CORDOVA — Messengers to the Tennessee Baptist Convention approved five resolutions, including the traditional resolution of gratitude and a resolution on “Avowing Opposition to Casinos in Tennessee” during last week’s annual meeting at Bellevue Baptist Church.
Most of the resolutions were passed without opposition or debate except for one.
The resolution on casinos noted that during the 2022 session of the Tennessee Legislature, “House Bill 1642 and Senate Bill 1656, before being withdrawn, if passed and signed by the Governor, would have set into motion the process to allow any federally recognized Indian tribe residing on tribal lands held in trust by the United States government with Tennessee to obtain a license from the National Indian Gaming Commission to conduct gaming operations (casinos, bingo, etc.) within Tennessee.”
The resolution noted that the sponsors of the House and Senate bills “have publicly stated their intention to reintroduce this issue in the 2023 session of the Tennessee Legislature.”
The resolution called for messengers to “firmly avow our opposition to any additional state approved gaming within Tennessee” and “to pray for our elected officials to have the wisdom to acknowledge and avoid the dangers associated with casinos and casino and bingo gambling.”
The resolution also encouraged Tennessee Baptists to contact their state senators and representatives “expressing opposition to any attempt to bring this type of gaming to our state” and to contact Tennessee Governor Bill Lee “expressing support for his continued opposition to casinos, casino gambling and bingo in Tennessee.”
Another resolution called on Tennessee Baptists to seek revival “personally through a daily relationship with Jesus Christ, collectively as an autonomous group of believers called the church and corporately as a convention to stay acutely focused on our purpose resulting in winning our world to Jesus Christ starting across the streets, across the states and across the seas.”
Messengers also adopted a resolution calling for Tennessee Baptists “to condemn all forms of sexual abuse and repudiate with a unified voice all sexually abusive behavior.”
The resolution also called for churches to support those who have survived sexual abuse, to have “absolute integrity” in their hiring practices and to “utilize the resources that have been made available” by the TBC Sexual Abuse Task Force “as we pray and pursue, as God’s people, the eradication of sexual abuse.”
The final resolution “On Biblical Sexuality” received the most discussion. Bob Parikh of Transformation Ministries of Memphis, who presented the original resolution, questioned the omission of language which “missed the heart” of what he originally wrote. After discussion, messengers voted to amend the resolution to add three “resolves” — that it is the parents’ responsibility to teach their children about God’s gift of sexuality at an appropriate age and that no gender-altering surgeries should be performed on children,” that Tennessee Baptists are against schools teaching children “pornographic material under the label of sex education …” and that TBC messengers “firmly believe in the sanctity of life and that parents have full rights and control of their children’s education and the responsibility to protect them from sexual perversions. …”
A second attempt to amend the resolution failed and it was approved with limited opposition. B&R
Resolutions:
- Resolution on Avowing Opposition to Casinos in TN
- Resolution on Biblical Sexuality
- Resolution on Revival
- Resolution on Sexual Abuse