“It might have been maybe a black market reality,” he added, “but now it’s just absolutely out in the open.”
RELATED: Why Faith Leaders Lost the Battle Against Online Sports Betting
“ And if you see what happens when gaming gets normalized as a culture, it’s destructive of families, it’s destructive of cultures,” said Walker, “and I just reject the premise that this is just an innocent, benign thing.”
Lemanuel Williams, who served on the resolution committee, said, “I’m a pastor that works inside of the inner city, and I see the effects of [sports betting] directly.”
“We’re upholding this not just for [the SBC’s] good but for the common good, because we want to see human flourishing for all people,” Williams said. “And [sports betting] is not doing that. It is dehumanizing people.”
Walker expressed that he recently learned of the harm sports betting can have on athletes, saying, “ Players themselves can be victims.” For instance, if an athlete does not perform, causing bettors to lose money, the athlete can face online backlash and even threats of violence.
Whitney Alexander, who also served on the resolution committee, said, “ I think the really intense saturation of our culture with this and how fast this industry has grown over the past couple years was what I think made this resolution stick out to us.”
“As we talked about these resolutions that were submitted, this is one where we kind of all looked at each other and were like, yeah, this is an issue that’s been in my church,” Alexander added. “ And so I think the prevalence of it was [what] really stuck out to us.”
Noting that lottery tickets have negatively impacted lower income individuals and families, Walker said that the normalization of sports betting is “ raising the stakes of the ability for the gaming industry to do more damage and more harm, not just in the lower economic classes—which is already bad enough—but etching its way further into the American economy.”
Citing the example of a friend who “ lost almost all of his life savings through gaming,” Walker said, “This is not just a benign thing.”
SBC Resolution on Banning Pornography
Speaking to the resolution on banning pornography, Alexander said, “ I’m a pastor’s wife. And I have seen firsthand the complete devastation that pornography and the addiction to pornography can leave on a wife and a marriage and children.”
“ I’m also a mom to two young boys that are just 7 and 9. And when you read the statistics about pornography,” she added, “the first exposure to pornography is [on average] 11.”
, the resolutions committee of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) celebrated the adoption of an “ exceptionally conservative” slate of resolutions during the annual meeting of the denomination in Dallas. ){kind=link}