A BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE ON LOTTERIES AND GAMBLING

Resolution on Gambling and the Lottery
Alabama Baptist

WHEREAS the messengers to the 1998 Alabama Baptist State Convention are concerned with the Biblical, moral, and ethical foundations of our families and the society that is produced by the interaction of the individual members of these families, and

WHEREAS a state lottery is presently being touted by some in the political arena as a "painless" mechanism to finance education, and

WHEREAS political expediency and economic gain overshadow moral courage and ultimate truth in our beloved country at the present moment, and

WHEREAS hidden costs of the degradation of society are more easily purveyed to naïve and uninformed citizens than an open and honest presentation of the expense of legitimate and necessary government functions such as education, and

WHEREAS such hidden costs include divorce, crime, political corruption, and impoverished children, and

WHEREAS the silence of God’s people has historically been an abdication of the responsibility instituted and commanded by God to sound the warning of the consequences of society’s decisions and actions, and

WHEREAS the gambling industry is a wager that will be lost in unfulfilled political promises, higher taxes to combat the evils unleashed by a deceptive and greedy gambling industry, and broken lives and families;

THEREFORE, be it resolved that the 1998 Convention go on record as opposing gambling in any form including the establishment of a state lottery and encourages all Alabama Baptists to make their opposition to gambling and the state lottery known to their respective legislative representatives.

(Presented by Curtis Kelley, messenger and pastor of First Baptist Church of Talladega)

Home Page