Why Are Southern Baptists Still Arguing About Women Preachers?

(RNS) — The Southern Baptist Convention’s credentials committee had a challenge.

It had been requested to settle whether or no longer or no longer to expel one among the denomination’s perfect churches for violating the SBC’s ban on females serving as pastors. Nonetheless the committee could perchance well perchance no longer agree on what the observe “pastor” intended in a rule that acknowledged fully man could perchance well perchance be pastors. Did it refer to the church’s senior pastor? Or did it indicate any characteristic with the title of pastor — comparable to a tune pastor, formative years pastor or children’s pastor?

The committee requested the messengers, or local delegates, at the denomination’s 2022 annual meeting for serve. What the committee obtained was an earful as an different.

“If we finally bear to make a look committee over every observe in our confession of religion, then we’re doomed, and we’re now no longer a confessional folks,” Albert “Al” Mohler, president of the SBC’s perfect seminary, suggested the meeting, adding that Southern Baptists know precisely what a pastor is.

Nearly three years — and a failed constitutional amendment — later, confusion remains about how the ban on females pastors could perchance well perchance just calm be utilized. In mid-February, the SBC’s Govt Committee voted to expel a church in Alaska after its pastor signed a letter announcing Jesus did no longer place limits on the roles females could perchance well perchance play in ministry. Nonetheless the credentials committee, which makes solutions to the Govt Committee on such components, deemed that a South Carolina megachurch, which has a girl teaching pastor who preaches on a usual basis, remained in “friendly cooperation” with the SBC.

That did no longer please Clint Pressley, the SBC’s contemporary president.

“My figuring out is that our credentials committee deemed a church in friendly cooperation that has a female teaching pastor,” Pressley, a North Carolina pastor, wrote on X. “The committee desires to rob every other note at this one. Our assertion of religion is clear about talents for a pastor.”

Mark Goodman, pastor of Rabbit Creek Church in Anchorage, Alaska, acknowledged he was saddened to now no longer be share of the SBC, after spending his complete life within the denomination.

“I jokingly issue I’ve been a Baptist longer than I’ve been a Christian, because my fogeys took me to a Baptist church whereas I was calm within the womb,” Goodman acknowledged in a contemporary interview.

Goodman acknowledged the church had first heard from the credentials committee final one year, after any individual complained about Lori Pepiton, the congregation’s longtime children and households pastor. After exchanging emails, the committee closed its inquiry, having realized no conflicts with the SBC’s beliefs.

“All as soon as more, thank you on your cooperation and for the guidelines you supplied,” the committee wrote in an email dated Oct. 24. “We label the partnership of Rabbit Creek Church with the Southern Baptist Convention and pray on your continued ministry.”

Issues changed when Goodman and other leaders at the church signed a letter in March which argued for no limits on the roles females can defend. Signing that letter went too a long way, the credentials committee decided, as it gave public make stronger to beliefs that contradicted SBC teaching.

Goodman acknowledged that in signing that letter, he was talking for himself, no longer the congregation. No longer every person within the church holds the identical beliefs, and the church has no longer taken an legitimate stand on the challenge. The SBC holds what are acknowledged as complementarian beliefs — the premise that females and males bear assorted roles to play in marriages and in churches. Churches that enable females pastors have a tendency to be generally known as egalitarian.

Among the members at Rabbit Creek is Randy Covington, the leader of Alaska Baptist Resource Network, the deny convention for SBC churches in Alaska. He suggested Baptist Press, an legitimate SBC publication, there was no battle between Rabbit Creek’s beliefs and the SBC.

“They establish no longer bear egalitarian views,” Covington acknowledged. “Their certain impact on the neighborhood of Anchorage cannot be overpassed.”

The Rev. Meredith Stone, govt director of Waco, Texas-based Baptist Females in Ministry, acknowledged the removal of Rabbit Creek Church was disappointing. She realized it weird and wonderful that the church was truly being punished because its pastor signed a letter.

