title: Jeff Gordon

text: In 1999, Gordon along with Cup crew chief Evernham formed Gordon/Evernham Motorsports (GEM) in the Busch Series with Gordon and Rick Hendrick's son Ricky Hendrick as drivers, the Rainbow Warriors as pit crew and Patrick Donahue as crew chief. The co-owned team received a full sponsorship from Pepsi and ran six races with Gordon as driver and Evernham as crew chief. GEM only survived one year as Evernham left Hendrick Motorsports, citing tension between him and the team, ending one of the most dominant driver/crew-chief combinations in NASCAR history. Gordon extended his Busch experiment one more year, through 2000 as co-owner, with Rick Hendrick buying Evernham's half, and GEM becoming JG Motorsports. In two seasons, Gordon won twice, in 1999 at the Outback Steakhouse 200, the inaugural race at Phoenix, and 2000 at Homestead.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: In 1992, Roush Racing owner Jack Roush planned to sign Gordon, but Gordon's stepfather John Bickford had insisted that Roush hire Ray Evernham; due to Roush's policy of hiring his own crew chiefs, Bickford declined. Later in the year, Rick Hendrick watched Gordon race in a Busch Series event at Atlanta Motor Speedway, and Gordon joined Hendrick Motorsports two days later. Gordon made his Winston Cup debut in the season-ending race, the Hooters 500 at Atlanta, finishing 31st after a crash.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: The following year, Gordon began competing full-time in the Winston Cup Series, driving the No. 24 car for Hendrick. He was originally supposed to race the No. 46, but complications with licensing related to Days of Thunder forced Gordon to the 24. He opened the season with a win in the Gatorade Twin 125's race, while also recording his first-career pole position at the fall Charlotte race, and concluded 1993 with a 14th-place points finish and the Rookie of the Year Award. Gordon's early success in the sport reshaped the paradigm and eventually gave younger drivers an opportunity to compete in NASCAR. However, during the season, many doubted Gordon's ability to compete at such a level at such a young age because of his tendency to push the cars too hard and crash. His last-place finish at the 1993 First Union 400 was a firm example of this theory. Additionally, driver Darrell Waltrip wrote he told Hendrick during the season that Gordon had "hit everything but the pace car that year."


