated in 1621 could more accurately be called the “First American Protestant Christian Thanksgiving North of Virginia and South of Maine.”

2. The first Thanksgiving at Plymouth was a secular event that was not repeated. (A Calvinist Thanksgiving occurred in 1623 and did not involve sharing food with the Native Americans.) 52 Pilgrims and approximately 50 Native Americans attended that celebration. According to participant Edward Winslow, the feast consisted of corn, barley, fowl (including wild turkeys), and venison.

3. Sarah Josepha Hale, an editor and the author of the classic nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb”, is the person most responsible for making Thanksgiving a national holiday. Prior to 1863, the holiday was largely a celebration held in New England and unknown in the Southern states. Hale proposed that it be a national holiday in 1846 and advocated it for 17 years before convincing Abraham Lincoln to support legislation establishing a national holiday of Thanksgiving in 1863.

4. For 75 years after Lincoln issued his Thanksgiving Proclamation, succeeding presidents honored the tradition and annually issued their own Thanksgiving Proclamation, declaring the last Thursday in November as the day of Thanksgiving. However, in 1939 the last Thursday of November was going to be November 30. Retailers complained to President Franklin D. Roosevelt that this only left 24 shopping days to Christmas and convinced him to move Thanksgiving up one week earlier. Since it was believed most people do their Christmas shopping after Thanksgiving, retailers thought having an extra week of shopping would encourage Americans to spend more.

5. Each year the President officially declares a day of National Thanksgiving and every president Since Harry Truman has pardoned a turkey for Thanksgiving.

Other Articles in the 5 Facts Series:

Cooperative Program  •  Military Suicides • Gambling in America • Truett Cathy • Hunger in America • Suicide in America • Christian Persecution • Civil Rights Act of 1964 • Supreme Court’s contraceptive mandate decision • Fathers and Fathers Day • Euthanasia in Europe •Marriage in America • March for Life • Abortion in America • ‘War on Poverty’

5 facts about adoption
By / Nov 13

Each year in November, the President of the United States issues a proclamation to announce National Adoption Month, a time dedicated to raising awareness of the need for adoptive families and to encourage citizens to become involved in the lives of children and youth in foster care.

Here are five facts about adoption in America:

1. Adoption has been and remains rare. Between 1973 and 2002, the percentage of ever-married women 18–44 years of age who had adopted a child fluctuated between 1.3 and 2.2 percent. Men were twice as likely as women 18–44 years of age to have adopted a child. Among ever-married persons, men (3.8 percent) were more than 2.5 times as likely as women (1.4%) to have adopted. 

2. In 2012 there were 397,122 children in foster care and 101,666 waiting to be adopted. The average age of a child in foster care waiting to be adopted was 7.8 years old. The average age of children in foster care being adopted was 6.3 years old.

3. On average, a child will wait three years in foster care awaiting adoption. About 55 percent of these children have had three or more placements with foster care families, and 33 percent had changed elementary schools five or more times, losing relationships and falling behind educationally.

4. Each year thousands of U.S. citizens adopt children from abroad. In 2013, Americans adopted 7,092 children from abroad. The total number of intercountry adoptions from 1999 to 2013 was 249,694. According to UNICEF, approximately 13 million have lost both parents.

5. The Child Welfare Information Gateway, a government-funded adoption information service, estimates the average U.S. adoption costs of various types of adoptions:

Intercountry Adoptions — $15,000 – $30,000

Independent Adoptions — $8,000 – $40,000+

Licensed Private Agency Adoptions — $5,000 – $40,000+

Facilitated/Unlicensed Adoptions — $5,000 – $40,000+

Public Agency (Foster Care) Adoptions —  $0 – $2,500
 

Other Articles in the 5 Facts Series:

Military Suicides • Gambling in America • Truett Cathy • Hunger in America • Suicide in America • Christian Persecution • Civil Rights Act of 1964 • Supreme Court’s contraceptive mandate decision • Fathers and Fathers Day • Euthanasia in Europe •Marriage in America • March for Life • Abortion in America • ‘War on Poverty’