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June 12th, 2013
02:32 PM ET
Big Baptist group urges ouster of Boy Scout execsBy Daniel Burke, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor (CNN) - The Southern Baptist Convention, the country's second largest church, said Boy Scout executives who pushed to allow openly gay Scouts without properly consulting members should be ousted from office. In a resolution approved Wednesday at their annual meeting, Southern Baptist leaders stopped short of urging churches to cut ties with local troops in protest of the Scouting change, but didn't encourage them to stay, either. Either way, the historic decision to allow gay Scouts could "complicate basic understandings of male friendships, needlessly politicize human sexuality, and heighten sexual tensions within the Boy Scouts,” the Baptist resolution says. The Boy Scouts of America initially planned to lift its longtime ban on openly gay youth without canvassing members, Southern Baptists charged in a resolution that passed overwhelmingly. The executives behind that plan should be removed, the Baptists said. With 16 million members in some 45,000 congregations, the Southern Baptist Convention is the country’s largest Protestant denomination. Baptists as a whole, including several smaller denominations, sponsor about 4,000 Scouting units representing 100,000 youths. “We have a deep respect for the Southern Baptist Convention and its churches that use Scouting in their youth ministries,” said Deron Smith, a spokesman for the Boy Scouts of America. “Scouting’s youth member policy is not about the BSA condoning homosexuality, or forcing its chartered organizations to do the same.” After BSA leaders floated the idea of allowing gay youths in January, more than 60% of the BSA's 1,400-member national council approved the change in May. It takes effect Jan. 1. The BSA will continue to prohibit any sexual conduct - heterosexual or homosexual - among its youth. The ban on openly gay leaders continues as well. Membership in Boy Scouts has declined nearly 20% since 1999. About 2.7 million young people now participate nationwide. Boy Scouts to allow gay youths to join Smith said opening membership to gay youth “allows Scouting to be more compassionate in its response to a young person who expresses a same-sex attraction.” Faith-based organizations charter more than 70% of Scout chapters, providing meeting space and leadership, according to the BSA. Several of the largest religious sponsors, including the Mormon church, the United Methodist Church and the Roman Catholic Church, have indicated that they do not plan to disaffiliate from the BSA. Still, many conservative congregations, particularly Southern Baptists, have pledged to cut ties with local troops, and some pastors on Wednesday called on the entire denomination to do likewise. “We should stand firmly and keep ourselves from having to revisit this issue in future years,” Pastor Mike Janz of First Baptist Church of Rosamond, California, said Wednesday at the Baptist meeting. Janz’s proposal to urge all Southern Baptists to disaffiliate from the Scouts was handily defeated Wednesday. Still, some top Southern Baptist leaders predict that congregations will leave the Scouts "en masse." Baptists plan exodus from Boy Scouts Pastor Charlie Dale of Indian Springs First Baptist Church in Alabama said churches and Scouts should help, not bar, boys who believe they are gay. “Such a boy needs love,” Dale said. “So let’s bring him in and show him what biblical manhood and real love is about.” Affiliating with Scout troops also provides an avenue for evangelism, said Pastor David Uth of Orlando. “We are very happy to partner (with Scouts) because it gives us access to more families and more boys to share the life-saving gospel of Jesus Christ.” Russell Moore, the new head of the SBC’s powerful Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, called Uth’s approach “wise and gospel-focused.” “This isn’t Disney redux, as some media predicted,” Moore tweeted. The Southern Baptists' resolution encourages churches to consider the denomination's homegrown Scouting alternative, the Royal Ambassadors, a Christian group dedicated to developing "godly young men." Meanwhile, liberal churches pledged to sponsor troops disowned by conservative congregations. For every host organization that has decided to sever ties with their troop, eight to 10 new ones have invited the Boy Scouts into their community, according to Jeff Fulcher, spokesman for the Atlanta Area Council of the BSA. "This membership issue is a sensitive issue with a lot of people in our community,” Fulcher said. “Some can't continue supporting the scouting programs. But the vast majority of the Scouts in our organization still want to continue scouting, and we've had a wide variety of churches, places of worship and civic organizations reaching out to us because they want scouting programs in their neighborhoods.” One such church is the One World Spiritual Center in Marietta, Georgia, where the community extended an invitation to Boys Scout troops soon to lose their meeting place. The Rev. Stephanie Seigh, head of the One World, said the church decided invite the Scouts after learning that Southern Baptists nearby refused to continue hosting their troops. “We teach our children that God is in everyone and everything. We don't discriminate," Seigh told CNN. CNN's Mayra Cuevas contributed to this report.
