SBC president calls for clearer statement on sex, gender

Newly elected Southern Baptist Convention President Willy Rice this week told other SBC leaders that the denomination’s statement of faith should more clearly address gender, sexuality, and marriage. He asked the SBC Executive Committee to recommend adding an article to the statement that would specifically address cultural confusion around sexuality. Rice, the senior pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Clearwater, Fla., delivered his remarks at the SBC Executive Committee on Monday evening in Nashville, Tenn.

Rice said that marriage has been redefined in unprecedented ways, and the cultural shifts have assaulted God’s truth. An amendment was needed to show that Southern Baptists will not bow down to the music of this age, he said.

What would the amendment say? Rice recommended modeling the amendment off a statement from First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla. First adopted in 2022, that church’s statement explained that God creates people as either male or female and that creation was a fixed matter of human biology. It added that marriage was only between one man and one woman.

The executive committee will vote in February on whether to present the proposed amendment to messengers at the 2027 SBC Annual Meeting, according to Kentucky Today.

What else did the SBC president say at the meeting?

• Rice called for the final passage of an amendment banning all women from serving as pastors, elders, or any other form of overseer within the denomination. Messengers issued the initial approval to the amendment during this summer’s annual meeting in Orlando.

• Southern Baptists must also secure their churches against the wickedness of sexual abuse, Rice said. The threat of this sin will require constant vigilance, he added. He said in January his church will host a training conference aimed at preventing abuse.

Dig deeper: Read Christina Grube’s report for highlights from the SBC’s annual meeting this past summer.