By Will Hall, Message Executive Editor
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (LBM)—The Southern Baptist Convention Pastors’ Conference has declined a request from the SBC Executive Committee to change its lineup of speakers and entertainers.
The SBC EC passed a resolution offering the pastors group use of the 2020 SBC Annual Meeting spaces in Orlando if it made changes to its proposed program, which was described as “sufficiently beyond the parameters of the faith and practice of Southern Baptists,” and made a payment of $100,000 (only a partial reimbursement of the actual cost of the facilities).
Instead, the Pastors’ Conference, which has always been treated as a friend of the SBC although it has not official status with the denomination, said the First Baptist Church in Orlando, would pay the full cost for use of the spaces but not make any lineup changes. The amount of the full cost for use of the facilities has not been publicly released.
David Uth, chairman of the Pastors’ Conference, also is pastor of First Orlando.
It is not clear if the SBC EC will agree to this counter offer.
At dispute are a number of platform personalities including David Hughes, pastor of Church by the Glades in Coral Springs, Florida. His Southern Baptist congregation has hosted a profanity-laced hip-hop artist, and also has promoted the church using sensual themes on billboards, etc., in marketing campaigns that offended many traditional Christians. Also on the lineup as an “entertainer” is Hosanna Wong, an associate teaching pastor with the non-SBC multi-site Eastlake Church in San Diego, California. The Baptist Faith & Message 2000 interprets Scripture to teach that only men may serve as pastors.