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The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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You and your imaginary friend can get bent, Baptist bigots.
R'amen, Felix.
Christ said go and sin no more – he did not accept sin but wanted people to turn from it
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Evidence_for_the_historical_existence_of_Jesus_Christ
This is really simple, folks: ban religion.
Amen!
Why? Then atheists like yourself would have nothing to whine about or hate!
the Baptist don't have any validity to tell people to oust their leaders, if anything its the baptist clergy who need to be ousted from this planet.
keep the gays out of the showers and everything will be fine.
If you've ever showered in a community shower (dormitory, gymnasium, etc.), then you have showered with gay people. Why should they be denied the ability to shower just because you are a paranoid freak.
It cracks me up when idiots like don start hyperventilating about showering with other men who 'might be gay.' Does this bozo really think he's such a hunk that no one can resist him? Does he think women swoon when he walks by and that any man who likes other men will do so, too? What a boob.
Any religious organization that needs to raise money, can't be much beloved by its god. Or more likely its god isn't one.
.
Ban absurdity : Ban Baptists ! !
.
Sorry, Baptists, you're not that important. You aren't relevant enough to force execs from office. Go away and form your own exclusive scouting organization.
Perverts should NEVER be around children!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Truth,
So how do you identify hetero perverts since there are MORE of them than gay ones?
Like sunday school teachers?
...and college football coaches.
well "TRUTH" don't hang around them and they'll be safe, I guarantee it!
The obvious pervert in this day and age is someone as twisted as the "Truth" troll.
Maybe we ought to oust the leadership of the Baptist church. Or even better, oust the entire church.
What a sick group.
Baptists are outright defying the teachings of Jesus Christ as they are written in the Bible.
They have passed from being a Christian organization into their own self-righteous "religious" cult.
I doubt that they will fold. What surprised me was that the Mormons and especially the Catholics folded to supporting the BSA's Hоmоѕеxuаl Appeasement Act of 2013.
Additionally, an organization by the name of On My Honor is in the process of getting established. It's purpose is to form a scouting organization whose morals don't change with the direction of the wind.
Scott
This was suppose to be in reply to buffalo bob.
Scott
I wonder what actual or perceived gender has to do with morals? . . . . . .
As a former proud Boy Scout, I urge you to leave, you are an embarrassment.
Wishing 'On my honor' the best! Hope this organization can provide godly guidance to uphold spiritual values and stay strong in mind, body and faith.
The Southern Baptists opposing groups of people mixing together- well, that's certainly not a shocker after their track record during the Civil Rights era.
I grew up in the South around these clowns, and they practically run the small town I grew up in. They are just as immoral (if not more so) as everyone else, they just believe in keeping a really tight lid of secrecy on everything. Just a bunch of judgemental hypocrites.
Not to mention, since 2000, they still this little gem as part of one of their "Articles":
"A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ."
In my hometown, the baptists banned Halloween. Any parent that left their porch light on or distributed candy was ostracized from the church, and local businesses were boycotted if they sold "occult" costumes. At the same time this was happening, a few miles away three innocent teens were being convicted of satanic killings.
