By Bob Allen
A Southern Baptist Convention seminary president has joined the lineup of speakers for the first U.S. gathering of an international congress to affirm, celebrate and encourage the “natural family,” defined as marriage between a man and woman.
Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, was among speakers announced Sept. 9 for the World Congress of Families IX scheduled Oct. 27-30 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Patterson, a two-time SBC president and co-founder of the “conservative resurgence” movement that reshaped theology and politics of the nation’s second-largest faith group in the late 20th century, joins Mormon elder Russell Ballard, University of Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus, Samuel Rodriguez of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King’s niece Alveda King on a program featuring 200 speakers.
About 2,500 participants are expected to hear from scholars, religious leaders and media personalities at the gathering, which is also expected to draw protestors who claim the “pro-family” designation is code language for discrimination against gays.
Tied to U.S. conservative groups including Focus on the Family, Alliance Defending Freedom, American Family Association and Family Research Council, the World Congress of Families is best known for its work overseas. In Russia, for example, the group has worked with conservative groups including the Russian Orthodox Church to support legislation banning gay “propaganda” signed into law by President Vladimir Putin in 2013.
The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest civil-rights organization dedicated to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality, describes the World Congress of Families as “one of the most influential American organizations involved in the export of hate.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center includes the WCF on its notorious “hate group” list.
The World Congress of Families criticized both of those groups in a 28-page report titled A Call for Civil Dialogue and Constructive Engagement addressing what the group labels “inaccuracies” by “radical gay rights groups.”
Organized by the Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society, the World Congress of Families was founded in 1995 by Hillsdale College historian Allan Carlson, also a scheduled speaker at Salt Lake City.
The group claims 42 organizations in 14 countries working together to promote the “natural family,” an expression from the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The WCF defines the natural family as “the fundamental social unit, inscribed in human nature and centered around the voluntary union of a man and a woman in a lifelong covenant of marriage.”
The group has held previous congresses in in Prague, Geneva, Mexico City, Warsaw, Amsterdam, Madrid and Sydney.
Patterson’s wife, Dorothy, was a member of the study committee that recommended an amendment to the Baptist Faith and Message statement in 1998 on the family, defining marriage as “the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime” with roles defined by male headship and wifely submission.