title: Jeff Gordon

text: In 1994, Gordon won the Busch Clash exhibition race at Daytona. In May, Gordon won the pole for the Coca-Cola 600, and won the race after electing to take two tires on a green flag pit stop. Three months later, he scored a hometown victory at the inaugural Brickyard 400, capitalizing on Ernie Irvan's tire going down late in the race.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: In 1995, Gordon won his first Winston Cup Series championship. Despite a rough start to the season in the Daytona 500, he won three of the following six races at Rockingham, Atlanta and Bristol, while winning the pole at Rockingham, Richmond, Darlington and North Wilkesboro in that timespan. He won his fifth pole of the season at Charlotte, but after the race, NASCAR officials found unapproved wheel hubs on his car, and fined the team $60,000 while placing Ray Evernham on probation indefinitely. Gordon later won four more poles during the season (Dover, Michigan, Indianapolis, Martinsville) while winning races at Daytona, New Hampshire, Darlington and Dover. The results during the season gave him a 300-point lead over Dale Earnhardt en route to the title. The team's consistency was much better as well, having had three DNF's in 1995, compared to 21 in his previous two seasons combined.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: Gordon's title defense in 1996 featured ten wins at Richmond, Darlington (sweeping the races), Bristol, Dover (winning both races), Pocono, Talladega, Martinsville, and North Wilkesboro (winning the final official NASCAR race at the track). He finished second to his teammate Terry Labonte for the championship, losing by 37 points.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: Gordon won consecutive Winston Cup titles in 1997 and 1998. In 1997, he won his first Daytona 500, becoming the youngest driver at the time to win the race. He won the second race of the season at Rockingham the following week, followed by a third win at Bristol; after a last-lap battle with Rusty Wallace. At Charlotte, Gordon won The Winston in a "Jurassic Park" scheme; the car was modified by Evernham with assistance from Hendrick chassis engineer Rex Stump, and after the race it was banned following complaints from other team owners. Afterwards, he won the Coca-Cola 600, and after winning the Southern 500 at Darlington, became the first driver since Bill Elliott in 1985 to win the Winston Million. While Elliott failed to win the Winston Cup in 1985, Gordon claimed his second Winston Cup championship in 1997, completing one of the most impressive single-season performances in NASCAR history. He finished the season with 10 victories (Daytona, Rockingham, Bristol, Martinsville, Charlotte, Pocono, California, Watkins Glen, Darlington, and New Hampshire). The following year, Gordon won a modern-era record 13 races at Charlotte, Sonoma, Pocono, Indianapolis, Watkins Glen, Michigan, New Hampshire, Darlington, Daytona, Rockingham and Atlanta. He clinched his third title with a 364-point lead over Mark Martin. Gordon set Winston Cup records during the season, including four consecutive wins and 17 consecutive top-five finishes. He ended the season with seven poles, 25 top-five, and 27 top-tens.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: Gordon began the 1999 season with his second Daytona 500 win. He then won races at Atlanta, Fontana, Sears Point and Watkins Glen. Before the race at Martinsville, Evernham left Hendrick to form Evernham Motorsports, and he was replaced by team engineer Brian Whitesell. With Whitesell, Gordon won at Martinsville and Lowe's. During the year, Chip Ganassi Racing owner Chip Ganassi contacted Gordon, expressing interest in signing him, while Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones wanted to partner with him to form a team. However, Gordon signed a lifetime contract with Hendrick Motorsports starting in 2000, which allowed him to become an equity owner in his No. 24 team.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: The 2000 season saw Gordon enter his first campaign with Petty Enterprises' Robbie Loomis as his crew chief. With Loomis, Gordon recorded his first win of the season in the spring Talladega race, giving him his 50th career victory. He also won races at Sears Point and Richmond. Gordon finished the season ninth in points.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: The next year, Gordon won six races at Las Vegas, Dover, Michigan (the 100th win for Hendrick Motorsports), Indianapolis, Watkins Glen, and the inaugural race at Kansas. Gordon became the third driver to win four Winston Cup championships in NASCAR history, second only to Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt (both winning it seven times), and with a 344-point margin ahead of Tony Stewart.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: 2002 and 2003 featured three wins each for Gordon at Bristol, Darlington and Kansas, and at Martinsville (twice) and Atlanta, respectively. In 2004, the first season under the Nextel Cup Series banner, the team recorded five wins at Talladega, Indianapolis, Fontana, Infineon and Daytona. At one point, he had a 6 race streak of top 5 finishes. Despite the success, the points reset by the newly formed Chase for the Cup erased Gordon's 60-point lead over Johnson. As a result, at the end of the season, he finished the season third in the points standings behind champion Kurt Busch by 16 points and Johnson by eight. Had the Chase not existed, and assuming the finishing spots remained the same, Gordon would have won the championship by 47 points.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: The 2005 season began with Gordon claiming his third Daytona 500 victory, followed by a win at Martinsville in the Advance Auto Parts 500 and at Talladega. However, inconsistency would plague him throughout the year. Despite having 14 top tens, he failed to finish nine times. A late season charge put him in position to qualify for the Chase, but in the last race before the Chase at Richmond, Gordon made contact with the turn 2 wall and failed to qualify for the Chase. Loomis left the team on September 14, and Steve Letarte, Gordon's car chief, took over for the Chase-opening race at Loudon. Gordon eventually won at Martinsville in the Subway 500. It was Gordon's first time outside the top ten in the point standings since 1993. Gordon also finished the season with a career-low eight top-five finishes.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: Gordon only recorded two wins in 2006 at Infineon and Chicagoland, while also recording only two poles at Dover and Phoenix's second dates. The next year, his performance improved greatly, winning six races and seven poles. Gordon's first win of 2007 was at Phoenix, tying Darrell Waltrip's modern-day record of 59 poles, followed by tying Dale Earnhardt for sixth all-time in overall number of Cup wins. At Talladega, he recorded his 77th career Nextel Cup victory, to the dismay of the fans, who began throwing beer cans at Gordon's car. Gordon would win five more times during the season, at Darlington, Pocono, Talladega and Charlotte; Gordon's seven poles occurred at Fontana, Bristol, four consecutive at Texas, Phoenix, Talladega and Richmond, Daytona, Watkins Glen, Michigan and Martinsville. However, Gordon finished the Chase second in the standings to HMS teammate Jimmie Johnson by 77 points. Gordon finished the year with 30 top tens, setting a new modern era Nextel Cup Series record. By August 12, Gordon had finished outside the top 10 in only 3 of 23 races so far. This marked the second time that Gordon lost a championship because of the Chase points system. He ended the regular season 312 points ahead of second place in the standings, but since he had less wins than Jimmie Johnson, he started behind him in the Chase. Had the Chase not existed, Gordon would have won the championship by 353 points.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: From 2008 to 2010, Gordon struggled, recording just one win during the three seasons at the Samsung 500, his first win at Texas Motor Speedway. In the three-year timespan, Gordon recorded six total poles, including four in 2008, and a third-place points finish in 2009 behind HMS teammates Mark Martin and champion Johnson. During the 2009 season, Gordon became the first driver in NASCAR history to pass US$100 million in career winnings.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: Martin's crew chief Alan Gustafson joined Gordon in 2011 after Steve Letarte was reassigned to Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s team. In the second race of the year at Phoenix, Gordon won for the first time in 66 races; At the Aaron's 499, Gordon broke the tie for the third-most poles with Cale Yarborough. At Pocono, he tied Bill Elliott for the most wins at the track with five, and at Atlanta, he defeated Johnson to claim his 85th career win, third-most of all time behind Richard Petty and David Pearson. Gordon became the winningest driver in the modern era of the sport, passing Darrell Waltrip.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: Gordon struggled during the early portion of the 2012 season, despite a pole at Talladega, failing to reach the top ten in points. At Pocono, Gordon took advantage of teammate Jimmie Johnson's right-rear tire failure on a late restart just immediately before an expected large thunderstorm rained onto the track, thus giving him his 86th Cup victory and sixth at the track, surpassing Elliott for the most wins at the track. At Richmond, despite troubles early in the race that mired him a lap down, Gordon rallied to finish second to Clint Bowyer, and made his eighth Chase for the Sprint Cup. At the November Phoenix race, Gordon was running near the front until Bowyer again made contact and forced him into the wall. Gordon then cut a tire when trying to retaliate and was penalized with a black-flag for both his attempt at retaliation and failing to come down pit road to fix his tire. In reply to the black-flag Gordon retaliated by intentionally wrecking Bowyer, collecting Joey Logano and Aric Almirola in the process, thus ending Bowyer's hopes to win the Cup title. The two crews began brawling while a furious Bowyer climbed out of his car. Bowyer frantically sprinted to Gordon's hauler, but he was restrained by officials just in front of Gordon. Gordon was fined $100,000, docked 25 points, and placed on probation until December 31. He recovered from his penalty by winning the season finale, the Ford EcoBoost 400, the next week for the 87th Sprint Cup victory of his career.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: In 2013, Gordon made his 700th consecutive Cup start in the Bojangles' Southern 500; Gordon finished 3rd, marking his 300th career top-5 finish. At Dover, Gordon finished 3rd, tying David Pearson for third all-time in top-five finishes with 301. In qualifying for the Federated Auto Parts 400, Gordon set a track record with a lap speed of and a time of 20.674 seconds for his first pole of 2013 and fifth at Richmond, breaking the tie with Mark Martin for most poles at the track among active drivers. Gordon's winning a pole in 21 consecutive seasons set a NASCAR record. However, despite finishing 8th, Gordon was winless and was knocked out of the Chase initially by finishing one point behind Joey Logano. On September 13, it was announced that Gordon would be added into the Chase after it was found that Logano's team had collaborated with David Gilliland's Front Row Motorsports team for Gilliland to give up a spot to Logano so that Logano could secure his tenth-place position over Gordon. At the Martinsville race, Gordon won his first race of 2013 and first at Martinsville since 2005.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: In 2014, Gordon recorded four wins, starting at the May Kansas race; 2007 was the last time he had won at least four times in a season. Entering the Brickyard 400, the twenty-year anniversary of his first career win in the 1994 race, the day was declared "Jeff Gordon Day" by Indianapolis mayor Greg Ballard. Gordon passed teammate Kasey Kahne with 17 laps to go to win, breaking a tie with teammate Jimmie Johnson for most wins in the event, and tied with former Formula One driver Michael Schumacher for the most wins at Indianapolis. Gordon also won at Michigan and Dover, his first wins at the tracks since 2001. At Texas, Gordon and Keselowski were racing for the win when Keselowski tried to shoot between Johnson and Gordon, which cut Gordon's left rear tire and spun him out. Gordon fell to 29th, while Keselowski would finish third. Following the race, Gordon confronted Keselowski in pit road over the incident with both drivers being surrounded by their pit crews. However, it escalated into a brawl due to Keselowski being shoved from behind by Harvick, who had also battled with Keselowski in the final laps. Later, Gordon would admit that his anger was fueled by disappointment in the chances of another possible championship slipping away. Despite the four wins, Gordon was unable to compete for the championship after being eliminated from Chase contention in the penultimate race at Phoenix, falling behind by 1 point. Gordon won the pole for the final race at Homestead, and led a race-high 161 laps, but the decision to pit with 13 laps to go relegated him to 24th, and he finished 10th. The finish marked his 454th top-ten, surpassing Mark Martin for second in all-time top tens, behind Richard Petty's 712. It is often discussed inside the NASCAR community that had the Chase system not been in place, Gordon would have clinched his seventh championship in 2014 under the original Winston Cup points system.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: On January 22, 2015, Gordon announced that 2015 would be his last season as a full-time driver, but did not rule out retirement entirely. He started the season by winning the pole for his final Daytona 500, but crashed on the final lap, finishing 33rd. Gordon won two additional poles by sweeping the Talladega races. In November, Gordon claimed his first win of 2015, winning his ninth career Martinsville race in the Goody's Headache Relief Shot 500, advancing him to the Championship Four at Homestead. This would be his only win of 2015, and his 93rd and final win of his NASCAR career. In his final race as a full-time competitor at the 2015 Ford EcoBoost 400, Gordon finished 6th, falling just short of his quest for the fifth championship of his career.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: Gordon returned to the Cup Series in 2016 at the Brickyard 400, driving the No. 88 as a substitute for the injured Dale Earnhardt Jr. He also ran at Pocono, Watkins Glen, and Bristol. On September 2, it was announced that Earnhardt would be out for the remainder of the season and Gordon would fill in at the Darlington, Richmond, Dover, and Martinsville races. He recorded his best finish of the season at Martinsville, one year after scoring his final win at the same race, with a sixth-place run, his final race in NASCAR.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: Gordon has participated in the Race of Champions three times, including a Nations Cup-winning drive with Team USA's Jimmie Johnson and Colin Edwards at the 2002 event in Gran Canaria. Prior to the ROC, Gordon competed in an ROC America event, losing to Kenny Bräck after crashing. Afterwards, Gordon defeated Johnson by one sixteen-hundredth of a second. Later in the day, Gordon rode with rally driver Marcus Grönholm around the course, both eventually flipping. In the ROC's first round, Gordon (2:03.03) lost to 2002 CART champion Cristiano da Matta, but in round two, Gordon (1:53.47) defeated Formula One's Fernando Alonso. In the semi-finals, Gordon (1:53.20) won against CART driver Sébastien Bourdais, and in the finals, Gordon (1:53.87) triumphed against European Touring Car Championship driver Fabrizio Giovanardi. He was slated to run it again in 2004 against seven-time F1 World Champion Michael Schumacher but was sidelined by the flu, and Casey Mears took his place. In 2005, Gordon competed in the Race of Champions event again, this time held in Paris, France, where he was partnered with motocross racer/X Games winner Travis Pastrana.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: In 2007, Gordon competed in the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona for the first time. He raced the No. 10 SunTrust Pontiac-Riley for Wayne Taylor Racing. His teammates consisted of Max Angelelli, Jan Magnussen, and Wayne Taylor. His team finished third, two laps behind the winning team of Juan Pablo Montoya, Scott Pruett, and Salvador Durán. Gordon made his return to the Rolex 24 in 2017, partnering with Wayne Taylor Racing once again. He drove the No. 10 Cadillac alongside Angelelli, Jordan and Ricky Taylor for the event. Early in the race, Gordon made contact with Tom Long, spinning Long's No. 70 out. Despite the incident, the No. 10 team was able to hold off Filipe Albuquerque's No. 5 car to win the overall class, making Gordon the fourth driver to win both the Daytona 500 and the Rolex 24. Gordon drove the car for a total of 2 hours and 34 minutes.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: Gordon ran in the International Race of Champions from 1995 to 2000. Gordon won one race at Daytona International Speedway in 1998. In the race, Gordon led only two laps, but was the race leader by lap 30. Despite being invited for the 2002 season, Gordon declined due to time constraints.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: In 1997, Gordon was offered a ride by CART team owner Barry Green with Team Green as a stepping stone to F1's British American Racing. However, Gordon declined, stating that there are "just too many steps" to reach F1. On June 11, 2003, Gordon went to Indianapolis Motor Speedway to take part in a test with then-WilliamsF1 driver Montoya. The two switched rides, with Gordon driving Montoya's Williams FW24, marking the first time he had driven an F1 car. On Gordon's first lap, he went off-course, and recorded a time of 1:17; in comparison, the 2002 United States Grand Prix's pole time was 1:10, while the slowest was 1:13. On his second run, Gordon began with a standing start, and on his next lap recorded 1:16.5. Montoya would eventually join NASCAR in 2007.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: Gordon has also participated in the Prelude to the Dream charity dirt track race at Eldora Speedway in 2007, 2008, and 2010. Gordon had been intending to run the 2009 race, but did not due to scheduling conflicts. Gordon finished third in the 2007 race, 14th in 2008 and 22nd in 2010, the latter being run with Team Riley Hospital for Children.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: When Gordon made the decision to step back from full-time driving at the conclusion of the 2015 Sprint Cup Series season, he reportedly put out feelers to television networks about the possibility of joining the broadcast booth. On January 25, 2015, "USA Today" writer Jeff Gluck reported that Gordon was hired by Fox Sports to work as a guest analyst for "NASCAR on Fox" broadcasts of Xfinity Series events alongside full-time announcers Adam Alexander and Michael Waltrip; the news was officially announced by Fox Sports the following day. On February 3, Gordon made a guest appearance on the Fox News Channel morning show "Fox & Friends", where he stated his plans to call three races for Fox Sports.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: On April 10, 2015, Gordon made his broadcasting debut on Fox Sports 1 during the network's coverage of the O'Reilly Auto Parts 300 at Texas Motor Speedway. Gordon returned to the broadcast booth for the Drive to Stop Diabetes 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway on April 18, and the Winn-Dixie 300 at Talladega Superspeedway on May 2. Gordon was one of five active NASCAR drivers to serve as a guest analyst for Fox Sports during the 2015 Xfinity Series season; the other four were Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski, Clint Bowyer, and Danica Patrick.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: On May 21, 2015, Gordon announced on "NASCAR Race Hub" that he would join Fox Sports as a full-time analyst for Cup Series events, beginning with the 2016 Sprint Cup Series season. Gordon was paired with Mike Joy and Darrell Waltrip in the broadcast booth, replacing Larry McReynolds, who moved to the Hollywood Hotel.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: On November 6, 2015, Gordon joined Joy and Waltrip in the booth for the first time at a dress rehearsal during the WinStar World Casino & Resort 350 at Texas Motor Speedway. The rehearsal was not shown during the Camping World Truck Series broadcast. Following his final scheduled race as a driver on November 22, Gordon quickly began the transition into his full-time role at Fox Sports.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: Gordon made his debut as a Cup Series analyst as part of Speedweeks at Daytona International Speedway in February 2016. To promote his first Daytona 500 as a broadcaster, he starred in the "Jeff Gordon Police Chase" advertisement, as part of the #DaytonaDay campaign. On the eve of the 58th Daytona 500, Fox aired "Jeff Gordon's Daytona 500 Kickoff Celebration", a television special he hosted.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: Early in his career, Gordon stated that he was a born again Christian. He talked about how in the early-1990s he became curious about Christianity and followed some drivers to the weekly chapel one week, which is how he first started to learn more about God. During this time, Gordon kept verses of the Bible taped to his steering wheel. By 2004, Gordon stated he had "a difficult time focusing on one particular faith." When asked again about his faith in a 2015 "Sports Illustrated" magazine interview, Gordon stated: "I wasn't brought up [with religion]. It was something I got introduced to when I came into the Cup Series. I explored it and learned a lot from that experience. I feel it's helped make me a better person, but I choose to do it more privately now."


