A congregation meeting gone awry drew numerous Metro police officers to Jackson Street Missionary Baptist Church Saturday evening when an ongoing dispute between church members and the pastor erupted into an angry confrontation.

Metro officers responded around 5 p.m. to a report of a near-riot involving as many as 300 people at the church near the intersection of Jackson and 13th streets. “Never in Jackson Street history have I ever seen anything like this,” said Evelyn Means, a member of the church whose parents and grandparents also attended.

The crowd dispersed after officers arrived. Church members said the trouble began with a petition signed by 55 members of the church asking the Rev. Curtis Bryant to step down as pastor for up to six months — at half pay — while an independent auditor investigated what one member called a “misappropriation of funds.”

Reported by: Michaela Jackson, Tennessean.com

TV Evangelist Tammy Faye Messner told Larry King in her last TV interview that she wasn’t afraid to die and planned to go “straight to heaven.” Days later she died.

Cancer robbed Tammy Faye of her full cheeks, buxom body, but not her positive attitude and her signature thick, black, eye-liner. She went out on her terms --- with pride and dignity. Tammy Faye was known as Tammy Faye Bakker during her days with the PTL Club (Praise The Lord). She was married to Jim Bakker who led the PTL movement. She was 65.

Rev. Al Sharpton and hip-hop chief Russell Simmons have come together to back the dogs and not NFL player Michael Vick. Our friends at TMZ reported that Rev. Al and Simmons sent an open letter to corporate sponsors who use Vick as a pitchman.

Sixteen years before the start of the American Civil War, Baptists split over the issue of slavery: Southern Baptists supported it, Northern Baptists opposed it.

Now, more than 160 years later, there’s an effort afoot to reunite some black and white Baptist denominations. The effort would forge a loose coalition to address social issues such as poverty, the environment and AIDS.

But the reunion won’t include the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, which in 1995 apologized to African-Americans for supporting slavery. Nor will the new coalition function as a denomination. In an age of declining denominational loyalty, organizers are not proposing what some believe to be an outdated model for church structure.

The new effort, recently announced by former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, is being called a ‘‘New Baptist Covenant.’’ It is intended to serve as a counterweight to the Southern Baptist Convention, which has dominated the national scene for 30 years. The coalition’s first gathering is scheduled for January 2008.

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