Florida pastor Willy Rice was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention, receiving 58% of the vote. Rice advocates for a conservative shift, including a constitutional amendment banning women pastors, as the denomination faces membership decline.
Southern Baptists on Tuesday elected Florida pastor Willy Rice as their new president, signaling a continued shift to the right for the nation's largest Protestant denomination.
Rice, senior pastor of Calvary Church in Clearwater, received 58% of the vote over South Carolina pastor Josh Powell at the opening day of the two-day annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in Orlando, Florida. His election comes amid ongoing debates over the denomination's direction, with Rice calling for a return to core convictions and warning against a mushy evangelical middle ground.
Rice has been a vocal critic of what he sees as a decline and drift within the SBC, and his supporters include factions pushing for more conservative stances on issues ranging from race to gender roles. The new president has taken strong positions on several key issues. He previously led efforts to abolish the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the SBCs public-policy arm, arguing it had failed to heed member criticisms.
Rice has also questioned the denominations handling of sexual abuse reforms, stating that the push for reform has gone off the tracks almost from the start. He contended that the effort was not about stopping sexual abuse but about introducing secular ideologies and stopping the nations largest group of conservative Christians.
Additionally, Rice has advocated for an amendment to the Baptist Faith and Message declaring gender to be biologically determined and unchangeable, a move that would further restrict the role of women in church leadership. Delegates are expected to vote Wednesday on a proposed amendment regarding women pastors, which would ban churches where women hold the office of pastor or function as one, including preaching to the assembled congregation.
This marks the fourth consecutive year the issue has been brought to a vote, with previous attempts failing to reach the required supermajority. The amendment, proposed by Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, aims to provide clarity and end the lengthy debates that have characterized recent meetings.
Meanwhile, the annual gathering comes amid internal statistics showing a continuing decline in membership over nearly two decades, underscoring the challenges facing the denomination as it navigates these contentious issues
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