title: Jeff Gordon

text: Gordon met Brooke Sealey, a Miss Winston Cup model, in victory lane at Daytona International Speedway after he won the first of two qualifying races for the 1993 Daytona 500. The pair began dating in secret due to an unwritten rule prohibiting drivers from dating the models. Sealey's role as Miss Winston concluded following the 1993 season, and the couple publicly revealed their relationship after the NASCAR awards banquet in December. Prior to the 1994 Daytona 500, a year to the day from their encounter in victory lane, Gordon reserved a banquet hall at a French restaurant in Daytona Beach, where Gordon proposed to Sealey. The couple were married on November 26, 1994. They owned a home on Lake Norman in North Carolina, but evacuated permanently due to fan intrusions. The couple then moved to Highland Beach, Florida. In March 2002, Sealey sued for divorce after alleging Gordon of marital misconduct, and Gordon eventually counter-sued. Gordon's wife, who also went by the name Jennifer Brooke Gordon, cited her husband's relationship with professional model Deanna Merryman in her divorce papers with the racecar driver. In court papers, she asked for "exclusive use of the couple's oceanfront home, valued at $9 million, as well as alimony, two cars and periodic use of their boats and an airplane." Though Gordon stated that Sealey did not deserve such a high amount of rewards, as he "risked life and limb" to gain the wealth, Sealey stated that "NASCAR is a relatively safe occupation." Sealey subsequently was awarded $15.3 million. The divorce was finalized on June 13, 2003. During the year, Gordon was seen with model Amanda Church on a beach in St. Bart's, and later moved in with her in New York City.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: Gordon was introduced to Ingrid Vandebosch during a dinner party at The Hamptons by a mutual friend in 2002, but they did not begin dating until 2004. Gordon announced their engagement on June 24, 2006, at a croquet event at Meadowood Resort in St. Helena, California. According to Gordon, they had kept the engagement secret for the following 30 days. Gordon and Vandebosch were married in a small, private ceremony in Mexico on November 7, 2006. On June 20, 2007, Vandebosch gave birth to their first child, Ella Sofia Gordon in New York City. Gordon had Scott Pruett assigned as a standby driver for Watkins Glen because his wife was due to give birth the weekend of August 8, 2010. On the morning of August 9, 2010, Vandebosch delivered their son Leo Benjamin Gordon. The family resides in the SouthPark neighborhood of Charlotte, North Carolina.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: In 1999, Gordon established the Jeff Gordon Children's Foundation to help support children facing life-threatening and chronic illnesses. On December 16, 2006, Gordon opened the Jeff Gordon Children's Hospital at the NorthEast Medical Center. In 2007, Gordon, along with Andre Agassi, Muhammad Ali, Lance Armstrong, Warrick Dunn, Mia Hamm, Tony Hawk, Andrea Jaeger, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Mario Lemieux, Alonzo Mourning, and Cal Ripken Jr. founded Athletes for Hope, a charitable organization which helps professional athletes get involved in charitable causes and inspires millions of non-athletes to volunteer and support the community.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: AARP became Gordon's sponsor in 2011 through the Drive to End Hunger program, which donates meals to hunger relief organizations near NASCAR tracks, along with reducing hunger among senior citizens. Gordon is also a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, which helps global leaders find solutions to ending the world's pressing problems.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: Prior to his sponsorship with Pepsi, Gordon had been sponsored by Coca-Cola, but eventually chose Pepsi due to more visibility, along with Coca-Cola wanting Gordon to be a regional sponsor in the southeastern United States. Gordon has also been sponsored by Kellogg Company, Frito-Lay, Edy's, and Ray-Ban. Since 2012, Gordon has been sponsored by DVX Sun and Safety Sunglass, which are constructed with elastomer from DuPont.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: Gordon owns JG Motorsports to manage licensing, and the company received up to 20 percent of Gordon-licensed products. Such items produced $112 million in 1998. Gordon owns a dealership, Jeff Gordon Chevrolet, located in Wilmington, North Carolina, and was opened in 1998. With Dale Earnhardt, Gordon owned Performance Partners, Inc., a real estate company, along with Chase Racewear, a casual clothing line; the two were also major shareholders in Action Performance Companies, Inc. (now Lionel Racing), the official die-cast creator of NASCAR. In May 2005, Gordon announced a partnership with Bob Lutz to form the Jeff Gordon Racing School, a stock car racing experience for fans which began its operations at Lowe's Motor Speedway in August that year. In 2009, Lutz rebranded the school as NASCAR Racing Experience. In 2007, PepsiCo introduced Jeff Gordon 24 Energy, an orange tangerine-flavored energy drink, which has since been discontinued.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: In October 2005, Gordon started a line of wine with Briggs & Sons Winemaking, Co., debuting with a 2004 Carneros Chardonnay, followed by Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon in January 2007. Eventually, the 2007 Ella Sofia Napa Valley Joie de Vivre won double gold medals at the 2011 Indy International Wine Competition.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: In 2012, Gordon became the designer of the Canadian Motor Speedway in Fort Erie, Ontario, which will be the largest track in Canada. Gordon's stepfather, John Bickford, serves as the general manager of the project.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: On February 12, 2015, Gordon was hired by sponsor Axalta Coating Systems as global business advisor, working in the automotive refinishing, OEM, commercial vehicle and industrial business departments.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: In 2016, Gordon signed with Creative Artists Agency as their client. He was previously represented by Just Marketing International, International Management Group, and William Morris Agency.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: With 93 career points-paying victories, Gordon is ranked third among the all-time NASCAR Cup Series winners; he is ranked first when considering only wins achieved during the sport's modern era (1972–present).


title: Jeff Gordon

text: Gordon holds the records for the most Cup Series victories on restrictor plate tracks (12) and road courses (9), as well as a record six-consecutive road-course wins.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: In 2014, Gordon joined former F1 driver Michael Schumacher as the only two racers to earn five victories at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in a single racing series.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: In 2017, Gordon became the fourth driver to earn victories in the Daytona 500 and the 24 Hours of Daytona; the first three drivers were Mario Andretti, A. J. Foyt, and Jamie McMurray.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: Since making his Cup Series debut in the Hooters 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on November 15, 1992, Gordon never missed a race spanning over 24 consecutive seasons. With 797 starts as of the 2015 Ford EcoBoost 400, Gordon is ninth among all-time Cup Series drivers with the most starts overall.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: In 2007, Gordon asked part-time driver Mark Martin if he could be on standby for him to take over the No. 24 car, should he have needed to miss a race to witness the birth of his first child. Daughter Ella Sofia Gordon was born on Wednesday, June 20 in New York City; Gordon traveled to Sonoma, California later that week to compete in the Toyota Save/Mart 350 on June 24. In 2010, Gordon similarly asked road course ringer Scott Pruett to be on standby for him at Watkins Glen due to the impending birth of his second child. Although Gordon let Pruett run a couple of practice laps in Gordon's car, Gordon was able to start and complete the race without Pruett's assistance. Son Leo Benjamin Gordon was born less than a day after the race's conclusion. In 2014, Gordon had Regan Smith on standby for the Coca-Cola 600, as Gordon suffered from back spasms during qualifying and practice. Gordon was able to start and complete the race as scheduled.


title: Jeff Gordon

text: On September 27, 2015, at New Hampshire, Gordon started his 789th consecutive race, becoming NASCAR's iron man, passing Ricky Rudd, who started 788 consecutive races from 1981–2005. Gordon ended his career with 797 races consecutively started.


title: UFO (band)

text: UFO are an English rock band that was formed in London in 1968. They became a transitional group between early hard rock and heavy metal and the new wave of British heavy metal. The band's current lineup includes vocalist Phil Mogg, lead guitarist Vinnie Moore, rhythm guitarist and keyboardist Neil Carter, bass guitarist Rob De Luca, and drummer Andy Parker. They have gone through several line-up changes, leaving Mogg as the only constant member, and had two breaks (1983–1984 and again from 1989 to 1991). The band are also notable for featuring former Scorpions guitarist and MSG founder Michael Schenker, who was a member of UFO from 1973 to 1978 and had rejoined the band sporadically between 1993 and 2003, when Moore replaced him. In May 2018, Mogg announced that he would retire from UFO after one last tour as a member of the band in 2019; however, the band plans to resume their farewell tour in 2022.


title: UFO (band)

text: Over a career spanning years, UFO have released 22 studio albums, 14 live recordings, 16 compilation albums and one album of cover songs. They achieved moderate success in the late 1970s and early 1980s with several albums and singles (including their 1979 live album "Strangers in the Night") in the UK and US Top 40 charts, and have sold over 20 million records worldwide. Some of their best-known songs include "Doctor Doctor", "Rock Bottom", "Natural Thing", "Lights Out", "Too Hot to Handle" and "Only You Can Rock Me". UFO are considered one of the greatest classic hard rock acts, and often cited as one of the key influences on the 1980s and 1990s hard rock and heavy metal scenes. The band were ranked number 84 on VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock".


