If you’ve paid attention at all to Southern Baptist life in the past 20 months, you’ve heard something about how Southern Baptists are responding to sexual assault accusations nationwide. Along with the effects of COVID-19 on churches, it has arguably been the biggest story to affect the collective journey of Southern Baptists in the past decade, maybe even longer.

Many news entities – from Christianity Today to the Houston Chronicle – widely reported the basic facts of the story. Many North Carolina Baptists have read these articles and know these basic facts. Yet it’s the broader questions that will likely impact churches for years to come. For example:

• How do issues of polity impact how Southern Baptist and North Carolina Baptist entities respond to sexual assault?
• How can North Carolina churches provide a safer experience for their guests and members?
• How can North Carolina Baptists better train church leaders in responding to sexual assault claims? 

Even the best “straight news stories” won’t help North Carolina Baptists answer these questions. Southern Baptist struggles with the questions above have little to do with answering the basic questions of who, what or when related to sexual assault. Straight news can help North Carolina Baptists understand the facts surrounding the most important issues facing them in the next decade (and those facts are exceedingly important), but it’s news analysis that will help them think and pray through the long-term issues they’ll face in the 2020s and beyond.

Of course, these long-term issues aren’t limited to becoming safe places for assault victims. North Carolina Baptists, like other evangelicals nationwide, face a number of potentially transformative issues as they attempt to engage a rapidly changing mission field that increasingly has minimal biblical background.

The team at the Biblical Recorder wants to help your church fulfill its Great Commission task in these unprecedented times. That’s why you’ll notice changes that’ll bring more news analysis into the pages of this magazine in the coming months.

What is news analysis?

When most people think of news, they think of the old line attributed to Joe Friday on the 1950s TV show Dragnet: “Just the facts, ma’am.”

But news has always been more than just a simple explanation of the facts, particularly in the history of American journalism. In fact, early American newspapers were highly partisan – and readers knew it. Readers subscribed to newspapers that fit their preexisting views. (Sound familiar?)

Most outlets today provide news in three rough categories.

• Straight news stories describe what has happened.
• Opinion pieces tell us what a specific thought leader (or journalist) thinks about an event or topic.
• Analysis tells us what happened – and why. Sometimes it leverages the insights of the journalist, but more often than not it engages thought leaders who consider the facts and provide actionable conclusions.

Why is news analysis important today?

The news business is changing dramatically. Just two generations ago, the average family got their news from a daily newspaper and an evening newscast on one of three television networks. Today 8 in 10 Americans get their news from digital devices – and they’re getting a lot of it. Put in digital terms, the average person processes about 74 gigabytes of information daily (through cell phones, TV, computers, books, etc.) To put that in perspective, 500 years ago a highly educated person would have consumed that much information in a lifetime. Not all that information is news, but it’s clear most people are on information overload.

While North Carolina Baptists still need faithful reporting of how God is at work throughout their convention of churches and beyond, most are getting enough news.

Analysis doesn’t just tell you what has happened. It helps you understand why it happened, what it means for you and how what happened might impact future events.

News analysis also helps readers deal with the speed of news coming their way. Most people aren’t just ingesting large amounts of information every day; it’s coming at them quickly, particularly through social media. Readers don’t always have time to evaluate what they’re reading. A healthy piece of news analysis will provide readers with the context, background and insight to understand fully the issue without the hours of research it would normally take.

Nor do any readers – regardless of their education level – have the expertise to evaluate all the news they engage with daily. No one person can be an expert on diverse topics like politics, theology, science and history. Nor should they need to be.

Mitchell Stephens, a journalism professor at New York University, wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review: “… the extra value our quality news organizations can and must regularly add is analysis: thoughtful, incisive attempts to divine the significance of events – insights, not just information. What is required – if journalism is to move beyond selling cheap, widely available, staler-than-your-muffin news – is, to choose a not very journalistic-sounding word, wisdom.”

Wisdom may not be a word often associated with journalism, but it’s intrinsically tied to biblical values God wants us to pursue.

How can the Biblical Recorder help your church?

The third decade of the 21st century is already shaping up to be pivotal for churches inside and outside of North Carolina. COVID-19 changed how your community views and engages with churches. Politics is dividing churches from their mission fields. Pastors are burning out at historic rates.

In such an important time for local churches like yours, how can the Biblical Recorder’s shift to more news analysis help.

You’ll get more relevant information. News analysis bridges the gap between the news and where readers are. When it’s done right within the pages of the Biblical Recorder, news analysis will answer the question, “Why does this news matter to the ministry of North Carolina Baptist churches and help them fulfill the Great Commission?” 

You’ll get depth. Analysis takes the news stories in the Biblical Recorder to the next level of insight. Stories will add context, insight and application to what’s happening in North Carolina Baptist life and the larger Southern Baptist family.

You’ll get unique information. You’ll find news stories in the Biblical Recorder you won’t find anywhere else. Because the content will seek to connect the dots between news and your local church context, it won’t be replicated in national publications, secular or Christian, that don’t understand your community or your Baptist convictions.

You’ll get actionable content. Pastors understand the value of a good application. It doesn’t matter how much information you give your congregation on Luke 15’s “Parable of the Lost Sheep” if your listeners can’t put what they learn into practice. The same will be true with the content of the Biblical Recorder. It’s value to you and your church will be based upon how it impacts how you do ministry and how you cooperate with other North Carolina Baptists in that ministry.

Though the days ahead for North Carolina Baptists have unique challenges, they also come with unimaginable opportunities for churches to cooperate together in fulfilling the Great Commission. The Biblical Recorder looks forward to partnering with you to seize those opportunities.

(EDITOR’S NOTE – Tobin Perry is a freelance writer with more than 20 years of writing experience with Southern Baptist organizations. He can be reached at TobinPerry.com)