9 resolutions approved by messengers at 2022 annual meeting

The Southern Baptist Convention Resolutions Committee considered 29 resolutions this year.

It submitted nine to messengers during the SBC Annual Meeting in Anaheim, California. All nine resolutions were approved.

The approved resolutions included the following:

1. On the Missions Field in Rural America

Messengers voted to express commitment to and recognition of the missions field “in rural places.”

2. On the Prosperity Gospel

Messengers denounced the teaching of the prosperity gospel.

3. On the War in Ukraine

Responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, messengers voted to “strongly condemn” Russia’s acts of war against a sovereign nation.

4. On Religious Liberty, Forced Conversion and the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report

Messengers voted to denounce the methods of “forced assimilation and conversion” of Native Americans, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiian children from 1819 to 1969. Messengers adopted this resolution in response to the Bureau of Indian Affairs Investigative Report released in May 2022 that documented and recorded that the United States “maliciously targeted” Native Americans in order to “dispossess these people groups from their native lands.”

5. On Support for Consistent Laws Regarding Pastoral Sexual Abuse

Messengers voted to encourage lawmakers in every state to “pass laws that would provide consistent definitions and classification of sexual abuse by pastors, as sexual abuse committed by pastors constitutes a clear abuse of authority and trust.” Southern Baptists agreed to “encourage lawmakers in every state to pass laws that would empower churches by shielding them from civil liability.”

6. On Lament and Repentance for Sexual Abuse

Messengers voted to publicly lament the harm to survivors of sexual abuse caused by the convention’s actions and inactions documented in the report released in May by the SBC Sexual Abuse Task Force.

7. On the Anticipation of a Historic Moment in the Pro-life Movement

Messengers voted to encourage all Southern Baptists “to pray for the overturning of the disastrous precedent set in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.” The resolution also affirmed the work of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission on this issue.

8. On the Imago Dei and the Helpful Content Submitted in Several Resolutions

Messengers voted to “affirm the dignity and value of every person as created in God’s image.”

9. On Appreciation for the City of Anaheim

Messengers expressed appreciation to the meeting’s host city.

For more stories from the 2022 Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting, visit thebaptistpaper.org/sbc2022.