title: UFO (band)

text: Lead singer Phil Mogg, guitarist Mick Bolton, bassist Pete Way and drummer Andy Parker formed the band in 1968. Originally calling themselves Hocus Pocus, the group changed their name in October 1969 to UFO, in honour of the London club where they were spotted by Noel Moore, who signed them to the Beacon Records label, headed by Antiguan-born Milton Samuel. Their first album, "UFO 1", released in 1970, is a typical example of early hard rock; it includes a heavy version of the Eddie Cochran classic "C'mon Everybody". Neither their first nor their second album, "", reached the charts, but the song "Boogie For George" from the first album reached No. 30 on the German singles chart, and "Prince Kajuku" from "Flying" reached No. 26. At this time UFO attracted little interest in Britain and America. Some of their early work was strongly influenced by space rock (their second album, featuring a 26-minute title track and a 19-minute-long track "Star Storm", was subtitled "One Hour Space Rock") that was modestly popular at the time, but the band soon realised the style was somewhat limited. Mick Bolton left the group in January 1972, and UFO set out to find a guitarist who could provide the band with a more standard rock sound.


title: UFO (band)

text: After brief trial runs with guitarists Larry Wallis (February–October 1972) and Bernie Marsden (who toured with UFO in Europe and recorded a pair of demos, "Oh My" and "Sixteen") the band recruited Michael Schenker from the Scorpions in June 1973. Schenker was only 18 but already a well-respected guitarist. On a new label, Chrysalis Records, the revamped UFO recorded a non-LP single in 1973, "Give Her the Gun" and "Sweet Little Thing", with producer Derek Lawrence. In 1974, under producer Leo Lyons (formerly of Ten Years After), UFO recorded "Phenomenon", which highlighted the band's harder-edged guitar sound. "Phenomenon" contains many fan favourites such as "Doctor Doctor" (later a minor hit single as a live track) and "Rock Bottom" (which was extended live to provide a showcase for Schenker). By the time of the "Phenomenon" tour, ex-Skid Row guitarist Paul "Tonka" Chapman joined the group, but he left in January 1975 to form Lone Star.


title: UFO (band)

text: Two subsequent albums, "Force It" (July 1975) and "No Heavy Petting" (May 1976; recorded with ex-Heavy Metal Kids' Danny Peyronel, who served as a regular keyboardist as well as harmony vocalist and songwriter), and extensive touring brought UFO increased visibility with American audiences and increased their following in the UK. The song "Belladonna" from "No Heavy Petting" was very popular in the USSR, owing to a cover version by Alexander Barykin.


title: UFO (band)

text: In July 1976, the band recruited keyboardist and rhythm guitarist Paul Raymond from Savoy Brown to make 1977's "Lights Out". The album includes the songs "Too Hot to Handle", "Lights Out", and the seven-minute opus "Love to Love" among others. With "Lights Out", the band received substantial critical acclaim, and the album saw them playing at arenas and theaters across the United States and Europe, opening for bands like Rush and AC/DC. With their new-found success, the band went back into the studio to record their next album "Obsession" (1978). While "Obsession" was not as successful as "Lights Out", the band still maintained their arena status while touring for the album, playing with AC/DC and Rush again, and other bands like Blue Öyster Cult, Styx, Foghat, Jethro Tull, REO Speedwagon and Molly Hatchet; as part of the "Obsession" tour, UFO recorded the live album, "Strangers in the Night", which was released in January 1979. "Strangers" was a critical and commercial success, reaching Number 7 in the UK Albums Chart in February 1979, and a tour to support the live album followed, playing with bands like AC/DC, Kiss, Cheap Trick, Journey, Thin Lizzy, Nazareth and Judas Priest, and appearing at the California World Music Festival with Aerosmith, Van Halen, Toto and April Wine.


title: UFO (band)

text: Tensions began to grow between Mogg and Schenker in the late 1970s, possibly from Schenker often leaving before or during shows. Soon after UFO's show in Palo Alto, California, on 29 October 1978, Schenker left the band. He made a brief return to the Scorpions before going on to form his own Michael Schenker Group.


title: UFO (band)

text: After Schenker's exit, UFO rehired Paul Chapman on guitar, who brought over unused track ideas from Lone Star's drummer Dixie Lee. Shortly afterward they released their next LP, "No Place to Run", in January 1980. Produced by former Beatles producer George Martin, "No Place To Run" failed to match up to the success of its predecessors, though it fractionally missed the UK Top 10. Paul Raymond left the band at the end of the "No Place To Run" tour, and was replaced by John Sloman from Uriah Heep on keyboards for a couple of months and then by former Wild Horses guitarist and keyboardist Neil Carter, who helped fill the void in the songwriting left by Schenker's departure. Carter debuted with UFO on stage at the three-day Reading Festival on 23 August 1980, when the band played as the Saturday night headline act. At the beginning of the following year, UFO released the self-produced "The Wild, the Willing and the Innocent", which had a lighter pop rock sound, which was popular at the time. The album achieved mild success in the UK, reaching the UK Top 20, and the single "Lonely Heart" was released.


title: UFO (band)

text: In February 1982, the band released "Mechanix". It was successful in the UK, where it reached No. 8, the band's highest ever placing. Later that year, founding member Pete Way left the band to form Fastway with Motörhead guitarist "Fast" Eddie Clarke and then his own band, Waysted. He was replaced by Talas bassist Billy Sheehan. UFO released "Making Contact" in 1983, but the album was a critical and commercial failure. Thus, that March, UFO decided to disband. The band played a UK farewell tour with Paul Gray (former bassist with Eddie and the Hot Rods and the Damned). However, there was a hint that this might not be permanent when UFO released a compilation album featuring songs by UFO (as well as other groups featuring ex-members of UFO) entitled "Headstone", the sleeve of which showed a headstone, denoting UFO with their formation date but an incomplete end date.


title: UFO (band)

text: This proved to be a short break; just short of two years later, in late 1984, Mogg assembled a new UFO line-up, featuring Paul Gray on bass again, ex-Diamond Head drummer Robbie France (replaced in 1985 by former Magnum drummer Jim Simpson), and Atomik Tommy M (Tommy McClendon), a former roadie who also wrote lyrics for Loudness, on guitar, with Paul Raymond rejoining shortly afterward, and released "Misdemeanor". Raymond left again in 1986 and was replaced by David Jacobson, who along with Gray would leave in 1987, and Pete Way rejoined on bass. Before Gray's departure, the band recorded the EP "Ain't Misbehavin" which was released in 1988. Despite the renewed activity of the band, neither release was financially successful and they officially disbanded again in 1989 after a string of guitarists replacing McClendon: Myke Gray of Jagged Edge in late 1987, former Starfighters guitarist Rik Sandford and Tony Glidewell in 1988, and finally in 1989 future Cold Sweat guitarist Erik Gamans.


title: UFO (band)

text: In 1991, Mogg and Way decided to put a new UFO line-up together with former Wild Horses members Clive Edwards on drums and Laurence Archer on guitar joining the band and released "High Stakes & Dangerous Men". While only released on a small independent label, "High Stakes" was enough to generate serious interest in a full-blown reunion. The following year, the classic late-1970s UFO line-up – Mogg, Schenker, Way, Raymond and Parker – reunited, and the resulting album was "Walk on Water" (1995). This line-up (barring Parker's replacement by AC/DC's Simon Wright on drums) went on a world tour. However, tensions arose again, and Schenker left the band only four shows into the tour, walking off stage mid-set in the very same city, of Palo Alto, CA, where their October 1978 tour died. Thereafter, the other members again went their separate ways. However, Schenker returned to the fold in 1998, in Michael Schenker Group, and the band embarked on another tour, with Parker again replaced by a new drummer. They played at the Astoria, Charing Cross Road, London in 1998.


title: UFO (band)

text: Phil Mogg and Pete Way continued working together throughout this fluctuating band membership, releasing two albums under the Mogg/Way name in the late 1990s, "Edge of the World" and "Chocolate Box".


title: UFO (band)

text: In 2000, Schenker rejoined UFO again and the band released the double CD "Covenant" (with Aynsley Dunbar on drums), which contained a disc of new material and a disc of live classics. In 2002, the band recorded "Sharks"; shortly after "Sharks" was released, Schenker left the band yet again and was replaced with Vinnie Moore. and the official announcement was made in July 2003. In 2003, Michael Schenker and Pete Way released "The Plot" with drummer Jeff Martin.


title: UFO (band)

text: In 2004, UFO released their 17th studio album "You Are Here" with their new permanent guitarist Vinnie Moore and Jason Bonham on drums (intermittently). UFO recorded their live set and released a double-DVD recording titled "Showtime" (2005) along with a double live CD on SPV in November 2005, mixing a number of re-recorded studio songs. In November 2005, Andy Parker returned to the band to play in the "Piorno Rock Festival" in Granada, Spain. UFO's eighteenth studio album, titled "The Monkey Puzzle", was released in 2006.


title: UFO (band)

text: Andy Parker returned in early 2007, after recovering from leg surgery. On the 2008 tour, Pete Way was unable to get a work visa to enter the United States, Rob De Luca (Sebastian Bach's band, Of Earth, Spread Eagle) filling in.


title: UFO (band)

text: UFO released their 19th studio album, "The Visitor", in June 2009, and followed with a tour of the UK, but without Pete Way, who was suffering from a medical condition. Bass tracks on "The Visitor" were played by Peter Pichl, and Pete Way was not credited as a band member on "The Visitor" cover, nor was any other bassist. However, the album saw UFO's return to the UK Albums Chart for the first time in almost 15 years.


title: UFO (band)

text: In July 2009, UFO released a six-CD live concert box set, containing recordings of six concerts between 1975 and 1982, as well as previously unreleased live songs.


