SBC President Willy Rice calls for marriage, gender amendment to Baptist Faith & Message
Southern Baptist Convention President Willy Rice has proposed amending the Baptist Faith & Message in response to what he considers cultural confusion over gender and marriage.
Speaking before the SBC Executive Committee on Monday, Rice said that marriage has been “redefined in ways unprecedented in human history,” while “the very nature of humanity expressed in God’s created order [has been] rejected, as if by the stroke of a pen one can reorder reality.”
Rice stressed that “Southern Baptists believe there is only one definition of marriage, and there are only two genders” and denounced cultural trends to the contrary as “assaults on the truth of God and His creation.”
“I’m asking this Executive Committee to consider a historic act,” Rice said, according to Baptist Press. “I’m asking you to recommend to our convention adding an article to the Baptist Faith & Message to address the specific issue of gender and human sexuality.”
“It will send a message externally, and it will send a message internally, that Southern Baptists will not bow down to the music of this age. We are not eroding. We are not evading. We are not equivocating. We are enduring like a mighty tree planted by a stream of water.”
Rice suggested that the proposed amendment be modeled after a statement that was adopted in 2022 by First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Florida, which read in part:
The SBC Executive Committee will vote in February on whether to bring the proposed amendment to messengers at next year’s SBC Annual Meeting, reported BP. For the possible amendment to be adopted, it must receive at least two-thirds approval from the messengers in two consecutive years.
The senior pastor of Calvary Church in Clearwater, Florida, Rice was elected SBC president in June at the denomination's Annual Meeting in Orlando, receiving 5,217 votes, or 57.56% of votes cast.
Shortly before his election, Rice preached a sermon at the SBC Pastors’ Conference, stressing that “it is not enough to affirm right doctrine,” warning that “if we seek the favor of the world more than the approval of Heaven, if we fear the rejection of men more than we fear the judgment of God, we are already on a dangerous slide.”
“It is not enough for us to engage in religious ritual,” Rice said. “Saul had lost sight of what mattered most: to obey is better than sacrifice, to pay attention is better than the fat of rams.”
“I want a Southern Baptist Convention that is successful, but I want one that is faithful even more. … Faithfulness today will bring fruitfulness tomorrow.”
