Southern Seminary president Albert Mohler opened the Southern Baptist Convention’s conference on homosexuality. Credit: Blake Farmer / WPLN

Southern Baptists say they’ve gotten some things wrong on homosexuality, but they still see acceptance of gay marriage as a line that cannot be crossed.

“One of the embarrassments that I have to bear is that I have written on some of these issues for 30 years,” Southern Seminary president Albert Mohler said Monday at a special conference on homosexuality. “At a couple of points, I’ve got to say I got that wrong, and we’ve got to go back and correct it.”

Decades ago, Mohler – who heads the Southern Baptist Convention’s flagship seminary – said he argued that homosexuality is a choice and that there’s no such thing as an innate “sexual orientation.”

However, Mohler – and the 16-million person denomination itself – is sticking by the view that homosexuality is fundamentally sinful. He defended the recent decision to disfellowship a California church that affirmed gay marriages and called itself a “third way” congregation.

Mohler said churches that disagree on this issue don’t belong in the same denomination.

“It’s kind of like having a car parked on your foot,” he said. “If there’s a way to get it off our foot, that would be a great thing. If there were a genuine third way, I think we would all want to at least consider it pretty closely. I don’t think there is.”

Mohler told the ministry leaders gathered in Nashville that Baptists know what the Bible teaches, but now they’re trying to figure out how to apply it.