Christian Post reports that Willy Rice, the newly elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), proposed a new amendment to the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 (BF&M), the denomination's statement of faith. The amendment will add an article that clearly defines the pressing issue of gender and human sexuality.
Independent Southern Baptist churches refer to the doctrinal statement as common beliefs within the denomination.
Dr. Richard Land is a professor of theology and former president of the Southern Evangelical Seminary.
“The confession is a statement of those things which are most surely believed among us and is a guide for the world, and also as a teaching tool, for those within the Convention. This is what Southern Baptist doctrine is. This is what we believe,” Land says.
When Land was working on a revision of the Baptist Faith and Message in 2000, the notion that gender could be something “assigned at birth” would have been nonsensical.
“Nobody was talking about a transexual then. That was way beyond the pale,” Land says.
However, same sex marriage then became legalized, and then came drag queens and DEI, which has led to the current state of things.
“It was far more developed on the leftist side than we were aware and became a big issue much faster than I think most Americans thought it would,” Land states.
Since the culture has embraced the confusion so thoroughly, he says an amendment to the BF&M is needed.
The language hasn't been officially drafted yet, but Land says it will read something like this:
“We believe that marriage is only between one man and one woman, and that sexual expression is to take place only within marriage, and that God creates us, male and female, and there is no deviation from that.”
To amend the BF&M, the gender statement would need the approval of two-thirds of the messengers at two consecutive annual meetings.
