At the 164th annual meeting of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention (ABSC) last month, messengers from across the state approved a resolution to affirm the Nashville Statement on Biblical Sexuality.
The resolution included excerpts from articles of the Nashville Statement along with a strong endorsement of the statement.
“Resolved, that we the messengers to the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, meeting at First Baptist Church, Russellville, Arkansas, November 7-8, 2017, declare without equivocation that we are in complete agreement with the Nashville Statement.”
The resolution also included a quotation from Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr., one of the initial signatories of the Nashville Statement, to provide rationale and cultural context for the ABSC’s decision to affirm the statement at this time:
“We understand that we live in an increasingly post-Christian world, and that a vast revolution in sexual morality is now fundamentally reshaping the landscape. Churches and pastors, Christian institutions and individual Christians, are now under intense pressure to adopt this new sexual morality, along with its redefinition of marriage and gender … It would be much easier to be quiet, to let the moral revolution proceed unanswered, and to seek some kind of refuge in silence or ambiguity. For the sake of same-sex attracted people and others, we did not believe we could remain silent – or unclear – and be faithful.”
Reports from the state convention meeting indicate that the resolution passed unanimously.
While the ABSC is the first Southern Baptist state convention to endorse the Nashville Statement, earlier this year the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention used wording from the Nashville Statement to draft a resolution on gender identity and sexuality.
It is heartening to see the Nashville Statement fulfilling its intended purpose: to help local pastors and churches affirm and teach what the Bible says about sexuality. Our hope at CBMW is that more churches and denominational entities would join us in declaring the goodness of God’s design for human sexuality, and that this truth would bring glory to the Lord.
The full text of the ABSC resolution can be read here.
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