When did Baptists stop making news?

The Southern Baptist Convention has passed scores of blunt resolutions in recent decades urging America's leaders to reject the sexual revolution and defend marriage as the sacred union of one man and one woman. But something different happened during this summer's convention. In a jolting statement on the divorce crisis, leaders from America's largest non-Catholic flock looked in the mirror and decided that their own sins were just as bad as everyone else's sins.

"Studies have indicated that conservative Protestants ... are divorcing at the same rate, if not at higher rates, than the general population," stated the resolution, which passed unanimously. Other studies indicate that areas in which "Southern Baptist churches predominate in number often have higher divorce rates than areas we would define as 'unchurched.' "

In other words, Southern Baptists have "been prophetic in confronting assaults in the outside culture on God's design for marriage while rarely speaking with the same alarm and force to a scandal that has become all too commonplace in our own churches."

The convention urged its churches to walk their conservative talk by offering improved premarital counseling, by uniting in marriage "only those who are biblically qualified to be married" and by intensifying efforts to heal broken unions.

Press coverage of this text was next to nonexistent. Media coverage was light of a strong SBC statement on corporate sin and the environment, in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The convention also approved, after some emotional debates, a sweeping program to change key elements of its national structure and finances.

This is the stuff of national news, noted religion-beat veteran Jeffrey Weiss, writing for Politics Daily. The question is why this SBC gathering received so little attention, while gatherings in the 1980s and '90s created waves of ink.

Back then, he noted, the "pressroom would be packed by wire service reporters, writers from large and not-so-large newspapers from across the South, and from most of the top 10 largest papers not in the South. This time, I can find evidence of exactly five representatives of the secular media in attendance. ...

"Which leads to this question: Did the SBC get too much attention back in the day, or is it getting too little attention now? My answer to both: Probably so."

Of course, the troubled state of the news business played a role. There are fewer journalists on the religion beat and there are fewer travel dollars to invest in covering subjects other than those most editors consider holy, such as politics and sports.

At the same time, the era of intense coverage of Southern Baptist life coincided with what journalists perceived as a major change in American politics -- the growth of the religious right. Journalists took note when the nation's largest Protestant body spoke out on abortion, gay rights, the ordination of women, Hollywood's influence on families and the need for evangelism around the world, including among Jewish believers.

Hot buttons were being pushed, year after year.

"Atop those reader-friendly news hooks, we had the 25-year internal battle between what we always called 'conservatives' and 'moderates.' That fight ended with the conservatives in firm control of the denominational leadership and the moderates purged at about the same time the Republican Party was becoming increasingly defined by a publicly political conservative Christian base," noted Weiss.

In other words, more politics.

These days, the SBC is primarily wrestling with issues of theology and polity, especially the culture's slide into a post-denominational age in which people are increasingly moving into congregations that strive to avoid putting a brand name -- think "Southern Baptist" -- on their signs. People are drifting back and forth across hazy doctrinal lines that used to be clearly defined.

This is a giant story and, in part, is what that reorganization plan is about -- granting more independence to churches, clergy and donors in an attempt to pull the old Southern Baptist tent a bit closer to contemporary megachurch realities.

Consider, noted Weiss, the news value of this dramatic plan to restructure "its organization and the way it funds missionaries -- which was the main reason the SBC was formed in the first place. How dramatic? Imagine if your city decided it would let people send some of their tax money to those programs they particularly liked."

Imagine that. That's would be news, wouldn't it?

Mama says, 'Go to church'

Here's a rather predictable news flash: American mothers want the fathers of their children to stick around, help with the kids and go to church. There's something else that united the participants in "Mama Says," a recent survey from the National Fatherhood Initiative -- 93 percent of them believe America is suffering from what researchers called a "father absence crisis." An earlier survey by the non-partisan group found that 91 percent of American fathers affirm that stark judgment.

The survey didn't include many religious questions, but the role of faith in American homes and marriages kept rising to the surface.

"What the religious questions revealed to us is that the mothers who were the most religious were consistently the mothers who were the most satisfied with the jobs that their men were doing as fathers," said Vincent DiCaro of the National Fatherhood Initiative, which is based in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. "If you look at the whole survey, it's clear that mothers think that strong religious values help dads be better dads."

If there was a surprise in the survey, he said, it was the high value that American mothers in general placed on "churches and other communities of faith" when it came time to name resources that could help fathers improve their parenting skills.

As expected, "very religious" mothers were strongly pro-church. However, the value of fathers seeking parenting help from religious institutions also received a "very important" nod from 72 percent of the mothers who said they were "not very religious" and from 58 percent of those who called themselves "not at all religious."

The "very religious" mothers in this survey were different in other ways, too.

They were more likely -- 69 percent compared to 51 percent for others -- to believe that mass media consistently portray fathers in a negative light.

The "very religious" mothers also seemed to value what the researchers called "communitarian" values, while less religious respondents offered more "individualistic" views on parenting issues. This was consistent with the views of "very religious" fathers in an earlier study.

Finally, added DiCaro, the mothers who identified themselves as "very religious" were the ones "who continue to believe that the role that fathers play in the home is irreplaceable. ... The really religious mothers are the only group that still feels that way, which is certainly a comment about how many people view fathers in America, today."

