South Carolina Baptists adopted resolutions Nov. 10 on the Cooperative Program, foster care, freedom of religious expression, human trafficking, faith-based pregnancy care centers, and the statewide faith community’s response to the June 2015 massacre at Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church.

The resolutions were offered by the 2015 Resolutions Committee. Brian Saxon served as chairman.

(Read the full text of the resolutions.)

Cooperative Program Celebration and Challenge

Since its founding in 1925, South Carolina Baptists have given more than $1 billion toward the Cooperative Program. Messengers reaffirmed the 2010 Southern Baptist Convention action calling all Southern Baptists to “continue to honor and affirm the Cooperative Program as the most effective means of mobilizing our churches and extending our outreach.” The resolution encourages all South Carolina Baptist congregations to evaluate their CP giving and to prayerfully consider increasing their giving by 1 percent each year.

Foster Care

With more than 2,500 children and youth enrolled in South Carolina’s foster care system, including 600 children who are available for adoption, messengers challenged churches to bolster awareness of the foster-care opportunity. If each of the more than 2,000 churches in the SCBC had at least one family willing to provide foster care, the need for group homes or institutions could be eliminated. The resolution also calls on the SCBC to continue to support Connie Maxwell Children’s Home, which provides gospel-centered residential care for children who are not able to be placed with a family.

Freedom of Religious Expression

Messengers urged churches, pastors and individual Christians “to understand and exercise their right and responsibility to stand for biblical values and to influence the culture.” The resolution states that “some people of faith are being denied the right to operate their business in a manner consistent with their biblical worldview, especially with regard to their convictions about homosexuality,” and encouraged South Carolina Baptists to pray for the nation and its leaders “to boldly exercise their freedom of speech and religious liberty to further the cause of Christ in the culture.”

Shedding Light on Human Trafficking

Citing the trafficking of 27 million people around the world for purposes of free labor and for sex trade, while noting that South Carolina’s major interstates, ports and tourism centers allow for easy access to international human trafficking, messengers encouraged churches to consider how they can develop ministries that provide refuge and healing for victims of human trafficking and slavery. “Human trafficking and slavery does exist here in South Carolina,” the resolution states, and it calls on congregations to address “pornography and other gateway industries that profit on the hardship of human exploitation.”

Amazing Grace of Emanuel AME Church

The resolution expresses appreciation to the murdered victims’ families — “people of faith” — for “responding … with grace and forgiveness” just two days after an assailant gunned down nine people during a prayer meeting at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., on June 17, 2015. The resolution also notes the “multiethnic and multicultural unity” that developed in the wake of the shooting and that “still continues to grow as our state heals from this tragedy.” Messengers also praised local and state officials for minimizing the risk of retaliation and for maintaining civil authority in the days following the shooting.

Pregnancy Care Centers

Citing published accounts of “gruesome abortion procedures and the exchange of fetal body parts” by organizations that receive funding and support from taxpayers, messengers encouraged churches to embrace faith-based pregnancy care centers as a positive alternative for comprehensive healthcare for women and their families. The resolution notes there are three abortion providers in South Carolina but states there are 161 other community healthcare centers in the state that offer free or low-cost healthcare to women. The resolution urges South Carolina Baptists to “boldly stand for the sanctity of all human life from the womb to the grave.”