title: UFO (band)

text: By December 2010, UFO had been working on a twentieth studio album, which was supposed to be released in June 2011. Titled "Seven Deadly", was released on 27 February 2012, with Lars Lehmann on bass, to almost universally good reviews and a higher chart position than The Visitor also charting in Germany, Sweden, and the Billboard indie charts.


title: UFO (band)

text: In 2011, former band members Danny Peyronel, Laurence Archer, and Clive Edwards teamed up with bassist Rocky Newton (ex-McAuley Schenker Group) to form a band entitled X-UFO. In live performances, X-UFO played sets of vintage UFO songs, later renamed House Of X to perform their own material. Their eponymous album was released on 24 October 2014.


title: UFO (band)

text: In 2013, Paul Raymond revealed that a new UFO album was in the works, but there was "no detailed talk of that yet." The album, titled "A Conspiracy of Stars", was released on 23 February 2015.


title: UFO (band)

text: On 10 September 2016, guitarist Vinnie Moore announced on Facebook that UFO were in the studio recording a covers album. The album, titled "The Salentino Cuts", was released on 29 September 2017.


title: UFO (band)

text: In May 2018, vocalist Phil Mogg announced that UFO's 50th anniversary tour in 2019 would be his last one as the frontman of the band, who may also either split up or move on with a replacement for him. Mogg explained, "This decision has been a long time coming. I've considered stepping down at the end of UFO's previous two tours. I don't want to call this a farewell tour as I hate that word, but next year's gigs will represent my final tap-dancing appearances with the band." He added that "the timing feels right" for him to quit, and that "there will be a final tour of the U.K. and we will also play some shows in selected other cities that the band has a strong connection with. But outside of the U.K. this won't be a long tour." Despite earlier reports that Mogg had intended to leave the band in 2019, he is still a member of UFO as of June 2021, and the band will resume their touring activities in the summer and fall of 2022, which had been pushed back from a year earlier due to the COVID-19 pandemic. UFO's last-ever show will take place on October 29, 2022 in Athens, Greece, where the band performed its first show with current guitarist Vinnie Moore eighteen years earlier.


title: UFO (band)

text: Longtime keyboardist and guitarist Paul Raymond died from a heart attack on 13 April 2019 at the age of 73. Two weeks later, it was announced that Raymond's initial replacement Neil Carter would be rejoining UFO for the remainder of the band's final tour. Former guitarist Paul Chapman died on his 66th birthday on 9 June 2020. Chapman was followed two months later by original bassist Pete Way, who died from accident injuries at the age of 69.


title: UFO (band)

text: In late August 2022, Phil suffered a heart attack. On 1 September 2022 doctors pronounced a strict performance ban for Phil after having performed several detailed examinations in the previous days until further notice, which resulted in the farewell tour, which was set to lead across Europe in October 2022 being cancelled.


title: Total war

text: Total war is a type of warfare that includes any and all civilian-associated resources and infrastructure as legitimate military targets, mobilizes all of the resources of society to fight the war, and gives priority to warfare over non-combatant needs.


title: Total war

text: The term has been defined as "A war that is unrestricted in terms of the weapons used, the territory or combatants involved, or the objectives pursued, especially one in which the laws of war are disregarded."


title: Total war

text: In the mid-19th century, scholars identified total war as a separate class of warfare. In a total war, the differentiation between combatants and non-combatants diminishes due to the capacity of opposing sides to consider nearly every human, including non-combatants, as resources that are used in the war effort.


title: Total war

text: According to an analysis by Tiziano Peccia of Stig Förster's works, total war is characterized on four dimensions:


title: Total war

text: Tiziano Peccia adds a fifth dimension to Förster's: "total change". After a total war, the analysis shows that the political, cultural, economic and social assets persist beyond the end of the conflict ("total war is an earthquake that has the world as its epicenter").


title: Total war

text: The phrase "total war" can be traced back to the 1935 publication of German general Erich Ludendorff's World War I memoir, "Der totale Krieg" ("The total war"). Some authors extend the concept back as far as classic work of Carl von Clausewitz, "On War", as "absoluter Krieg" (absolute war), even-though he did not use the term; others interpret Clausewitz differently. Total war also describes the French "guerre à outrance" during the Franco-Prussian War.


title: Total war

text: In his December 24, 1864, letter to his chief of staff during the American Civil War, Union general William Tecumseh Sherman wrote the Union was "not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war, as well as their organized armies," defending Sherman's March to the Sea, the operation that inflicted widespread destruction of infrastructure in Georgia.


title: Total war

text: United States Air Force General Curtis LeMay updated the concept for the nuclear age. In 1949, he first proposed that a total war in the nuclear age would consist of delivering the entire nuclear arsenal in a single overwhelming blow, going as far as "killing a nation".


title: Total war

text: Written by academics at Eastern Michigan University, the "Cengage Advantage Books: World History" textbook claims that while total war "is traditionally associated with the two global wars of the twentieth century... it would seem that instances of total war predate the twentieth century." They write:


title: Total war

text: The Sullivan Expedition of 1779 was an example of total warfare. As Native American and Loyalist forces massacred American farmers, killed livestock and burned buildings in remote frontier areas, General George Washington sent General John Sullivan with 4,000 troops to seek "the total destruction and devastation of their settlements" in upstate New York. There was only one small battle as the expedition devastated "14 towns and most flourishing crops of corn." The Native Americans escaped to Canada where the British fed them; they remained there after the war.


title: Total war

text: Sherman's march to the sea in the American Civil War – from November 15, 1864, through December 21, 1864 – is sometimes considered to be an example of total war, for which Sherman used the term hard war. Some historians challenge this designation, as Sherman's campaign assaulted primarily military targets and Sherman ordered his men to spare civilian homes.


title: Total war

text: In his book, "The First Total War: Napoleon's Europe and the Birth of Warfare as We Know it", David A Bell, a French History professor at Princeton University argues that the French Revolutionary Wars introduced to mainland Europe some of the first concepts of total war, such as mass conscription. He claims that the new republic found itself threatened by a powerful coalition of European nations and used the entire nation's resources in an unprecedented war effort that included levée en masse (mass conscription). By August 23, 1793, the French front line forces grew to some 800,000 with a total of 1.5 million in all services—the first time an army in excess of a million had been mobilized in Western history:


title: Total war

text: During the Russian campaign of 1812 the Russians retreated while destroying infrastructure and agriculture in order to effectively hamper the French and strip them of adequate supplies. In the campaign of 1813, Allied forces in the German theater alone amounted to nearly one million whilst two years later in the Hundred Days a French decree called for the total mobilization of some 2.5 million men (though at most a fifth of this was managed by the time of the French defeat at Waterloo). During the prolonged Peninsular War from 1808 to 1814 some 300,000 French troops were kept permanently occupied by, in addition to several hundred thousand Spanish, Portuguese and British regulars, an enormous and sustained guerrilla insurgency—ultimately French deaths would amount to 300,000 in the Peninsular War alone.


title: Total war

text: One of the features of total war in Britain was the use of government propaganda posters to divert all attention to the war on the home front. Posters were used to influence public opinion about what to eat and what occupations to take, and to change the attitude of support towards the war effort. Even the Music Hall was used as propaganda, with propaganda songs aimed at recruitment.


title: Total war

text: After the failure of the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, the large British offensive in March 1915, the British Commander-in-Chief Field Marshal John French blamed the lack of progress on insufficient and poor-quality artillery shells. This led to the Shell Crisis of 1915 which brought down both the Liberal government and Premiership of H. H. Asquith. He formed a new coalition government dominated by Liberals and appointed David Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions. It was a recognition that the whole economy would have to be geared for war if the Allies were to prevail on the Western Front.


title: Total war

text: Carl Schmitt, a supporter of Nazi Germany, wrote that total war meant "total politics"—authoritarian domestic policies that imposed direct control of the press and economy. In Schmitt's view the total state, which directs fully the mobilization of all social and economic resources to war, is antecedent to total war. Scholars consider that the seeds of this total state concept already existed in the German state of World War I, which exercised full control of the press and other aspects economic and social life as espoused in the statement of state ideology known as the "Ideas of 1914".


title: Total war

text: As young men left the farms for the front, domestic food production in Britain and Germany fell. In Britain, the response was to import more food, which was done despite the German introduction of unrestricted submarine warfare, and to introduce rationing. The Royal Navy's blockade of German ports prevented Germany from importing food and hastened German capitulation by creating a food crisis in Germany.


title: Total war

text: Almost the whole of Europe and some of the European colonial empires mobilized soldiers. Rationing occurred on the home fronts. Bulgaria went so far as to mobilize a quarter of its population, or 800,000 people, a greater share of its population than any other country during the war.


title: Total war

text: The Second World War was the quintessential total war of modernity. The level of national mobilization of resources on all sides of the conflict, the battlespace being contested, the scale of the armies, navies, and air forces raised through conscription, the active targeting of non-combatants (and non-combatant property), the general disregard for collateral damage, and the unrestricted aims of the belligerents marked total war on an unprecedented and unsurpassed, multicontinental scale.


title: Total war

text: During the first part of the Shōwa era, the government of Imperial Japan launched a string of policies to promote a total war effort against China and occidental powers and increase industrial production. Among these were the National Spiritual Mobilization Movement and the Imperial Rule Assistance Association.


title: Total war

text: The National Mobilization Law had fifty clauses, which provided for government controls over civilian organizations (including labor unions), nationalization of strategic industries, price controls and rationing, and nationalized the news media. The laws gave the government the authority to use unlimited budgets to subsidize war production and to compensate manufacturers for losses caused by war-time mobilization. Eighteen of the fifty articles outlined penalties for violators.


title: Total war

text: To improve its production, Shōwa Japan used millions of slave laborers and pressed more than 18 million people in East Asia into forced labor.