Since the survey focused on the beliefs and perceptions of mothers, it didn't provide new information about the actual role that religious faith plays in the faithfulness and effectiveness of the fathers themselves, both in their roles as parents and husbands. It did not attempt to show cause and effect.

"Still, it is of some interest that the higher the religiosity of the mother, the higher, on average, was her evaluation of the parenting of the father," noted sociologist Norval Glenn of the University of Texas, one of the authors of the final report. "I think it is reasonable to assume that the reason for that is that the more religious mothers generally were, or had been, married to men who were also high in religiosity.

"This relationship held even when the parents were no longer living together, and this suggests that religiosity helps men be better fathers even when they don't live with their children or the mothers of their children."

Woven through the entire study was the painful reality that, for many American mothers, brokenness has become the new reality in their homes.

For example, 84 percent of married mothers said they were "very or somewhat satisfied" with the parenting of the fathers they were evaluating. However, that number sank to 23 percent when the mothers and fathers were not living together. This is, the researchers concluded, the reason why the rate of satisfaction that African-American mothers expressed when evaluating fathers was only half that of white mothers.

It is easy to find the bottom line in this survey, said DiCaro.

"It is undeniable that the most satisfied mothers were those who had fathers who were living with them, under the same roof with their children," he said. "Once again, marriage is the great equalizer, and that's true for blacks, whites, Latinos and everybody. It certainly equalizes how fathers do as fathers, at least in the eyes of the mothers."

Sex, sin and surveys

It's becoming more and more dangerous for preachers to use the words "sex" and "sin" in the same sentence.

Consider this question: Is sex outside of marriage a sin?

Say "yes" and millions of believers who are sitting in pews will say "amen." But that same affirmation of centuries of doctrine will offend just as many believers and nonbelievers, giving them an easy excuse to avoid congregations they believe are old fashioned and intolerant.

"We have to recognize that our historic positions on sexual issues are becoming incredibly distasteful to more people in this culture and especially to our media and popular culture," said Ed Stetzer, director of the Southern Baptist Convention's LifeWay Research team.

"The whole 'Hate the sin, love the sinner' thing -- people are not getting that anymore. People do not believe that we mean that."

Right now, the gay-marriage issue is making headlines. But for millions of traditional believers in Christianity, Judaism, Islam and many other faiths, this issue is linked to a question rooted in religious doctrine, not modern politics. In a spring LifeWay survey, researchers asked: "Do you believe homosexual behavior is a sin?"

The results showed a culture torn in half, with 48 percent of American adults saying that homosexual acts are sinful and 45 percent disagreeing. Considering the margin for error, this is a virtual tie.

The numbers were radically different in different pews, with only 39 percent of Roman Catholics believing that homosexual acts are sinful, as opposed to 61 percent of Protestants and 79 percent of those who identified as evangelical, "born again" or fundamentalist Christians.

A similar pattern emerged from a hot-button question in the latest results reported from the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Researchers in this massive effort asked participants which of the following statements "comes closer to your own views -- even if neither is exactly right. 1 -- Homosexuality is a way of life that should be accepted by society, OR 2 -- Homosexuality is a way of life that should be discouraged by society."

The question was not stated in strictly political or religious terms. However, with that powerful, more official word "discouraged" in the question, 50 percent of the adults surveyed said that "homosexuality" in general, as opposed to homosexual behavior, should be accepted by society.

Once again, there were sharp differences in various religious groups, with 79 percent of American Jews, 58 percent of Catholics and 56 percent of mainline Protestants calling for acceptance of homosexuality. Meanwhile, only 39 percent of the members of historically black churches, 27 percent of Muslims and 26 percent of the evangelical Protestants affirmed the public acceptance of homosexuality.

These numbers are evidence of great change in the religious and moral views of many Americans, yet they also point toward familiar tensions between traditionalists and progressives. The Pew Forum survey, for example, again demonstrated a reality seen in recent elections. Americans who frequently attend worship services and say that religion is very important in their lives continue to take more conservative stands on hot moral issues in public life.

What about people outside the pews? That is where another set of statistics will prove especially distressing to clergy who sincerely want to defend what Stetzer called the ancient "one man, one woman, one lifetime" doctrine of marriage.

In the LifeWay survey, 32 percent of American adults said that their decision to visit or join a congregation would be "negatively affected" if it taught that homosexual behavior is sin. That number rose to 49 percent among the "unchurched," people who rarely or never attend worship.

The issue of homosexuality does not, of course, stand alone, said Stetzer. It's getting harder for religious leaders to maintain consistent teachings about other acts and conditions that traditional forms of religion have, for centuries, considered sin. This affects preaching on premarital sex, divorce, cohabitation and adultery.

"Ultimately, the modern church has failed to proclaim and explain a biblical ethic of sexuality," he said. "We also need to admit that the church has failed to live out the ethic that it's claiming to be advocating. If we are going to say that we stand for the sanctity of marriage, then we -- in our churches and in our homes -- are going to have to live out the sanctity of marriage."