Messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention elected Bobby Welch to a second term as president of the denomination. During their annual meeting last week, they also urged parents to investigate public schools and ended its eight-year boycott against the Disney Co.
Bobby Welch, pastor of First Baptist Church in Daytona Beach, Fla., was re-elected to a second one-year term as president of the Southern Baptist Convention on the first day of the SBC's annual meeting in Nashville, Tenn., June 21-22.
The election was a highlight of a meeting in which messengers also
voted “to investigate diligently the curricula, textbooks and programs” of public schools and ended the SBC's boycott of Disney.
Welch was elected without opposition.
During his sermon to the convention, the president delivered a winsome and passionate message to the messengers urging Southern Baptists to launch out into the deep waters of evangelism, using Psalm 107:23-24 and Luke 5:4 as his texts. Humorously illustrating his point by pulling several stiff, flat, former frogs from a zip-loc bag in his pocket, he commented that these frogs should have been out in the deep instead of in the street. Because they were not where they should have been, they got flattened by a concrete truck. He urged messengers not to follow the “big croakers and high hoppers” unless they were moving into the deep waters of evangelism.
During his first term as president, Welch crisscrossed the nation in a bus tour promoting “The ‘Everyone Can' Kingdom Challenge!” designed to unite Southern Baptists around an issue about which they agree-evangelism. Establishing a goal of Southern Baptist churches baptizing 1 million people during the 2005-06 church year, he takes every opportunity to encourage, promote, prompt, prod and challenge Southern Baptists to do what they regard as central to their faith.
In a resolution, messengers voted “to hold accountable schools, institutions and industries for their moral influence on our children.”
The resolution also urges parents and churches “to investigate diligently the curricula, textbooks and programs in our community schools and to demand discontinuation of offensive material and programs.”
The action came one year after SBC messengers rejected a proposal urging Southern Baptists to remove their children from “godless” and “anti-Christian” public schools.
Attorney Bruce Shortt of Texas was the co-author of proposed resolutions both last year and this year urging parents to withdraw their children from public schools. This year's proposal, co-written by Voddie Baucham Jr., called for removing children from schools that seek to influence students to accept homosexuality as a legitimate lifestyle.
While the measure presented by the SBC resolutions committee cited concerns about homosexuality, it stopped short of urging parents to withdraw their children from public schools.
Shortt said later he and Baucham support the committee's resolution as “an important first step in protecting our children.” He urged Southern Baptists to “investigate diligently … to determine if your school district is betraying your trust by teaching that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle.”
Prior to the vote, Robert Dreyfus of Florida told messengers: “It's just devastating to me what is happening to our children. Public schools are a mission field, but they're a killing field to our children. If we do not speak out on this issue, I think Southern Baptists will in the future greatly regret not having addressed this issue.”
Jim Goforth of Missouri, who spoke against the anti-public school proposal last year, offered an amendment this year commending teachers and students “who feel a call from God to take a stand in secular schools as a light shining in the darkness.”
Committee members accepted the proposal as a friendly amendment and it was approved prior to adopting the revised resolution.
Messengers also approved resolutions to end an eight-year boycott of Disney and to express appreciation for American troops and President Bush.
The Disney resolution declares that the SBC's boycott “has communicated effectively our displeasure concerning products and policies that violate moral righteousness and traditional family values.”
Urging Disney to provide “only those products that affirm traditional family values,” the resolution pledges “to continue to monitor the products and policies of the Disney Co.”
Wiley Drake, a California pastor and outspoken Disney opponent, affirmed the proposal to end the boycott but proposed an amendment calling for the SBC “to reinstitute another boycott if necessary.”
Messengers rejected the proposed amendment.
Bill Dodson of Kentucky urged messengers to defeat the resolution and continue the boycott. Claiming Disney shifted “from Bambi to bimbos,” Dodson lamented the entertainment giant's “open and blatant disregard of the values we hold dear.” Saying the SBC was right to boycott Disney in 1997, he added, “This old warrior isn't ready to stop fighting the battle just yet.”
Messengers overwhelmingly voted to end the boycott, concluding with a call for Southern Baptists “to practice continued discernment regarding all entertainment products from all sources.”
The resolution honoring the military declares that “our troops play a vital role in preserving and protecting freedom in the United States and throughout the world.” It also notes that President Bush “has shown courage and leadership in his valiant opposition to terrorism.”
Without specifically referencing Iraq, Afghanistan or other countries where U.S. troops are stationed, the resolution encourages “all Southern Baptists to pray regularly for our president and to stand with him in opposing global terrorism as he makes decisions that potentially impact the entire earth.”
Connie Saffle, a U.S. Army veteran and pastor's wife from Kansas, offered an amendment encouraging Baptists to pray for and support family members of military personnel. It was approved without debate.
Messengers defeated an amendment that urged “maintaining the maximum individual freedoms of all loyal Americans.” Robert Dreyfus offered the amendment out of concern for “the abridgement of our constitutional rights” through the Patriot Act and other measures.
Messengers also approved six other resolutions:
• Stem-cell research. Noting that messengers “wholeheartedly support efforts to find cures and therapies for human maladies that respect the sanctity of all human life,” the measure adds that “we deplore embryo-destructive research, since it kills human beings in their earliest stages of development.”
• Federal judiciary. The measure calls on “all future presidents to nominate strict constructionist judges who will interpret rather than make law.” It also urges “all members of the Body of Christ to provide their United States senators with verbal and written encouragement to stop the obstruction of judicial nominees.”
• Religious freedom and freedom of speech. The resolution declares that messengers “will vote only for candidates and policies at all levels of government that will protect our religious freedoms and advocate traditional Judeo-Christian values.” It urges Southern Baptists to “use their freedom of speech and religious liberty to further the cause of Christ in the public arena.”
• Reducing teen smoking. Noting that every day 5,000 children under age 18 smoke their first cigarette, messengers pledged to “work to reduce tobacco use, especially among teens.” The resolution also applauds “jurisdictions that have helped reduce teen smoking with substantial tax increases on tobacco products.”
• Evangelism. Messengers affirmed SBC president Bobby Welch's call for Southern Baptists to “reach, win and baptize 1 million people” through the “ ‘Everyone Can' Kingdom Challenge for Evangelism.”
By Jim White for the Religious Herald and Trennis Henderson for Associated Baptist Press.