Their Halloween ban held for two years until the pastor was caught cheating on his wife who was dying of cancer. His hypocrisy opened a few eyes and the Baptists lost their grip on that community. Though sadly, they were replaced by the Church of the Living Spear, a charismatic group of teetotalers, hellbent on shutting down the local music and book stores.
You remind very much of my son-in-law. He had a bad experience with some of his relatives who say they are Christians. That was 30 years ago and he still judges every Christian by them. That's the easy way out.
The loving spear guys do have facts on their side. Alcohol is more addictive than cocaine apparently. And it kills. More so women than men.
Seyedibar, are you alluding to the WM3?
What an absolute mockery of justice that was. Just appalling.
I judge people by their intelligence and their thirst for knowledge. If you make it to adulthood and haven't yet figured out the sham in the worship of gods, then you have far too many issues to be allowed in my circle of friends. It was excusable a century years ago. In the age of information, it's a clear sign of a lazy mind.
I judge a person for reading a bible and then not being hungry enough to solve the riddle.
Akira, yes, I was referring to the WM3. Their trial was the year I started high school.
Matthew 5:6
Blessed [are] they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Amen.
Let's oust the baptist (notice no caps) for the bigots they are.
The Baptist are voicing the concerns of a lot of parents, I hope they don't fold from pressure from the lost er left
I doubt that they will fold. What surprised me was that the Mormons and especially the Catholics folded to supporting the BSA's Hоmоѕеxuаl Appeasement Act of 2013.
Additionally, an organization by the name of On My Honor is in the process of getting established. It's purpose is to form a scouting organization whose morals don't change with the direction of the wind.
Scott
p.s. Goofed on the "reply".
buffalo bob won't you come out tonight?
come out tonight?
come out tonight?
You have no honor.
oust the damn Baptists. Love Christ, ditch hate mongering religions.
Baptists are the least tolerant of all the Christian cults. They may seem tame by today's standards, taking over the jehovah's witnesses' responsibilities of door-knocking, but it was only twenty years ago that they were trying to destroy Halloween, that they were openly funding the KKK, and even supporting a neo-nazi's bid for senate and presidency.
Even today they are still working hard to make sure your child gets the barest education in science as possible.
To straight scout parents
Are you ok with your son spending the night in a tent with a gay scout?
Yes.
do you think they haven't already?? Pull your head out of the sand.
Yes. Why presume two people in a tent would do something inappropriate? Scouts tend to be civil and respectful kids and most under pubertal age, so I'm not sure why you'd presume they'd be interested in fooling around on a camping trip.
I had to say "fooling around" because the filter won't let me spell out S E X ?
The filter will let you spell out sex if you enter it using the special handshake. View my comment in the source of this page if you'd like to learn how.
If you are afraid about your son spending the night in a tent with a gay scout it means you are afraid of your son turning gay. If he becomes gay is not because he was in a tent with a gay boy but because he is also gay. Now if you thing been gay is a choice, them you are afraid that your boy will choose to be gay. Are you sure what you boy is?
I see EnjaySea used start/stop italics html to interrupt the word filter-sensitive word. You can use just about anything – even a visible character like "-" as in se-x. But say you want to use start & stop bold html to as the separator, you would type:
se<b></b>x and that would also render as sex.
(I had to use another level of coding to display rather than being interpreted.)
"delusional fundiot nutter"
You described yourself very well.
I think the baptists just lost their tax exemption. Of course why religious businesses get tax exemption is grossly undemocratic.
As is religion come to think of it.
We agree with the Baptists!!!
That simple, no rainbow flag to fly over our boys!!!
Attempting to create more non-understanding monsters I see, hopefully "your boys" will grow away from your nonsensical views and adopt an understanding of how life "really works" outside of mom and pop little circus world. I hope for yu sake one of them is not gay, that would just mess you up.
🙄
Who is "we"? Have a mouse in your pocket?
More likely it's a gerbil and it isn't in a pocket.
Not talking about a rainbow flag but an American flag. And thank God not a rebel flag.
It saves me from buying underwear I just wear his.