Southern Baptists Target Porn, Sports Betting, Same-sex Marriage

Southern Baptists conference this week in Dallas will be asked to approve resolutions requiring a legal ban on pornography and a turnaround of the U.S. Supreme Court's approval of same-sex marriage.


The proposed resolutions call for laws on gender, marital relationship and household based on what they say is the biblically mentioned order of divine creation. They likewise call for legislators to reduce sports betting and to support policies that promote childbearing.


The Southern Baptist Convention, the country's largest Protestant denomination, is also expected to debate controversies within its own home throughout its yearly conference Tuesday and Wednesday - such as a proposed ban on churches with ladies pastors. There are likewise calls to defund the organization ´ s public policy arm, whose anti-abortion position hasn ´ t encompassed supporting criminal charges for females having abortions.


In a denomination where assistance for President Donald Trump is strong, there is little on the advance agenda referencing particular actions by Trump given that taking workplace in January in locations such as tariffs, immigration or the pending budget expense consisting of cuts in taxes, food aid and Medicaid.


Southern Baptists will be meeting on the 40th anniversary of another Dallas yearly conference. An impressive face-off happened when a record-shattering 45,000 church representatives clashed in what ended up being a decisive blow in the takeover of the convention - and its seminaries and other firms - by a more conservative faction that was also aligned with the growing Christian conservative motion in governmental politics.


The 1985 showdown was "the hinge convention in regards to the old and the new in the SBC," stated Albert Mohler, who ended up being a crucial agent in the denomination's rightward shift as longtime president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.


FILE - A participant holds up a tally throughout the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif., Tuesday, June 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)


Attendance this week will likely be a fraction of 1985's, but that meeting's impact will appear. Any debates will be among solidly conservative members.


A lot of the proposed resolutions - on gaming, pornography, sex, gender and marital relationship - reflect long-standing positions of the convention, though they are especially pointed in their demands on the wider political world. They are proposed by the main Committee on Resolutions, whose suggestions usually get strong assistance.


A suggested resolution states lawmakers have a responsibility to "pass laws that reflect the truth of development and natural law - about marital relationship, sex, human life, and family" and to oppose laws opposing "what God has made plain through nature and Scripture."


To some outdoors observers, such language is theocratic.


"When you talk about God ´ s style for anything, there ´ s not a lot of space for compromise," stated Nancy Ammerman, professor emerita of sociology of religious beliefs at Boston University. She was an eyewitness to the Dallas meeting and author of "Baptist Battles," a history of the 1980s controversy in between doctrinal conservatives and moderates.


"There ´ s not a great deal of room for individuals who put on ´ t have the same understanding of who God is and how God operates in the world," she said.


Mohler stated the resolutions reflect a divinely created order that predates the writing of the Scriptures and is verified by them. He said the Christian church has constantly asserted that the developed order "is binding on all individuals, in all times, everywhere."


Separate resolutions decry porn and sports wagering as harmful, calling for the previous to be prohibited and the latter reduced.


At least some of these political stances remain in the realm of plausibility at a time when their conservative allies control all levers of power in Washington and numerous have actually embraced aspects of a Christian nationalist program.


A Southern Baptist, Mike Johnson, is speaker of the House of Representatives and third in line to the presidency.


At least one Supreme Court justice, Clarence Thomas, has called for reviewing the 2015 Supreme Court decision legislating same-sex marital relationship nationwide. Other spiritual conservatives - consisting of some in the Catholic postliberal movement, which has actually affected Vice President JD Vance - have promoted the view that a robust government need to legislate morality, such as while relieving church-state separation.


And conservatives of numerous stripes have actually echoed among the resolution's require pro-natalist policies and its decrying of "willful childlessness which contributes to a decreasing fertility rate."


Some preconvention talk has concentrated on defunding the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Baptist Convention's public law arm, which has been implicated of being ineffective. Ten former Southern Baptist presidents backed its continued funding, though one other required the opposite.


A staunchly conservative group, the Center for Baptist Leadership, has actually posted online articles vital of the commission, which is adamantly anti-abortion however has actually opposed state laws criminalizing women seeking abortions.


The commission has interested Southern Baptists for support, citing its advocacy for religious liberty and against abortion and transgender identity.


"Without the ERLC, you will send out the message to our nation's lawmakers and the general public at large that the SBC has picked to desert the public square at a time when the Southern Baptist voice is most required," said a video statement from the commission president, Brent Leatherwood.


A group of Southern Baptist ethnic groups and leaders signed a declaration in April mentioning concern over Trump's migration crackdown, saying it has actually harmed church attendance and raised fears. "Law and order are required, but enforcement needs to be accompanied with compassion that doesn ´ t demonize those running away injustice, violence, and persecution," the statement stated.


The Center for Baptist Leadership, however, denounced the denominational Baptist Press for working to "weaponize compassion" in its reporting on the statement and Leatherwood for supporting it.


Texas pastor Dwight McKissic, a Black pastor who shares a lot of the Southern Baptist Convention's conservative stances, criticized what he views as a reaction versus the commission, "the most racially progressive entity in the SBC."


"The SBC is transitioning from an evangelical company to a fundamentalist company," he posted on the social media site X. "Fewer and less Black churches will make the shift with them."


A change to prohibit churches with females pastors stopped working in 2024 after narrowly failing to get a two-thirds supermajority for two successive years. It is expected to be reintroduced.


The denomination ´ s belief declaration says the office of pastor is restricted to men, but there stay differences over whether this uses only to the lead pastor or to assistants as well. In the last few years, the convention started purging churches that either had females as lead pastors or asserted that they might serve that role. But when an SBC committee this year retained a South Carolina megachurch with a female on its pastoral personnel, some argued this showed the need for a constitutional change. (The church later on stopped the denomination of its own accord.)


The meeting comes as the Southern Baptist Convention continues its long membership slide, down 2% in 2024 from the previous year in its 18th consecutive annual decrease. The company now reports a subscription of 12.7 million members, still the biggest among Protestant denominations, a lot of whom are diminishing faster.


More appealing are Southern Baptists' baptism numbers - an essential spiritual vital sign. They stand at 250,643, going beyond pre-pandemic levels and, a minimum of in the meantime, reversing a long slide.


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FILE - Messengers represent worship during a Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting Tuesday, June 11, 2024, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Doug McSchooler, File)