SBC Resolution on Rejecting Gay Therapy Bans Fails to Come Up for Vote
A Southern Baptist Convention resolution that denounced gay conversion therapy bans and "homosexual identity politics" failed to go through at the denomination's annual meeting.
Robert O. Lopez, a professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas, who submitted the resolution, explained to The Christian Post what happened.
"The resolution was declined in committee and never came up for a vote. Attempts to revive it from the floor failed when time was called," said Lopez.
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The SBC Committee on Resolutions explained why the measure did not go through.
"While the Committee believes that the Southern Baptist Convention messengers would agree that ministries seeking to provide biblical counsel to those with same-sex attraction is needed as evidenced by the over two dozen resolutions addressing homosexuality over the last forty years, as well as Article XV of The Baptist Faith and Message, the Committee concluded that there were many related issues of import to clarify in this resolution that were beyond the Committee's ability to address at this meeting."
Lopez added that while he was "disappointed" in the result, he and his organization MassResistance Texas remain "committed to persevering."
Titled "On Ministry and Counseling to Lead People from Homosexuality to Heterosexuality," the resolution asks the SBC to, among other things, "offer loving assistance to people suffering from same-sex attraction, so that they may turn from homosexuality to heterosexuality" and to reject "as heresy any claims that God makes people homosexual."
"... the movement against so-called 'conversion therapy' poses an immediate threat to Christian obedience to the Gospel of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ because it is possible that due to lack of support from Christian ministries, some people with same-sex attractions may err in defining themselves as 'homosexual' by nature, and may thereby invite a fatal sin into their hearts," states the resolution.
"... in both Christian and unbelieving political contexts, homosexual identity politics has prompted a dangerous movement to ban so-called 'conversion therapy' or 'reparative therapy,' banned in terms so broadly as to endanger the work of Christian ministries in aiding people with same-sex attraction to turn away from homosexuality toward heterosexuality."
In 2016, Lopez, who was raised by two lesbians, was forced to resign from California State University at Northridge due to LGBT activist pressure.
He explained to CP last week that the resolution came partly in response to recent political efforts to ban gay conversion therapy or sexual orientation change efforts.
"We saw that Southern Baptists who want to make a change from homosexuality to heterosexuality are not getting enough help from churches. New laws banning change therapy are likely to worsen the situation," he said.
Lopez's resolution was not the only hot-button issue resolution to not be passed by the messengers of the SBC this week.
A failed resolution submitted by messenger Grady Arnold called on the SBC to refrain from using terms like "social justice" and "social justice warriors" when describing Christian activism and ethics.
According to the resolution, social justice is "based on anti-biblical and destructive concepts of Marxist ideology" and is also a "vehicle to promote abortion, homosexuality, gender confusion, and a host of other ideas that are ... antithetical to the gospel, the Christian worldview, and of God's call to holiness."
"Southern Baptists ought to be further warned by the example of the Methodist and Episcopal denominations that have already embraced the social justice movement, and instead of growing in number, these same denominations continue to lose membership at an alarmingly fast rate," stated Arnold's resolution.
