The text of the new section of the Southern Baptist Con-vention's statement of Baptist Faith and Message has set in motion the conservative, biblical agenda for the denomination. While the statement has angered feminists and received the disdain of President Clinton and Vice President Gore, it has clarified the SBC's proclamation for godly living and personal righteousness in the post-modernist age of situational ethics and hedonism. It is composed of persons related to one another by marriage, blood, or adoption.
Marriage is the uniting of one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime.
The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God's image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to his people. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved his church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family. A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ.