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

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


The proposed resolutions call for laws on gender, marriage and family based on what they state is the biblically stated order of divine production. They likewise call for lawmakers to curtail sports wagering and to support policies that promote childbearing.


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


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


Southern Baptists will be meeting on the 40th anniversary of another Dallas annual conference. An impressive showdown took location when a record-shattering 45,000 church representatives clashed in what ended up being a definitive blow in the takeover of the convention - and its academies and other agencies - by a more conservative faction that was also aligned with the growing Christian conservative movement in governmental politics.


The 1985 was "the hinge convention in terms of the old and the brand-new in the SBC," said Albert Mohler, who became a crucial agent in the denomination's rightward shift as long time president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.


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


Attendance today will likely be a fraction of 1985's, but that conference's influence will be obvious. Any arguments will be among solidly conservative members.


Much of the proposed resolutions - on gambling, pornography, sex, gender and marriage - show enduring positions of the convention, though they are specifically pointed in their demands on the broader political world. They are proposed by the main Committee on Resolutions, whose recommendations generally get strong support.


A proposed resolution says legislators have a responsibility to "pass laws that show the truth of development and natural law - about marital relationship, sex, human life, and family" and to oppose laws contradicting "what God has actually made plain through nature and Scripture."


To some outside observers, such language is theocratic.


"When you talk about God ´ s style for anything, there ´ s not a lot of space for compromise," said Nancy Ammerman, teacher 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 controversy in between theological conservatives and moderates.


"There ´ s not a lot of room for people who don ´ t have the exact same understanding of who God is and how God runs on the planet," she said.


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


Separate resolutions decry pornography and sports wagering as damaging, requiring the former to be banned and the latter curtailed.


At least some of these political positions are in the realm of plausibility at a time when their conservative allies manage all levers of power in Washington and numerous have actually accepted elements of a Christian nationalist agenda.


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


At least one Supreme Court justice, Clarence Thomas, has required reviewing the 2015 Supreme Court choice legislating same-sex marital relationship across the country. Other religious conservatives - including some in the Catholic postliberal motion, which has actually influenced Vice President JD Vance - have actually promoted the view that a robust government ought to legislate morality, such as banning porn while alleviating church-state separation.


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


Some preconvention talk has concentrated on defunding the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Baptist Convention's public policy arm, which has been accused of being inefficient. Ten former Southern Baptist presidents endorsed its continued funding, though another required the opposite.


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


The commission has actually attracted Southern Baptists for support, mentioning its advocacy for religious liberty and versus abortion and transgender identity.


"Without the ERLC, you will send out the message to our country's lawmakers and the general public at large that the SBC has chosen to desert the general 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 pointing out concern over Trump's migration crackdown, stating it has harmed church participation and raised fears. "Order are necessary, but enforcement needs to be accompanied with empathy that doesn ´ t demonize those fleeing injustice, violence, and persecution," the statement said.


The Center for Baptist Leadership, nevertheless, denounced 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 lot of the Southern Baptist Convention's conservative positions, slammed what he sees as a backlash 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 fewer Black churches will make the transition with them."


A change to ban churches with females pastors stopped working in 2024 after narrowly failing to get a two-thirds supermajority for 2 consecutive years. It is expected to be reestablished.


The denomination ´ s belief statement says the office of pastor is limited to guys, however there remain differences over whether this applies just to the lead pastor or to assistants also. In recent years, the convention began purging churches that either had ladies as lead pastors or asserted that they could serve that function. But when an SBC committee this year maintained a South Carolina megachurch with a female on its pastoral staff, some argued this showed the requirement for a constitutional modification. (The church later stopped the denomination of its own accord.)


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


More promising are Southern Baptists' baptism numbers - an essential spiritual vital sign. They stand at 250,643, going beyond pre-pandemic levels and, at least for now, reversing a long slide.


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