title: Total war

text: Before the onset of the Second World War, Great Britain drew on its First World War experience to prepare legislation that would allow immediate mobilization of the economy for war, should future hostilities break out. Rationing of most goods and services was introduced, not only for consumers but also for manufacturers. This meant that factories manufacturing products that were irrelevant to the war effort had more appropriate tasks imposed. All artificial light was subject to legal blackouts.


title: Total war

text: Not only were men conscripted into the armed forces from the beginning of the war (something which had not happened until the middle of World War I), but women were also conscripted as Land Girls to aid farmers and the Bevin Boys were conscripted to work down the coal mines.


title: Total war

text: Enormous casualties were expected in bombing raids, so children were evacuated from London and other cities en masse to the countryside for compulsory billeting in households. In the long term this was one of the most profound and longer-lasting social consequences of the whole war for Britain. This is because it mixed up children with adults of other classes. Not only did the middle and upper classes become familiar with the urban squalor suffered by working class children from the slums, but the children got a chance to see animals and the countryside, often for the first time, and experience rural life.


title: Total war

text: The use of statistical analysis, by a branch of science which has become known as Operational Research to influence military tactics, was a departure from anything previously attempted. It was a very powerful tool but it further dehumanised war particularly when it suggested strategies that were counter-intuitive. Examples, where statistical analysis directly influenced tactics include the work done by Patrick Blackett's team on the optimum size and speed of convoys and the introduction of bomber streams, by the Royal Air Force to counter the night fighter defences of the Kammhuber Line.


title: Total war

text: In contrast, Germany started the war under the concept of Blitzkrieg. Officially, it did not accept that it was in a total war until Joseph Goebbels' Sportpalast speech of 18 February 1943 – in which the crowd was told ""Totaler Krieg – Kürzester Krieg"" ("Total War – Shortest War”.)


title: Total war

text: Goebbels and Hitler had spoken in March 1942 about Goebbels' idea to put the entire home front on a war footing. Hitler appeared to accept the concept, but took no action. Goebbels had the support of minister of armaments Albert Speer, economics minister Walther Funk and Robert Ley, head of the German Labour Front, and they pressed Hitler in October 1942 to take action, but Hitler, while outwardly agreeing, continued to dither. Finally, after the holidays in 1942, Hitler sent his powerful personal secretary, Martin Bormann, to discuss the question with Goebbels and Hans Lammers, the head of the Reich Chancellery. As a result, Bormann told Goebbels to go ahead and draw up a draft of the necessary decree, to be signed in January 1943. Hitler signed the decree on 13 January, almost a year after Goebbels first discussed the concept with him. The decree set up a steering committee consisting of Bormann, Lammers, and General Wilhelm Keitel to oversee the effort, with Goebbels and Speer as advisors; Goebbels had expected to be one of the triumvirate. Hitler remained aloof from the project, and it was Goebbels and Hermann Göring who gave the "total war" radio address from the Sportspalast the next month, on the 10th anniversary of the Nazi's "seizure of power".


title: Total war

text: The commitment to the doctrine of the short war was a continuing handicap for the Germans; neither plans nor state of mind were adjusted to the idea of a long war until the failure of the Operation Barbarossa. A major strategic defeat in the Battle of Moscow forced Speer as armaments minister to nationalize German war production and eliminate the worst inefficiencies.


title: Total war

text: Under Speer's direction a threefold increase in armament production occurred and did not reach its peak until late 1944. To do this during the damage caused by the growing strategic Allied bomber offensive, is an indication of the degree of industrial under-mobilization in the earlier years. It was because the German economy through most of the war was substantially under-mobilized that it was resilient under air attack. Civilian consumption was high during the early years of the war and inventories both in industry and in consumers' possession were high. These helped cushion the economy from the effects of bombing.


title: Total war

text: Plant and machinery were plentiful and incompletely used, thus it was comparatively easy to substitute unused or partly used machinery for that which was destroyed. Foreign labour, both slave labour and labour from neighbouring countries who joined the Anti-Comintern Pact with Germany, was used to augment German industrial labour which was under pressure by conscription into the "Wehrmacht" (Armed Forces).


title: Total war

text: The Soviet Union (USSR) was a command economy which already had an economic and legal system allowing the economy and society to be redirected into fighting a total war. The transportation of factories and whole labour forces east of the Urals as the Germans advanced across the USSR in 1941 was an impressive feat of planning. Only those factories which were useful for war production were moved because of the total war commitment of the Soviet government.


title: Total war

text: The Eastern Front of the European Theatre of World War II encompassed the conflict in central and eastern Europe from June 22, 1941, to May 9, 1945. It was the largest theatre of war in history in terms of numbers of soldiers, equipment and casualties and was notorious for its unprecedented ferocity, destruction, and immense loss of life (see World War II casualties). The fighting involved millions of German, Hungarian, Romanian and Soviet troops along a broad front hundreds of kilometres long. It was by far the deadliest single theatre of World War II. Scholars now believe that at most 27 million Soviet citizens died during the war, including at least 8.7 million soldiers who fell in battle against Hitler's armies or died in POW camps. Millions of civilians died from starvation, exposure, atrocities, and massacres. The Axis lost over 5 million soldiers in the east as well as many thousands of civilians.


title: Total war

text: During the Battle of Stalingrad, newly built T-34 tanks were driven—unpainted because of a paint shortage—from the factory floor straight to the front. This came to symbolise the USSR's commitment to a policy of total war.


title: Total war

text: The United States underwent an unprecedented mobilization of national resources for the Second World War. Although the United States was not in danger of an existential attack, the national sense after Pearl Harbor was to use all the nation's resources to defeat Germany and Japan. Most non-essential activities were rationed, prohibited or restrained, and most of the fit unmarried young men were drafted. There was little urgency before 1940, when the collapse of France ended the Phoney War and revealed urgent needs. Nevertheless President Franklin Roosevelt moved to first solidify public opinion before acting. In 1940 the first peacetime draft was instituted, along with Lend-Lease programs to aid the British, and covert aid was passed to the Chinese as well.


title: Total war

text: American public opinion was still opposed to involvement in the problems of Europe and Asia, however. In 1941, the Soviet Union became the latest nation to be invaded, and the U.S. gave her aid as well. American ships began defending aid convoys to the Allied nations against submarine attacks, and a total trade embargo against the Empire of Japan was instituted to deny its military the raw materials its factories and military forces required to continue its offensive actions in China.


title: Total war

text: In late 1941, Japan's Army-dominated government decided to seize by military force the strategic resources of South-East Asia and Indonesia since the Western powers would not give Japan these goods by trade. Planning for this action included surprise attacks on American and British forces in Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaya, and the U.S. naval base and warships at Pearl Harbor. In response to these attacks, the U.K. and U.S. declared war the next day. Nazi Germany declared war on the U.S. a few days later, along with Fascist Italy; the U.S. found itself fully involved in a second world war.


title: Total war

text: As the United States began to gear up for a major war, information and propaganda efforts were set in motion. Civilians (including children) were encouraged to take part in fat, grease, and scrap metal collection drives. Many factories making non-essential goods retooled for war production. Levels of industrial productivity previously unheard of were attained during the war; multi-thousand-ton convoy ships were routinely built in a month and a half, and tanks poured out of the former automobile factories. Within a few years of the U.S. entry into the Second World War, nearly every man without children fit for service, between 18 and 30, was conscripted into the military "for the duration" of the conflict, and unprecedented numbers of women took up jobs previously held by them. Strict systems of rationing of consumer staples were introduced to redirect productive capacity to war needs.


title: Total war

text: Previously untouched sections of the nation mobilized for the war effort. Academics became technocrats; home-makers became bomb-makers (massive numbers of women worked in industry during the war); union leaders and businessmen became commanders in the massive armies of production. The great scientific communities of the United States were mobilized as never before, and mathematicians, doctors, engineers, and chemists turned their minds to the problems ahead of them.


title: Total war

text: By the war's end a multitude of advances had been made in medicine, physics, engineering, and the other sciences. Even the theoretical physicists worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory on the Manhattan Project that culminated in the Trinity nuclear test and changed the course of history.


title: Total war

text: In the war, the United States lost 407,316 military personnel, but had managed to avoid the extensive level of damage to civilian and industrial infrastructure that other participants suffered. The U.S. emerged as one of the two superpowers after the war.


title: Total war

text: After the United States entered World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt declared at Casablanca conference to the other Allies and the press that unconditional surrender was the objective of the war against the Axis Powers of Germany, Italy, and Japan. Prior to this declaration, the individual regimes of the Axis Powers could have negotiated an armistice similar to that at the end of World War I and then a conditional surrender when they perceived that the war was lost.


title: Total war

text: The unconditional surrender of the major Axis powers caused a legal problem at the post-war Nuremberg Trials, because the trials appeared to be in conflict with Articles 63 and 64 of the Geneva Convention of 1929. Usually if such trials are held, they would be held under the auspices of the defeated power's own legal system as happened with some of the minor Axis powers, for example in the post World War II Romanian People's Tribunals. To circumvent this, the Allies argued that the major war criminals were captured after the end of the war, so they were not prisoners of war and the Geneva Conventions did not cover them. Further, the collapse of the Axis regimes created a legal condition of total defeat ("debellatio") so the provisions of the 1907 Hague Convention over military occupation were not applicable.


title: Total war

text: Since the end of World War II, no industrial nation has fought such a large, decisive war. This is likely due to the availability of nuclear weapons, whose destructive power and quick deployment render a full mobilization of a country's resources such as in World War II logistically impractical and strategically irrelevant.


title: Total war

text: By the end of the 1950s, the ideological stand-off of the Cold War between the Western world and the Soviet Union had resulted in thousands of nuclear weapons being aimed by each side at the other. Strategically, the equal balance of destructive power possessed by each side manifests in the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD), which determines that a nuclear attack by one superpower would result in a nuclear counter-strike by the other. This would result in hundreds of millions of deaths in a world where, in words widely attributed to Nikita Khrushchev, "The living will envy the dead".


