Southern Baptists target porn, sports betting, same-sex marriage and 'willful childlessness'

Southern Baptists meeting this week in Dallas will be asked to approve resolutions calling for a legal ban on pornography and a reversal 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 say is the biblically stated order of divine creation. They also call for legislators to curtail sports betting and to support policies that promote childbearing.

The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination, is also expected to debate controversies within its own house during its annual meeting Tuesday and Wednesday — such as a proposed ban on churches with women pastors. There are also calls to defund the organization's public policy 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 office in January in areas such as tariffs, immigration or the pending budget bill containing cuts in taxes, food aid and Medicaid.

Remnants of the epic showdown in Dallas 40 years ago

Southern Baptists will be meeting on the 40th anniversary of another Dallas annual meeting. An epic showdown took place when a record-shattering 45,000 church representatives clashed in what became a decisive blow in the takeover of the convention — and its seminaries and other agencies — by a more conservative faction that was also aligned with the growing Christian conservative movement in presidential politics.

The 1985 showdown was ''the hinge convention in terms of the old and the new in the SBC,'' said Albert Mohler, who became a key agent in the denomination's rightward shift as longtime president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

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

Many of the proposed resolutions — on gambling, pornography, sex, gender and marriage — 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 official Committee on Resolutions, whose recommendations typically get strong support.

A proposed resolution says legislators have a duty to ''pass laws that reflect the truth of creation and natural law — about marriage, sex, human life, and family'' and to oppose laws contradicting ''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,'' said Nancy Ammerman, professor emerita of sociology of religion at Boston University. She was an eyewitness to the Dallas meeting and author of ''Baptist Battles,'' a history of the 1980s controversy between theological conservatives and moderates.

''There's not a lot of room for people who don'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 created order that predates the writing of the Scriptures and is affirmed by them. He said the Christian church has always asserted that the created order ''is binding on all persons, in all times, everywhere.''

Southern Baptist views more politically viable today

Separate resolutions decry pornography and sports betting as destructive, calling for the former to be banned and the latter curtailed.

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

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 revisiting the 2015 Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide. Other religious conservatives — including some in the Catholic postliberal movement, which has influenced Vice President JD Vance — have promoted the view that a robust government should legislate morality, such as banning 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 declining fertility rate.''

Some call for eliminating Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission

Some preconvention talk has focused on defunding the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Baptist Convention's public policy arm, which has been accused of being ineffective. Ten former Southern Baptist presidents endorsed its continued funding, though one other called for the opposite.

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

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

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

A group of Southern Baptist ethnic groups and leaders signed a statement in April citing concern over Trump's immigration crackdown, saying it has hurt church attendance and raised fears. ''Law and order are necessary, but enforcement must be accompanied with compassion that doesn't demonize those fleeing oppression, violence, and persecution,'' the statement said.

The Center for Baptist Leadership, however, 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 many of the Southern Baptist Convention's conservative stances, criticized what he sees 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 fewer Black churches will make the transition with them."

Amendment to ban churches with women pastors

An amendment to ban churches with women pastors failed in 2024 after narrowly failing to gain a two-thirds supermajority for two consecutive years. It is expected to be reintroduced.

The denomination's belief statement says the office of pastor is limited to men, but there remain disagreements over whether this applies only to the lead pastor or to assistants as well. In recent years, the convention began purging churches that either had women as lead pastors or asserted that they could serve that role. But when an SBC committee this year retained a South Carolina megachurch with a woman on its pastoral staff, some argued this proved the need for a constitutional amendment. (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 consecutive annual decline. The organization now reports a membership of 12.7 million members, still the largest among Protestant denominations, many of whom are shrinking faster.

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

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