By Will Hall, Message executive editor
NOTE: The online edition of this article has been corrected to indicate that the SBC Resolutions Committee tabled Resolution 7.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (LBM) – Messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention’s 2021 Annual Meeting adopted nine of the 10 resolutions submitted by the Resolutions Committee and added one from the floor that called for “abolishing abortion.”
According to Baptist Press, the Resolutions Committee had declined the previously submitted pro-life resolution, June 15, because the issue of abortion had been addressed in another resolution they wrote. However, one of the co-authors of the rejected resolution spoke to the messengers, who voted to bring it to the floor for consideration with a two-thirds vote and adopted it the next day after the word “alone” was added. In the end, this resolution declared “that we will not embrace an incremental approach alone to ending abortion because it challenges God’s Lordship over the heart and the conscience, and rejects His call to repent of sin completely and immediately.”
Meanwhile, the committee tabled the proposed Resolution 7 they had crafted — which denounced “the Capitol resurrection of January 6, 2021, … as inconsistent with faithful Christian citizenship,” but did not condemn the looting and violence of the 2020 riots that were orchestrated in major U.S. cities across the country.
Others:
- Resolution 1 urged Southern Baptists to maintain unity and protect their witness for Jesus Christ.
- Resolution 2 affirmed the sufficiency of Scripture on race and reconciliation and rejected any theory that credits racism to anything other than sin (without naming Critical race Theory and Intersectionality).
- Resolution 3 condemned any effort to repeal the Hyde Amendment (a 50-year federal policy that prohibits using tax dollars to fund abortions except in cases of incest, rape, or to save the life of the mother).
- Resolution 4 denounced the Equality Act, which elevates sexual orientation and gender identity to a status that eclipses religious liberty rights.
- Resolution 5 asked SBC churches to permanently disqualify as pastor “any person who has committed sexual abuse.”
- Resolution 6 reaffirmed “sole membership” which defines the corporate structure of each SBC entity, making each legally bound only to the messengers of the Convention.
- Resolution 8 called for China to stop its genocide of the Uyghur people, implored the United States to “prioritize the admission of Uyghurs to this country as refugees, and provide resources for their support and resettlement,” and asked for prayers for the Uyghurs, as well as the Christian workers who bring both physical aid and the Gospel of Christ.
- Resolution 9 mourned those whose lives were lost to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Resolution 10 thanked Nashville for its hospitality as the host city for the 2021 SBC Annual Meeting.