title: Total war

text: During the Cold War, the two superpowers sought to avoid open conflict between their respective forces, as both sides recognized that such a clash could very easily escalate, and quickly involve nuclear weapons. Instead, the superpowers fought each other through their involvement in proxy wars, military buildups, and diplomatic standoffs.


title: Total war

text: In the case of proxy wars, each superpower supported its respective allies in conflicts with forces aligned with the other superpower, such as in the Vietnam War and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.


title: Total war

text: During the Yugoslav Wars, NATO conducted strikes against the electrical grid in enemy territory using graphite bombs. NATO claimed that the objective of their strikes was to disrupt military infrastructure and communications.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is a Christian denomination based in the United States. It is the world's largest Baptist denomination, and the largest Protestant and second-largest Christian denomination in the United States. The word "Southern" in "Southern Baptist Convention" stems from its having been organized in 1845 in Augusta, Georgia, by white supremacist Baptists in the Southern United States who were supportive of enslaving Americans of African descent and split from the northern Baptists (known today as the American Baptist Churches USA). During the 19th and most of the 20th century, the organization played a central role in the culture and ethics of the South, supporting racial segregation and the Lost Cause of the Confederacy; it denounced interracial marriage as an "abomination", citing the Bible. In 1995, the organization apologized for its initial history. Since the 1940s, the SBC has spread across the states, having member churches across the country and 41 affiliated state conventions, while keeping its original name.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: Southern Baptist churches are evangelical in doctrine and practice, emphasizing the significance of the individual conversion experience, which is affirmed by the person having complete immersion in water for a believer's baptism; they reject the practice of infant baptism. The SBC says that other specific beliefs based on biblical interpretation can vary by congregational polity, and has resolved to balance local church autonomy with accountability against abuses by ministers and others in the Church. These claims are disputed by pastors whose parishes have been expelled from the SBC because their views on LGBT rights, race, or politics conflicted with the SBC executive committee's.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: Beginning in 2018, investigations into top SBC officials have revealed a deliberate effort within the organization to suppress reports of sexual abuse and protect over 700 ministers and church workers who were credibly accused of sexual abuse. On May 22, 2022, Guidepost Solutions, an independent firm contracted by the SBC's executive committee, released a report detailing that SBC leaders had stonewalled and disparaged clergy sex abuse survivors for nearly two decades. The report alleged that nearly all efforts at reform had met with criticism and dismissal from other organization leaders. In addition to stonewalling and disparaging abuse survivors, the report stated that known abusers were allowed to keep their positions without informing their church or congregation. On August 12, 2022, the SBC announced that it was facing a federal investigation into the sex abuse scandal.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: Self-reported SBC membership peaked in 2006 at roughly 16 million. Membership has contracted by an estimated 13.6% since that year, with 2020 marking the 14th year of continuous decline. Mean denomination-wide weekly attendance dropped about 27% between 2006 and 2020.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: Most early Baptists in the British colonies came from England in the 17th century, after the Church of England persecuted them for their dissenting religious views. In 1638, Roger Williams founded the first Baptist church in British America at the Providence Plantations, the first permanent European American settlement also founded by Williams in Rhode Island. The oldest Baptist church in the South, First Baptist Church of Charleston, South Carolina, was organized in 1682 under the leadership of William Screven. A Baptist church was formed in Virginia in 1715 through the preaching of Robert Norden and another in North Carolina in 1727 through the ministry of Paul Palmer.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: The Baptists adhered to a congregationalist polity and operated independently of the state-established Anglican churches in the South, at a time when non-Anglicans were prohibited from holding political office. By 1740, about eight Baptist churches existed in the colonies of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, with an estimated 300 to 400 members. New members, both black and white, were converted chiefly by Baptist preachers who traveled throughout the South during the 18th and 19th centuries, in the eras of the First and Second Great Awakenings.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: Black congregations and churches were founded in Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia before the American Revolution. Some black congregations kept their independence even after whites tried to exercise more authority after the Nat Turner slave rebellion of 1831.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: Before the Revolution, Baptist and Methodist evangelicals in the South promoted the view of the common man's equality before God, which embraced slaves and free blacks. They challenged the hierarchies of class and race and urged planters to abolish slavery. They welcomed slaves as Baptists and accepted them as preachers.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: Isaac (1974) analyzes the rise of the Baptist Church in Virginia, with emphasis on evangelicalism and social life. There was a sharp division between the austerity of the plain-living Baptists, attracted initially from yeomen and common planters, and the opulence of the Anglican planters, the slave-holding elite who controlled local and colonial government in what had become a slave society by the late 18th century. The gentry interpreted Baptist church discipline as political radicalism, but it served to ameliorate disorder. The Baptists intensely monitored each other's moral conduct, watching especially for sexual transgressions, cursing, and excessive drinking; they expelled members who would not reform.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: In Virginia and in most southern colonies before the Revolution, the Church of England was the established church and supported by general taxes, as it was in England. It opposed the rapid spread of Baptists in the South. Particularly in Virginia, many Baptist preachers were prosecuted for "disturbing the peace" by preaching without licenses from the Anglican church. Patrick Henry and James Madison defended Baptist preachers before the American Revolution in cases considered significant in the history of religious freedom. In 1779, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, enacted in 1786 by the Virginia General Assembly. Madison later applied his ideas and those of the Virginia document related to religious freedom during the Constitutional Convention, when he ensured that they were incorporated into the national constitution.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: The struggle for religious tolerance erupted and played out during the American Revolution, as the Baptists worked to disestablish the Anglican church in the South. Beeman (1978) explores the conflict in one Virginia locality, showing that as its population became denser, the county court and the Anglican Church increased their authority. The Baptists protested vigorously; the resulting social disorder resulted chiefly from the ruling gentry's disregard for public need. The vitality of the religious opposition made the conflict between "evangelical" and "gentry" styles a bitter one. Kroll-Smith (1984) suggests that the evangelical movement's strength determined its ability to mobilize power outside the conventional authority structure.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: In 1814, leaders such as Luther Rice helped Baptists unify nationally under what became known informally as the Triennial Convention (because it met every three years) based in Philadelphia. It allowed them to join their resources to support missions abroad. The Home Mission Society, affiliated with the Triennial Convention, was established in 1832 to support missions in U.S. frontier territories. By the mid-19th century, there were many social, cultural, economic, and political differences among business owners of the North, farmers of the West, and planters of the South. The most divisive conflict was primarily over the issue of slavery and secondarily over missions.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: The issues surrounding slavery dominated the 19th century in the United States. This created tension between Baptists in northern and southern states over the issue of manumission. In the two decades after the Revolution during the Second Great Awakening, northern Baptist preachers (as well as the Quakers and Methodists) increasingly argued that slaves be freed. Although most Baptists in the 19th century south were yeomen farmers and common planters, the Baptists also began to attract major planters among their membership. The southern pastors interpreted the Bible as supporting slavery and encouraged paternalistic practices by slaveholders. They preached to slaves to accept their places and obey their masters, and welcomed slaves and free blacks as members, though whites controlled the churches' leadership, and seating was usually segregated. From the early 19th century, many Baptist preachers in the South also argued in favor of preserving the right of ministers to be slaveholders.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: Black congregations were sometimes the largest in their regions. For instance, by 1821, Gillfield Baptist in Petersburg, Virginia, had the largest congregation within the Portsmouth Association. At 441 members, it was more than twice as large as the next-biggest church. Before the Nat Turner slave rebellion of 1831, Gillfield had a black preacher. Afterward, the state legislature insisted that white men oversee black congregations. Gillfield could not call a black preacher until after the American Civil War and emancipation. After Turner's rebellion, whites worked to exert more control over black congregations and passed laws requiring white ministers to lead or be present at religious meetings. Many slaves evaded these restrictions.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: The Triennial Convention and the Home Mission Society adopted a kind of neutrality concerning slavery, neither condoning nor condemning it. During the "Georgia Test Case" of 1844, the Georgia State Convention proposed that the slaveholder Elder James E. Reeve be appointed as a missionary. The Foreign Mission Board refused to approve his appointment, recognizing the case as a challenge and not wanting to violate their neutrality on slavery. They said that slavery should not be introduced as a factor into deliberations about missionary appointments.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: In 1844, University of Alabama president Basil Manly Sr., a prominent preacher and major planter who owned 40 slaves, drafted the "Alabama Resolutions" and presented them to the Triennial Convention. They included the demand that slaveholders be eligible for denominational offices to which the Southern associations contributed financially. They were not adopted. Georgia Baptists decided to test the claimed neutrality by recommending a slaveholder to the Home Mission Society as a missionary. The Home Mission Society's board refused to appoint him, noting that missionaries were not allowed to take servants with them (so he clearly could not take slaves) and that they would not make a decision that appeared to endorse slavery. Southern Baptists considered this an infringement of their right to determine their own candidates. From the Southern perspective, the Northern position that "slaveholding brethren were less than followers of Jesus" effectively obligated slaveholding Southerners to leave the fellowship. This difference came to a head in 1845 when representatives of the northern states refused to appoint missionaries whose families owned slaves. To continue in the work of missions, the southern Baptists separated and created the Southern Baptist Convention.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: A secondary issue that disturbed the Southerners was the perception that the American Baptist Home Mission Society did not appoint a proportionate number of missionaries to the southern United States. This was likely a result of the society's not appointing slave owners as missionaries. Baptists in the North preferred a loosely structured society of individuals who paid annual dues, with each society usually focused on a single ministry.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: Baptists in Southern churches preferred a more centralized organization of churches patterned after their associations, with a variety of ministries brought under the direction of one denominational organization. The increasing tensions and the discontent of Baptists from the South over national criticism of slavery and issues over missions led to their withdrawal from national Baptist organizations.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: The Southern Baptists met at the First Baptist Church of Augusta in May 1845. At this meeting, they created a new convention, the Southern Baptist Convention. They elected William Bullein Johnson (1782–1862) as its first president. He had served as president of the Triennial Convention in 1841.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: African Americans had gathered in their own churches early on, in 1774 in Petersburg, Virginia, and in Savannah, Georgia, in 1788. Some were established after 1800 on the frontier, such as the First African Baptist Church of Lexington, Kentucky. In 1824, it was accepted by the Elkhorn Association of Kentucky, which was white-dominated. By 1850, First African had 1,820 members, the largest of any Baptist church in the state, black or white. In 1861, it had 2,223 members.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: Southern whites generally required black churches to have white ministers and trustees. In churches with mixed congregations, seating was segregated, with blacks often in a balcony. White preaching often emphasized Biblical stipulations that slaves should accept their places and try to behave well toward their masters. After the American Civil War, another split occurred when most freedmen set up independent black congregations, regional associations, and state and national conventions. Blacks wanted to practice Christianity independently of white supervision. They interpreted the Bible as offering hope for deliverance, and saw their own exodus out of slavery as comparable to the Exodus, with abolitionist John Brown as their Moses. They quickly left white-dominated churches and associations and set up separate state Baptist conventions. In 1866, black Baptists of the South and West combined to form the Consolidated American Baptist Convention. In 1895, they merged three national conventions to create the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc. With eight million members, it is today the largest African-American religious organization and second in size to the SBC.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: Free blacks in the North had founded churches and denominations in the early 19th century that were independent of white-dominated organizations. In the Reconstruction Era, missionaries both black and white from several northern denominations worked in the South; they quickly attracted tens and hundreds of thousands of new members from among the millions of freedmen. The African Methodist Episcopal Church attracted more new members than any other denomination. White Southern Baptist churches lost black members to the new denominations, as well as to independent congregations which were organized by freedmen.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: During the Civil Rights Movement, most Southern Baptist pastors and members of their congregations rejected racial integration and accepted white supremacy, further alienating African Americans. According to historian and former Southern Baptist Wayne Flynt, "The [Southern Baptist] church was the last bastion of segregation." But it has been acknowledged that the SBC integrated seminary classrooms in 1951.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: In 1995, the convention voted to adopt a resolution in which it renounced its racist roots and apologized for its past defense of slavery, segregation, and white supremacy. This marked the denomination's first formal acknowledgment that racism had played a profound role in both its early and modern history.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: By the early 21st century, numbers of ethnically diverse congregations were increasing in the SBC. In 2008, almost 20% were estimated to be majority African American, Asian, or Hispanic. The SBC had an estimated one million African-American members. It has passed a series of resolutions recommending the inclusion of more black members and appointing more African-American leaders. At its 2012 annual meeting, it elected Fred Luter Jr. as its first African-American president. He had earned respect by showing leadership skills in building a large congregation in New Orleans.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: The SBC's increasingly national scope has inspired some members to suggest a name change. In 2005, proposals were made at the SBC Annual Meeting to change the name to the more national-sounding "North American Baptist Convention" or "Scriptural Baptist Convention" (to retain the SBC initials). These proposals were defeated.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: The messengers of the 2012 annual meeting in New Orleans voted to adopt the descriptor "Great Commission Baptists". The legal name remains "Southern Baptist Convention", but churches and convention entities can voluntarily use the descriptor.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: Almost a year after the Charleston church shooting, SBC approved Resolution 7, which called upon member churches and families to stop flying the Confederate flag.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: The SBC approved Resolution 12, "On Refugee Ministry", encouraging member churches and families to welcome refugees coming to the United States. In the same convention, Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission quickly responded to a pastor who asked why a Southern Baptist should support the right of Muslims living in the U.S. to build mosques. Moore responded, "Sometimes we have to deal with questions that are really complicated... this isn't one of them." Moore said that religious freedom must be for all religions.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: After an initial resolution denouncing the alt-right movement failed to make it the convention floor, the SBC officially denounced the alt-right movement at the 2017 convention. On November 5, 2017, a mass shooting took place at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs. It was the deadliest shooting to occur at any SBC church in its history and, in modern history, at an American place of worship.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: In a "Washington Post" story dated September 15, 2020, Greear said some church leaders wanted to change the name to Great Commission Baptists, to distance the church from its support of slavery and because it is no longer just a Southern church.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: The general theological perspective of the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention is represented in the Baptist Faith and Message (BF&M). The BF&M was first drafted in 1925 as a revision of the 1833 New Hampshire Confession of Faith. It was revised significantly in 1963, amended in 1998 with the addition of one new section on the family, and revised again in 2000, with the 1998 and 2000 changes being the subject of much controversy, particularly in regards to the role of women in the church.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: The BF&M is not considered to be a creed, such as the Nicene Creed. Members are not required to adhere to it, and churches and state conventions belonging to the SBC are not required to use it as their statement of faith or doctrine, though many do in lieu of creating their own statement. Despite the fact that the BF&M is not a creed, key leaders, faculty in SBC-owned seminaries, and missionaries who apply to serve through the various SBC missionary agencies must affirm that their practices, doctrine, and preaching are consistent with the BF&M.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: In 2012, a LifeWay Research survey of SBC pastors found that 30% of congregations identified with the labels Calvinist or Reformed, while 30% identified with the labels Arminian or Wesleyan. Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research, explained, "historically, many Baptists have considered themselves neither Calvinist nor Arminian, but holding a unique theological approach not framed well by either category". Nevertheless, the survey also found that 60% of SBC pastors were concerned about Calvinism's impact within the convention. Nathan Finn notes that the debate over Calvinism has "periodically reignited with increasing intensity", and that non-Calvinists "seem to be especially concerned with the influence of Founders Ministries," while Calvinists "seem to be particularly concerned with the influence of revivalism and Keswick theology."


