Noting that the gaychurch.org website defines “affirming” as “the church does not view homosexuality in and of itself as a sin,” the association gave University Baptist a choice—disassociate from the website or disassociate from the association. The association gave the church until 2 p.m. on Oct. 20 to make a decision.
Last week a Baptist association in Hattiesburg, Miss., dismissed one of its member churches for affirming the homosexual lifestyle. The decision came after the Pine Belt Baptist Association discovered gaychurch.org lists University Baptist Church as an “affirming” church on its website.
Noting that the gaychurch.org website defines “affirming” as “the church does not view homosexuality in and of itself as a sin,” the association gave University Baptist a choice—disassociate from the website or disassociate from the association. The association gave the church until 2 p.m. on Oct. 20 to make a decision.
“The Executive Committee [of the Pine Belt Baptist Association] believes that a church considering themselves as ‘affirming’—according to the definition listed on the aforementioned website—operates with a doctrine that is inconsistent with the Baptist Faith and Message,” the association wrote in a letter to University Baptist on Oct. 8.
Article 15 of The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 states, “In the spirit of Christ, Christians should oppose racism, every form of greed, selfishness, and vice, and all forms of sexual immorality, including adultery, homosexuality, and pornography.”
University Baptist Church said in an Oct. 27 response that their current membership policy—which is to welcome “all people into the congregation who confess Jesus as Lord”—was established in the early 1970s when they became one of the first churches in the association and in the Mississippi State Baptist Convention to racially integrate.
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