Latest news with #Ethics&ReligiousLibertyCommission
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Southern Baptists repeat feuds over SBC public policy arm, women pastors at Dallas event
The Southern Baptist Convention narrowly retained its public policy arm and showed strong support for a proposed constitutional ban on women pastors despite the measure's failure to receive a supermajority vote, replicating feuds the nation's largest Protestant denomination has dealt with in the past couple of years. Legislative debates about women pastors and about the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission at this year's SBC annual meeting in Dallas have led some to complain the convention is spinning its wheels. A renewed proposal at the Dallas legislative assembly for a constitutional ban on women pastors failed because it didn't meet a supermajority vote. Sixty percent of delegates, called messengers, voted for the proposal, just short of the required threshold. 'Why do they feel like they need to keep bringing this up over and over again when they already have mechanisms by which they can disfellowship churches,' Meredith Stone, executive director of Baptist Women in Ministry, said at a June 10 event protesting support for banning women pastors. The proposed ban was the central debate at the 2023 and 2024 SBC annual meetings, and this week in Dallas messengers moved to reverse the last year's outcome. If two-thirds majority of messengers approved the measure, it would have required a ratification vote at next year's SBC annual meeting in Orlando. SBC President Clint Pressley doesn't see these recurring debates as necessarily problematic, and in fact says it's a reflection of Southern Baptists' continued commitment to the convention business. "That's the great thing about Southern Baptists is that they have a conversation, don't win a vote, and they still keep coming," Pressley, a North Carolina pastor, said in a June 11 news conference. Pressley said he expects some of the major legislative conversations at this year's SBC annual meeting to reemerge next year. Messengers reelected Pressley to a second term, meaning he will preside over the 2026 SBC annual meeting in Orlando. This year, the convention also approved a resolution calling for the reversal of the U.S. Supreme Court decision Obergefell v. Hodges on the month of the 10-year anniversary of the landmark ruling that legalized same-sex marriage. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission advocates for beliefs articulated in SBC resolutions, and is a reason why ERLC president Brent Leatherwood said the commission's work is essential for the denomination. Leatherwood addressed messengers before it debated the proposal to abolish the ERLC, saying eradicating the commission 'means the public square would be abandoned by the SBC, losing a powerful voice for the truth of the gospel and in effect rewarding secular efforts to push religion out.' Critics have accused the ERLC of promoting views on issues like the environment, immigration, and the war in Ukraine that are inconsistent with conventional Southern Baptist values. Leatherwood has been the specifically been a target of those attacks. He nearly lost his job last year when the commission's former board chair acted unilaterally to remove Leatherwood, who shortly before had commended former President Joe Biden for dropping out of the U.S. presidential race. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission faced attacks at the 2022, 2023 and 2024 SBC annual meetings, each time narrowly surviving. This year, 56% of messengers voted to reject a proposal to abolish the ERLC. The SBC seemed to settle the fight over women pastors at the 2024 SBC annual meeting in Indianapolis, but controversies since then have emboldened some Southern Baptists to resurrect the proposal. In February, SBC administrative leaders opted not to disfellowship, or oust, a South Carolina megachurch that employs a woman pastor. The SBC Executive Committee did oust an Anchorage, Alaska congregation over an apparent set of beliefs on women pastors at odds with the denomination's position. The South Carolina megachurch, NewSpring Church, ultimately withdrew from the SBC. 'If we don't give them that clarity, we're going to have to come back year after year to debate this indefinitely,' Travis Hartwell, a messenger from Houston, said during a June 11 floor debate. 'I for one do not wish to come to the convention every year to debate female pastors.' Ultimately, the vote outcome at the Dallas meeting mirrored that of the 2024 SBC annual meeting in Indianapolis when a strong majority of messengers supported the proposal, but it was just short of a required supermajority. Baptist Women in Ministry, a nonprofit that advocates for women in church leadership roles, organized the June 10 panel discussion on women pastors. 'What the Southern Baptist Convention is doing today in regards to women… is one of the harshest measures against women in ministry in the western world,' said panelist Beth Allison Barr, a religious historian. 'It's really making it clear to women that 'you belong under male power and there's no way around it.'' This story was updated to include a quote from SBC President Clint Pressley. Liam Adams covers religion for The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at ladams@ or on social media @liamsadams. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Southern Baptists repeat public policy, women pastors feuds in Dallas
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
TN trans care ban: AG said defending case to SCOTUS, expected to rule soon, was God's will
DALLAS — Potentially days before the U.S. Supreme Court rules in a landmark case on a ban on transgender youth receiving certain medical care, Tennessee's attorney general told a room of Southern Baptists he believes it was God's providence that he argued before the land's highest court. "I'm in the middle of things that are so much bigger than I have any business being in the middle of. But I'm there for a reason," Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said during a June 10 panel discussion at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas. 'So, I just try to remember it's not about me and that God puts his people where he needs them, where he wants them." Skrmetti's office is defending Tennessee's ban on gender transition treatments for transgender minors, which a Nashville family with a transgender teenager is challenging. The Supreme Court may decide on the case as early as June 12, and a majority of justices have signaled a friendly disposition toward upholding Tennessee's law that took effect in June 2023. The June 10 event was organized by the Nashville-based SBC's public policy arm, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. Skrmetti and another panelist, Alliance Defending Freedom senior vice president Ryan Bangert, said the case is about science and the degree to which courts can decide public policy. But Skrmetti and Bangert, whose law firm is helping represent Tennessee in U.S. v. Skrmetti, acknowledged faith is another key component of this story and will potentially be a resounding victory for conservative Christians. More: Meet the Tennessee family behind the US Supreme Court's major transgender health care case 'I would be ready to have good conversations with your congregants, good conversations with your fellow church members about what this case means not just from a legal perspective. But from a broader cultural perspective,' Bangert said at the June 10 panel. 'I would be ready to have that conversation: 'God willing, the law has been upheld. What do we do know?'' Alliance Defending Freedom has been a decisive force in several recent U.S. Supreme Court cases that have reversed precedent in favor of conservative Christian ideals. Examples include Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization that overturned Roe v. Wade, Kennedy v. Bremerton dealing with public prayer on a high school sports field, and 303 Creative v. Elenis about a Christian web designer's refusal to work with same-sex couples. The Southern Baptist Convention is the nation's largest Protestant denomination. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission stated its opposition to transition treatment for transgender people in resolutions at past SBC annual meetings and has been a vocal proponent of bans in Tennessee and other states. Bangert said at the June 10 panel there are 26 states with bans like Tennessee's and the decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti could affect those other laws. The ERLC filed an amicus brief in U.S. v. Skrmetti, for which the SBC-affiliated agency hired a Southern Baptist lawyer to carefully and forcefully assert the Southern Baptists' position on the issue. Skrmetti praised the ERLC's amicus brief during the June 10 panel, saying it provided a theological rationale for Tennessee's law. Skrmetti's office cannot make that theological argument in its defense before the Supreme Court because an establishment clause requires the state to approach the case from a religiously neutral perspective. Skrmetti, who attends a Church of Christ congregation in Nashville, said at the June 10 panel in his capacity at Tennessee's attorney general that his religion is not a factor in how he approaches the case. But personally, he told the crowd of Southern Baptists in Dallas that the outcome will be meaningful as a person of faith. 'Pray for my team that all of us that if we win, win gracefully in a way that reinforces both shining God's light into the world,' Skrmetti said. Liam Adams covers religion for The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at ladams@ or on social media @liamsadams. This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Skrmetti cites God's will to his role in SCOTUS trans care case at SBC