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: Historically, the SBC has not considered glossolalia or other Charismatic beliefs to be in accordance with Scriptural teaching, though the subject is not even mentioned in the BF&M. While officially few SBC churches are openly Charismatic, at least one Independent Baptist author believes the practice to be far greater than officially discussed.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: In 2022, the Convention passed a resolution against prosperity theology, which it considers a distortion of the message of the Bible.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: Southern Baptists observe two ordinances: the Lord's Supper and believer's baptism (also known as "credo"-baptism, from the Latin for "I believe"). Furthermore, they hold the historic Baptist belief that immersion is the only valid mode of baptism. The Baptist Faith and Message describes baptism as a symbolic act of obedience and a testimony of the believer's faith in Jesus Christ to other people. The BF&M also notes that baptism is a precondition to congregational church membership.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: The BF&M holds to memorialism, which is the belief that the Lord's Supper is a symbolic act of obedience in which believers commemorate the death of Christ and look forward to his Second Coming. Although individual Southern Baptist churches are free to practice either open or closed communion (due to the convention's belief in congregational polity and the autonomy of the local church), most Southern Baptist churches practice open communion. For the same reason, the frequency of observance of the Lord's Supper varies from church to church. It is commonly observed quarterly, though some churches offer it monthly and a small minority offers it weekly. Because Southern Baptists traditionally have opposed alcoholic beverage consumption by members, grape juice is used instead of wine (and is usually called "the cup" as a result).


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: The Southern Baptist Church subscribes to the complementarian view of gender roles. Beginning in the early 1970s, as a reaction to their perceptions of various "women's liberation movements", the SBC, along with several other historically conservative Baptist groups, began to assert its view of the propriety and primacy of what it deemed "traditional gender roles" as a body. In 1973, at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, delegates passed a resolution which read in part: "Man was not made for woman, but the woman for the man. Woman is the glory of man. Woman would not have existed without man." In 1998, the SBC appended a male leadership understanding of marriage to the 1963 version of the "Baptist Faith and Message", with an official amendment: Article XVIII, "The Family". In 2000, it revised the document to reflect support for a male-only pastorate with no mention of the office of deacon.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: By explicitly defining the pastoral office as the exclusive domain of males, the 2000 BF&M provision becomes the SBC's first-ever official position against women pastors.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: As individual churches affiliated with the SBC are autonomous, local congregations cannot be compelled to adopt a male-only pastorate. Though neither the BF&M nor the SBC constitution and bylaws provide any mechanism to trigger automatic removal ("disfellowshipment") of congregations that adopt practices or theology contrary to the BF&M, some SBC churches that have installed women as their pastors have been disfellowshipped from membership in their local SBC associations; a smaller number have been disfellowshipped from their SBC state conventions.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: The crystallization of SBC positions on gender roles and restrictions of women's participation in the pastorate contributed to the decision by members now belonging to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship to break from the SBC in 1991.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: The 2000 BF&M now prescribes a husband-headship authority structure, closely following the apostle Paul's exhortations in :


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: Most Southern Baptists observe a low church form of worship, which is less formal and uses no stated liturgy. The form of the worship services generally depend on whether the congregation uses a traditional service or a contemporary one, or a mix of both—the main differences being with regards to music and the response to the sermon.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: In both types of services, there will be a prayer at the opening of the service, before the sermon, and at closing. Offerings are taken, which may be around the middle of the service or at the end (with the increased popularity of electronic financial systems, some churches operate kiosks allowing givers the opportunity to do so online, or through a phone app or website link). Responsive Scripture readings are not common, but may be done on a special occasion.


title: Southern Baptist Convention

text: In a traditional service, the music generally features hymns, accompanied by a piano or organ (the latter has been generally phased out due to a shift in worship preferences) and sometimes with a special featured soloist or choir. Smaller churches generally let anyone participate in the choir regardless of actual singing ability; larger churches will limit participation to those who have successfully tried out for a role. After the sermon, an invitation to respond (sometimes termed an altar call) might be given; people may respond during the invitation by receiving Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and beginning Christian discipleship, seeking baptism or requesting to join the congregation, or entering into vocational ministry or making some other publicly stated decision. Baptisms may be scheduled on specific weekends, or (especially in buildings with built-in baptisteries) be readily available for anyone desiring baptism.