The 3 - June 19, 2022

This week's edition of The 3, with three stories of relevance to the Christian community, includes a brief recap of action taken at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention last week in California. Also, a Christian denomination has identified homosexuality as sin that should be confessed. And, a state Supreme Court has reversed a ruling from several years ago that found there was a constitutional right to abortion.

Southern Baptist representatives gather to elect new officers, establish sex abuse prevention measures, and more

The annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention took place last week in Anaheim, and the story making headlines going into the annual meeting was the report issued by a company called Guidepost Solutions that highlighted instances of sexual abuse and alleged attempts by SBC leadership to cover up sexual abuse episodes.  The costly report consisted primarily of instances that had already been made public, and made recommendations about how to deal with the issue of sexual abuse in SBC churches.

The task force appointed following last year's convention made recommendations based on the Guidepost report, and CBN.com summarized those in this manner:

Representatives from local churches, known as "messengers," approved two recommendations from the denomination's sexual abuse task force: to create an abuse reform implementation task force to study further changes as outlined in the recent Guidepost study, and to create a website to maintain a list of pastors, staff, and volunteers who "have at any time been credibly accused of sexual abuse."

The implementation task force will be appointed by new President Bart Barber, a pastor in Farmersville, TX.  Barber won convention president by almost a 61-39 margin on the second ballot after a runoff with Cape Coral, Florida pastor Tom Ascol, who had the support of the Conservative Baptist Network, which was formed to address what its members have identified as spiritual drift in the convention.

An unexpected flashpoint at the convention had to do with the issue of women serving in pastoral roles in convention churches.  While local churches are autonomous in the SBC, a church's adherence, or lack of it, to the Baptist Faith and Message document could result in a church being disfellowshipped. A motion had been made to enact such discipline on a large church that had ordained three women into ministry and given them the title of "pastor."  The committee to which the motion was referred had initially recommended a committee be formed to investigate how the Baptist Faith and Message really addresses the issue, a recommendation later withdrawn. Therefore, no action was taken regarding the church.

What seems to be a yearly controversy over the public policy arm of the SBC, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, was manifested this year in a vote taken by messengers on whether or not to dissolve the body - the motion failed after brief discussion, but there has been concern over the organization's purpose and effectiveness, with some churches having designated their funds sent to the Convention to not be used to fund the ERLC.  The body didn't do itself any favors by adopting a new slogan stating that it wanted to make abortion "unnecessary."  

Christian denomination votes to affirm homosexuality as sin

Meanwhile, as United Methodist churches strategize on how to "disaffiliate" from the denomination as a result of long-standing disagreements over policy, with issues surrounding homosexuality at the core, a smaller denomination has taken a bold stand on Scripture.

ReligionNews.com reports that: "The Christian Reformed Church, a small evangelical denomination of U.S. and Canadian churches, voted...at its annual synod to codify its opposition to homosexual sex."  It went to state:

The 123-53 vote at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, caps a process begun in 2016 when a previous synod voted to form a study committee to bring a report on the “biblical theology” of sexuality.

The vote, following a long day of debate, approves a list of what the denomination calls sexual immorality it won’t tolerate, including “adultery, premarital sex, extra-marital sex, polyamory, pornography and homosexual sex.”

The University is described as the "flagship university" for the CRC, but that could be changing. As the article points out, this move could result in faculty members leaving. The story says:

The university is known in the larger Christian higher education world for its supportive and pastoral approach to LGBTQ students. It allows a student group, the Sexuality and Gender Alliance, to function on campus and in the 2020-21 school year the university did not challenge an openly gay student body president.

However, the article says, "This year it did not renew a professor’s two-year appointment after he agreed to officiate a same-sex wedding. That wedding also led the university to cut ties with its longtime research center, The Center for Social Research, where one of the marriage partners was working."

There is certainly an upheaval in Christian higher education. Another example can be seen at Seattle Pacific University, where recently the school trustees continued to uphold the policy banning staff from being in involved in same-sex relationships, according to Newsweek, an action to which students responded by giving LGBTQ flags to the acting president of the school during graduation.

Iowa Supreme Court reverses itself, declares there is no constitutional right to abortion

In 2018, the Iowa Supreme Court, according to Alliance Defending Freedom, "in Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, ...declared abortion 'a fundamental right' and struck down a 72-hour waiting period that ensured women have the opportunity to receive and evaluate important health information before proceeding with an abortion. The state legislature later passed a 24-hour waiting period, the subject of the present litigation." 

That case is also known as "PPH II," and late last week, the state's high court reversed that ruling; ADF states: 

In Friday’s opinion, the court emphatically overruled PPH II, concluding that the decision “lacks textual and historical support,” and that its “constitutional footing is unsound.” The opinion continued, “textually, there is no support for PPH II’s reading of the due process clause as providing fundamental protection for abortion.”

The court stated: "Historically, there is no support for abortion as a fundamental constitutional right in Iowa."