LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP) -- Messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution June 24 applauding the election the first African-American president, while criticizing policies of Barack Obama.

The resolution said Southern Baptists "share our nation's pride in our continuing progress toward racial reconciliation" signaled by Obama's election. It commended the president for his demonstrated commitment to his family and efforts to keep America safe from terrorism.

Akin

"In light of some recent statements that at least I would think are irresponsible by some Southern Baptists, we wanted to make it clear that we believe that the Scriptures direct us to pray for those in authority and that we will indeed pray for God to grant to our president godly wisdom and direction as he leads our country," Daniel Akin, chairman of this year's resolutions committee, said.

Richard Land, head of the SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said the resolution "has its hand on the pulse beat of where Southern Baptists really are."

"Most Southern Baptists didn't vote for him, and they didn't vote for him because of their very strong disagreement with him on the life issue and some other issues," Land said. "But at the same time they are very gratified that we have had enough racial reconciliation in America that we've come to the place that we can elect an African-American president."

"I had literally over the course of the last year, I had hundreds of Southern Baptists say to me individually 'I wish I could vote for him, but I can't,'" Land said.

Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, said it would be "absolutely irresponsible" for Southern Baptists not to speak in a positive way about the election of a black president.

"It does show great progress in race relations, though by no stretch of the imagination are we where we need to be," he said. "We still need to make further progress, and at the same time we could affirm his election without affirming his policies where we have strong, strong disagreement. And so we felt it would have been irresponsible for us not to do that."

Akin said the resolution committee "would not consent to" recent statements by Wiley Drake, a former convention vice president, who said he was praying "imprecatory prayer" for Obama, meaning that God would take his life.

"We believe First Timothy 2 gives us clear guidelines to pray for those in authority over us," Akin said. "And I think it's important to note that when Paul penned that there was a Roman emperor by the name of Nero, and he was not very sympathetic to the Christian faith, and yet Paul called upon us to pray for men like that. You look at the rulers that reigned in Israel at that time. They were not sympathetic, either, to the Christian faith, and yet again Paul calls us to pray for those in authority. We believe that is the biblical admonition that we receive or how we do respond to our leaders, even those that we may disagree with quite strongly on particular issue."

Another resolution called on Congress to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act and to ratify a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, opposed anti-discrimination and hate-crimes legislation and called for upholding current policy banning open homosexuals from the military.

SBC president Johnny Hunt said he did not invite Obama to speak to this year's convention because "it would be unhealthy at this point" due to his policies.

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This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.

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