When the Southern Baptist Convention meets in annual session each summer, few things make as many headlines as the resolutions adopted in those two-day sessions.
This year will be no exception as the voting participants — called “messengers” in SBC parlance — are slated to address hot-button topics such as “the harmful and predatory nature of sports betting,” banning pornography, the “medical dangers of chemical abortion pills” and international religious liberty. These are among eight proposed resolutions released in advance of the June 10-11 event by the Committee on Resolutions.
Having nearly two weeks of advance notice of proposed resolution is new this year, as in recent years the report of the committee has not been made public until the meeting begins.
What’s hot
The hottest of hot-button issues addressed in a committee-proposed resolution has to do with gender, sexuality and pregnancy.
“The hottest of hot-button issues addressed in a committee-proposed resolution has to do with gender, sexuality and pregnancy.”
It is not news that the SBC opposes homosexuality and same-sex marriage. It is not news that the SBC opposes the existence of transgender people. But a proposed resolution this year rolls those hot potatoes into a stew that also includes in vitro fertilization.
A draft resolution on “Restoring Moral Clarity through God’s Design for Gender, Marriage and the Family” says God created all humans “as either male or female in accord with his good design for humanity, equal in worth but different by design, and this difference is not accidental or arbitrary.”
That statement aligns with the anti-transgender complementarian view dominant in today’s SBC where men are considered spiritually superior to women and alone may serve as pastors and preachers.
But that’s just the warm-up act.
The draft resolution goes on to lament that modern culture is “redefining marriage, pursuing willful childlessness which contributes to a declining fertility rate, ignoring and suppressing the biological differences between male and female, encouraging gender confusion, undermining parental rights, and denying the value and dignity of children.”
Then this bombshell: “Commercial surrogacy often treats children as products and women as a means to an end, and may entail the destruction of embryonic life, violating the dignity of human life and distorting God’s design for procreation within marriage.”
“Commercial surrogacy often treats children as products and women as a means to an end.”
That’s a head-on assault on IVF, which was one of the most contentious issues at last year’s annual meeting where messengers adopted a resolution opposing IVF — despite the pleas of conservative parents and grandparents who rose to speak of the joy IVF children have brought to their families.
The rub is that the IVF process usually involves fertilizing more eggs than are implanted into a mother’s uterus, and the leftovers are considered by some to be victims of abortion. This is an enormous divide within the “pro-life” community.
Anticipate an effort to remove the above paragraph about “commercial surrogacy” from the resolution.
The draft resolution also calls on Christians “to celebrate and embrace marriage and childbearing — seeing children as blessings rather than burdens — and the privilege of raising the next generation.” That’s a rebuke of women and couples who choose not to bear children.
The draft adds: “We call for renewed moral clarity in public discourse regarding the crisis of declining fertility and for policies that support the bearing and raising of children within intact, married families.”
Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, is a leading voice in the SBC warning about declining fertility rates. This is a major topic in larger evangelical circles, as BNG previously reported.
This resolution also declares: “Human life is sacred at every stage — from conception to natural death — because all people bear the image of God and law should grant equal protection for each stage of human development” but not address capital punishment.
Unlike Roman Catholics who also are staunch anti-abortion advocates, the SBC loves capital punishment and does not espouse a holistic stance on the sanctity of life.
Within the multi-ingredient stew of this draft resolution, much attention is given to “the normalization of transgender ideology,” which is an obsession of the Republican Party and conservative evangelicals.
Transgender identity “represents a rebellion against God’s design for male and female, inflicts unjust harm on children and women, employs coercive language control, and undermines fairness, safety and truth,” the resolution says.
And following the GOP playbook, the resolution warns conservatives who object to transgender identity are being “threatened” and their free speech as parents is being curtailed. Others see evangelicals’ disdain for transgender people as hate speech more than free speech.
“Amazingly, the resolution connects all these fears to the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges.”
And then amazingly, the resolution connects all these fears to the 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized same-sex marriage.
“Legal rulings like Obergefell v. Hodges and policies that deny the biological reality of male and female are legal fictions, undermine the truth of God’s design, and lead to social confusion and injustice.”
We must note that Obergefell in no way addressed transgender identity. It was about sexual orientation, not gender identity.
