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

Southern Baptists meeting this week in Dallas will be asked to authorize resolutions requiring a legal ban on porn and a reversal of the U.S. Supreme Court's approval of same-sex marital relationship.


The proposed resolutions require laws on gender, marriage and family based on what they say is the biblically mentioned order of magnificent development. They likewise require legislators to curtail sports wagering and to support policies that promote childbearing.


The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's biggest Protestant denomination, is also anticipated to debate controversies within its own house throughout its yearly conference Tuesday and Wednesday - such as a proposed ban on churches with females pastors. There are also contacts us to defund the company ´ s public law arm, whose anti-abortion stance hasn ´ t extended to supporting criminal charges for women having abortions.


In a denomination where support for President Donald Trump is strong, there is little on the advance agenda referencing specific actions by Trump since taking workplace in January in locations such as tariffs, migration or the pending budget plan costs including cuts in taxes, food aid and Medicaid.


Southern Baptists will be meeting on the 40th anniversary of another Dallas annual meeting. An impressive showdown occurred 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 agencies - by a more conservative faction that was also lined up with the growing Christian conservative motion in presidential politics.


The 1985 face-off was "the hinge convention in regards to the old and the brand-new in the SBC," said 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 - An attendee holds up a ballot throughout the Southern Baptist Convention's yearly meeting in Anaheim, Calif., Tuesday, June 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)


Attendance today will likely be a portion of 1985's, however that meeting's influence will appear. Any disputes will be amongst solidly conservative members.


A number of the proposed resolutions - on betting, porn, sex, gender and marriage - show enduring positions of the convention, though they are specifically pointed in their demands on the wider political world. They are proposed by the main Committee on Resolutions, whose recommendations normally get strong support.


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


To some outside observers, such language is theocratic.


"When you talk about God ´ s design for anything, there ´ s not a lot of room for compromise," stated Nancy Ammerman, professor emerita of sociology of religion at Boston University. She was an eyewitness to the Dallas conference and author of "Baptist Battles," a history of the 1980s debate between doctrinal conservatives and moderates.


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


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


Separate resolutions decry pornography and sports wagering as harmful, requiring the previous to be prohibited and the latter reduced.


At least a few of these political positions are in the world of plausibility at a time when their conservative allies control all levers of power in Washington and numerous have embraced aspects of a Christian nationalist program.


A Southern Baptist, Mike Johnson, is speaker of the House of Representatives and 3rd in line to the presidency.


At least one Supreme Court justice, Clarence Thomas, has actually required reviewing the 2015 Supreme Court choice legislating same-sex marriage nationwide. Other religious conservatives - including some in the Catholic postliberal motion, which has influenced Vice President JD Vance - have actually promoted the view that a robust government need to enact laws morality, such as prohibiting pornography while easing church-state separation.


And conservatives of various stripes have echoed one of the resolution's call for pro-natalist policies and its decrying of "willful childlessness which contributes to a decreasing fertility rate."


Some preconvention talk has actually focused on defunding the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Baptist Convention's public law arm, which has actually been implicated of being inadequate. Ten former Southern Baptist presidents backed its continued funding, though another called for the opposite.


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


The commission has actually attracted Southern Baptists for assistance, mentioning its advocacy for spiritual liberty and against abortion and transgender identity.


"Without the ERLC, you will send out the message to our nation's legislators and the general public at large that the SBC has actually chosen to abandon the general public square at a time when the Southern Baptist voice is most needed," stated a video declaration from the commission president, Brent Leatherwood.


A group of Southern Baptist ethnic groups and leaders signed a statement in April citing issue over Trump's migration crackdown, stating it has hurt church participation and raised worries. "Law and order are needed, however enforcement must be accompanied with compassion that doesn ´ t demonize those leaving oppression, violence, and persecution," the declaration said.


The Center for Baptist Leadership, nevertheless, knocked the denominational Baptist Press for working to "weaponize empathy" in its reporting on the statement and Leatherwood for supporting it.


Texas pastor Dwight McKissic, a Black pastor who shares a number of the Southern Baptist Convention's conservative positions, slammed what he views as a backlash against the commission, "the most racially progressive entity in the SBC."


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


An amendment to ban churches with females pastors stopped working in 2024 after narrowly stopping working to get a two-thirds supermajority for 2 consecutive years. It is anticipated to be reintroduced.


The denomination ´ s belief statement says the office of pastor is limited to guys, but there remain differences over whether this applies just to the lead pastor or to assistants as well. Over the last few years, the convention began purging churches that either had ladies as lead pastors or asserted that they might serve that function. But when an SBC committee this year kept a South Carolina megachurch with a female on its pastoral personnel, some argued this proved the need for a constitutional change. (The church later quit 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 successive yearly decline. The company now reports a membership of 12.7 million members, still the largest among Protestant denominations, a number of whom are shrinking faster.


More appealing are Southern Baptists' baptism numbers - a key spiritual crucial indication. They stand at 250,643, going beyond pre-pandemic levels and, at least in the meantime, reversing a long slide.


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