Amid uproar, Southern Baptists condemn 'alt-right' movement

PHOENIX (AP) — Southern Baptists on Wednesday formally condemned the political movement known as the "alt-right," in a national meeting that was thrown into turmoil after leaders initially refused to take up the issue.

The denomination's annual convention in Phoenix voted to "decry every form of racism, including alt-right white supremacy as antithetical to the Gospel of Jesus Christ" and "denounce and repudiate white supremacy and every form of racial and ethnic hatred as a scheme of the devil."

Tuesday night, Southern Baptist officials who oversaw the resolutions had refused to introduce a different repudiation of the "alt-right," which emerged dramatically during the U.S. presidential election, mixing racism, white nationalism and populism.

Charles Hedman of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, said far-right groups had been distributing racist material outside the convention hall Tuesday night.

A late-night call went out for convention participants to return to the assembly hall, where Steve Gaines, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, won approval to consider a new resolution on the topic Wednesday.

The Southern Baptist Convention, based in Nashville, is the largest Protestant denomination in the country, although its membership has been shrinking, most recently dropping to 15.2 million members.