And then, for good measure, the resolution throws in Planned Parenthood: “Planned Parenthood remains a leading provider of abortion, undermines parental rights, and promotes harmful ideas about sex and the family, all while receiving taxpayer funds.”
The resolution appeals to “natural law” and Scripture to urge the overturn of Obergefell and to advocate for “laws that affirm marriage between one man and one woman, recognize the biological reality of male and female, protect children’s innocence against sexual predation, affirm and strengthen parental rights in education and health care, incentivize family formation in life-affirming ways, and ensure safety and fairness in female athletic competition.”
This 1,064-word resolution is a mash-up of so many things conservative evangelicals fear. It rolls at least four distinct issues into one resolution that, if passed, will go down in history as among the most exclusivist resolutions of the modern era.
That’s not all
But wait, there’s more.
Another resolution calls upon the Food and Drug Administration “to immediately revoke its approval of mifepristone, restore all previously removed safety protocols, and reevaluate chemical abortion drugs using real-world data.” It also urges the United States Congress and state legislatures “to pass laws banning the manufacture, sale, distribution and mailing of chemical abortion drugs, and to hold accountable pharmaceutical companies and medical providers complicit in these harms.”
Another proposed resolution urges Congress and state legislatures “to enact comprehensive laws that ban the creation, publication, hosting and distribution of pornographic content in all media and to provide rigorous enforcement mechanisms — including age-verification and civil liability — in the ultimate effort to eradicate pornography nationwide.”
There are no proposed resolutions on the threat of Christian nationalism, on the care for millions of people left hungry and unmedicated due to the Trump administration’s abandonment of international aid, or on the plight of legal immigrants being ripped from their families by ICE.
“This resolution warns of ‘wicked governments’ elsewhere but not at home.”
Ironically, a proposed resolution on “Advocating for International Religious Freedom” sees only the threat of people outside the United States and does not address the persecution of any minority religious groups in the United States.
This resolution warns of “wicked governments” elsewhere but not at home.
In other perfunctory resolutions, the committee proposes thanking the host city, recognizing the 100th anniversary of the Cooperative Program unified budget and the 100th anniversary of the Baptist Faith and Message doctrinal statement, which has undergone two major revisions since 1925.
What’s missing
If this reads like one of the most GOP-friendly reports of an SBC Resolutions Committee in memory, there’s a likely reason for that.
SBC President Clint Pressley named Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Andrew Walker as chair of this year’s committee.
One BNG columnist previously described Walker as “a leading evangelical voice in the fight against the threats of the new postmodernity, along with contemporary theological and political progressivism.”
However, in June 2024, when Donald Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts in a New York City courtroom, Walker was unique among his peers in calling Trump’s crimes “wrong and inexcusable.”
After the 2024 presidential election, Walker wrote a piece for WORLD magazine in which he urged: “Rather than spend the next four years berating the Trump administration when it disappoints evangelicals, why not be an encourager with an aspirational challenge to make?”
This type of conservative pragmatism is evident throughout the draft resolutions, which mainly stick to red meat issues that stir the evangelical base while not offending the MAGA element that courses through the same body politic.
In more than a few places, a careful reader hears the influence of Walker’s boss, Al Mohler, in the language of the resolutions, most of which could have been written by Focus on the Family.
What’s more notable, however, is what’s missing. There is no defense of Israel. The word “Israel” does not appear in the document. There is no lament for the dead and malnourished children of Gaza. There is no mention of Elon Musk, DOGE, Donald Trump or immigrants. Neither the word “immigrant” nor “refugee” appears in any of the resolutions. There is no mention of Ukraine or Russia.
However, the word “abortion” appears 18 times, variations on the word “gender” appear four times, and the word “marriage” appears 12 times.
Other members of the 2025 Committee on Resolutions are: Whitney Alexander, First Baptist, Gadsden, Ala.; Michael Carlino, Kenwood Baptist, Louisville, Ky.; David Crowther, Immanuel Baptist, Wichita, Kan.; Anthony Dockery, St. Stephen Baptist, La Puente, Calif.; Mollie Duddleston, Cross Church, Springdale, Ark.; Christopher Sanchez, Dauphin Way Baptist, Mobile, Ala.; Obbie Tyler Todd, Third Baptist, Marion, Ill.; Jana White, Freedom Church, Lincolnton, N.C.; and Lemanuel Williams, Redeemer Church, Rocky Mount, N.C.
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