TIME: Southern Baptists Strike a Different Tone than Catholics in Conference
TIME Magazine
Southern Baptists Strike a Different Tone than Catholics in Conference
As Catholic bishops emphasized welcoming gays, Southern Baptists voiced more concern about mainstream acceptance of gay marriage
Elizabeth Dias
Oct. 28, 2014
...At first glance, the two gatherings may seem similar. Both brought together various church leaders to discuss marriage and family. Both groups hold formal positions against gay marriage and seek to affirm and strengthen straight marriages. Both events were framed in prayer and liturgical structures, whether it was a candlelit prayer service at the Vatican or a Christian praise band rocking out on stage in Tennessee. Men were the primary speakers and participants at each gathering, even though both made an effort to include a handful of women’s voices.
But the differences are eye-catching. The Catholic bishops discussed a host of issues families face around the world from war to economics to cohabitation; the Baptists honed in on the growing acceptance of homosexuality in Western contexts. The Synod sessions happened behind closed doors; the ERLC event is live streamed. The Catholic Church is comprised of more than one billion people and has a two millennia history; the Southern Baptist Convention has a smaller network of 50,000 churches and is just 170 years old, though it often signals views in the mainstream evangelical community.
The most noticeable difference was tone. Pope Francis opened the synod on the family by asking the church leaders to speak freely, and saying his goal was to listen. “A general condition is this,” he told them on day one, “Speak clearly. Let no one say ‘this cannot be said.’ … At the same time, you should listen with humility and accept with an open heart what your brothers say.” The bishops took him at his word, and that openness inspired lots of debate on how to welcome gays within the confines of Church teaching.
The ERLC conference, by contrast, is not an open forum—dissenting voices are not included in the presentations. Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, opened the gathering on Monday in a defensive posture, saying that Western society is experiencing “a moral revolution” happening “at warp speed,” one that now celebrates things that were previously condemned. “We are accustomed to speaking from a position of strength,” Mohler said, explaining how traditional evangelical opposition to homosexuality is no longer mainstream....
MORE at http://time.com/3544312/baptist-conference-gays-lesbians-bishops-pope-francis/?xid=time_readnext
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I know someone who was slated to do some leadership training at the SBC megachurch not far from where I lived at the time, and they had objections to her teaching them thanks to 1 Timothy 2:12 ("But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence."
so she had to do some research and find a verse that made her teaching them palatable to them. That was 7 1/2 years ago.
I would include anything over the 1-2 decades as "recent" considering the ages of these organizations. To me, the Pope's acceptance of evolution, etc 50+ years ago is recent. 
I have to admit sometimes 10 years ago seems like a really long time and other times it seems like just yesterday. 
