Southern Baptists meeting this week in Dallas will be invited to approve the resolutions calling for a legal prohibition of pornography and a reversal of approval by the Supreme Court of the United States of homosexual marriage.
The proposed resolutions call for gender, marriage and family laws according to what they say is the biblically declared order of divine creation. They also call on legislators to reduce sports betting and support policies that promote procreation.
The Baptist Convention in the South, the largest Protestant name in the country, should also debate controversies within its own house at its annual meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday – as a proposed ban on churches with pastors. There are also calls to finance the organization’s public policy branch, whose anti-abortion position has not expanded to support for criminal charges for women abortions.
In a denomination where the support of President Donald Trump is strong, there is little about the agenda replacing specific actions of Trump since he took office in January in areas such as prices, immigration or the waiting budget invoice containing tax reductions, food aid and Medicaid.
Remains of the epic test in Dallas 40 years ago
The Southern Baptists will meet the 40th anniversary of another annual Dallas meeting. An epic confrontation took place when a record of 45,000 representatives of the Church clashed in what has become a decisive blow in the takeover of the Convention – and its seminars and other agencies – by a more conservative faction which was also aligned with the growing Christian conservative movement in presidential policy.
The 1985 force test was “the architect’s architect in terms of the old and the new in the SBC,” said Albert Mohler, who has become a key agent in the right -of -the -name name as a long -standing president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.
This week’s attendance will probably be a fraction of the 1985, but the influence of this meeting will be obvious. All the debates will be among the firmly conservative members.
Many proposed resolutions – on the game, pornography, sex, sex and marriage – reflect long -standing positions of the convention, although they are particularly pointed out in their wider political requirements. They are offered by the official resolutions committee, whose recommendations generally benefit from strong support.
An proposed resolution claims that legislators have the duty to “adopt laws which reflect the truth of creation and natural law – on marriage, sex, human life and family” and to oppose contradictive laws “what God has done clearly through nature and scriptures”.
For some external observers, such a language is theocratic.
“When you talk about the conception of God for anything, there is not much room for compromise,” said Nancy Ammerman, professor emeritus of religion sociology at the University of Boston. It was an eyewitness of the Dallas meeting and author of “Baptist Battles”, a history of the controversy of the 80s between the theological and moderate conservatives.
“There is not much room for people who do not have the same understanding of who is God and how God works in the world,” she said.
Mohler said that the resolutions reflect a divinely created order which has anterior to the writing of the Scriptures and is affirmed by them. He said that the Christian Church has always claimed that the order created “was linked to all people, at all times, everywhere”.
Baptist views of the South are more politically viable today
Distinct resolutions denounce pornography and sports betting as destructive, calling for the prohibition of the former and that the latter were limited.
At least some of these political positions are in the field of plausibility at a time when their conservative allies control all the levers of power in Washington and many have adopted the aspects of a Christian nationalist program.
A southern Baptist, Mike Johnsonis the president of the House of Representatives and third online to the presidency.
At least one judge of the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomascalled to revisit the 2015 Supreme Court decision legalizing homosexual marriage nationally. Other religious conservatives – including some in the Catholic postliberal The movement, which has influenced the vice -president JD Vance – promoted the opinion that a robust government should legislate morality, such as the prohibition of pornography while softening the separation of the state of the Church.
And the conservatives of various bands have echoed one of the calls for resolution to pro-natalist policies and its denunciation “without voluntary inflation which contributes to a fertility rate in decrease”.
Some call to eliminate ethics and the Commission of Religious Freedom
A pre -convention discourse focused on the financing of the Commission of Ethics and Religious Freedom, the branch of public policies of the Southern Baptist Convention, which was accused of being ineffective. Ten former Baptist Presidents of the South approved its continuous funding, although one of them called the opposite.
A firmly conservative group, the Center for Baptist Leadership, has published critical online articles of the Commission, which is categorically anti-abortion but which has opposed the laws of the criminalizing women in search of abortions.
The Commission called on the South Baptists for their support, citing its plea for religious freedom and against abortion and transgender identity.
“Without the ERLC, you will send the message to the legislators of our country and to the public as a whole that the SBC chose to abandon the public square at a time when the Baptist of the South is the most necessary,” said a video declaration by the President of the Commission, Brent Leatherwood.
A group of Baptist ethnic groups in the South and leaders signed a statement in April, citing the concern about Trump’s immigration repression, saying that it had harmed the church attendance and fears. “The law and the order are necessary, but the application must be accompanied by compassion which does not demonize those who flee oppression, violence and persecution,” said the press release.
The Center for Baptist Leadership, however, denounced the confessional Baptist press for having worked on “the armament of empathy” in its reports on the declaration and Leatherwood to support it.
The Pastor of Texas Dwight McKissic, a black pastor who shares many of the conservative positions of the Southern Baptist Convention, criticized what he considers a reaction against the Commission, “the most progressive racial entity of the SBC”.
“The SBC goes from an evangelical organization to a fundamentalist organization,” he published on the social media site X. “Less and fewer black churches will make the transition with them.”
Amendment to ban churches with pastors
An amendment to prohibit churches with pastors failed in 2024 after having narrowly failed to win a two -thirds supermajority for two consecutive years. It should be reintroduced.
The denomination declaration of belief indicates that the Pastor’s office is limited to men, but there are disagreements as to whether it only applies to the main pastor or assistants. In recent years, the Convention has started to serve churches that had women as main pastors or have said they could play this role. But when an SBC committee has preserved this year a mega-church in South Carolina with a woman in her pastoral staff, some have argued that this proved the need for a constitutional amendment. (The church then left the name of its own will.)
The meeting intervenes that the Baptists of the South Baptists continues its long membership slide, down 2% in 2024 compared to the previous year during its 18th consecutive annual decline. The organization now reports a number of members of 12.7 million members, still the largest among Protestant confessions, many of whom shrink faster.
More promising are the numbers of baptism of southern baptists – a key spiritual vital sign. They are 250,643, exceeding pre-pale levels and, at least for the moment, reversing a long slide.
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