“It feels treasure make of a witch hunt,” she acknowledged.

Stone moreover wonders whether or no longer SBC pastors — and no longer appropriate churches — are being place on gaze that any disagreement with the SBC assertion of religion on the challenge of females in ministry is most possible no longer tolerated. That’s no longer how the SBC handles other components, comparable to baptism or who can rob communion. The SBC assertion of religion says that fully those which had been baptized by immersion can rob share in communion.

“Nonetheless they’re no longer kicking churches out because any individual who was sprinkled for his or her baptism took communion,” she acknowledged.

NewSpring Church, a megachurch in South Carolina where Meredith Knox serves as a teaching pastor and preaches on a usual basis, remains in friendly cooperation with the SBC. That call has ended in public criticism of the credentials committee.

Suzanne Swift, the worry and correct companies director for NewSpring, acknowledged in an email that fully males could perchance well perchance be lead pastor or elders at the church but females are allowed to be leaders and to preach.

“We acknowledge a biblical distinction between the workplace of elder/overseer — reserved for qualified males — and the shepherding and management responsibilities that every males and females could perchance well perchance just raise,” Swift acknowledged. “The time length ‘pastor’ at NewSpring refers to shepherding care other than the formal workplace of elder. While females are no longer ordained as elders, they play an crucial characteristic in pastoral care, management, and teaching, all below the biblical framework of male eldership.”

A media representative for the SBC’s Govt Committee referred RNS to the credentials committee for comment, which did no longer at the moment reply to that request.

At the SBC annual meeting in 2024, messengers did no longer verify a proposed change, acknowledged because the Legislation Modification, that could perchance well perchance bear fully allowed churches that bear “fully males as any make of pastor or elder as qualified by Scripture” to be share of the SBC.

The amendment to the SBC structure handed by a two-thirds majority in 2023 but fell in need of that worth in 2024 all via a required 2nd vote — which methodology it failed.

The credentials committee decision on NewSpring baffled Jared Cornutt, pastor of North Shelby Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. In an interview, Cornutt acknowledged a previous credentials committee had instantaneous the Govt Committee expel Saddleback Church for having a girl teaching pastor. So why no longer NewSpring?

“Right here’s precisely treasure Saddleback,” he acknowledged. “The inconsistency is rather glaring to me.”

Cornutt, who backed a winning 2023 change to the SBC’s assertion of religion intended to clarify the definition of pastor, acknowledged some churches are the usage of the observe in a vogue that’s no longer “biblically permissible.”

“There is just not any longer any distinction between a senior pastor, affiliate pastor or children’s pastor,” he acknowledged. “Even as you happen to could perchance well perchance bear the title pastor, then prospects are you’ll well perchance bear the workplace of pastor.”

The finest acknowledge, acknowledged Cornutt, is for churches to alter the titles they employ. In preference to calling any individual a children’s pastor, call them a children’s ministry director, he acknowledged. The title of pastor could perchance well perchance just calm be small to males who preach or bear authority within the church.

He acknowledged one motive the Legislation Modification failed is that a tool was already in web articulate online to accommodate churches that bear females pastors. Now that device has failed. He predicts the Legislation Modification — named for Virginia pastor Mike Legislation, who proposed it — or something treasure this would well perchance be reintroduced this one year.

“I’m in a position to’t understanding the procedure it obtained’t pass,” he acknowledged.

The belief that fully males could perchance well perchance be pastors was added to the SBC’s assertion of religion in 2000. Nonetheless no churches had been removed on a national stage for violating that until 2023, when the Govt Committee voted out Saddleback. That’s for a different of reasons, acknowledged Griffin Gulledge, pastor of Fayetteville First Baptist Church, about forty five minutes south of Atlanta.

Till the creation of social media, he acknowledged, most Southern Baptists had no idea who was serving on the workers of different churches. So even though a church treasure Saddleback ordained a girl as pastor, few folks would know.

“How many Southern Baptists 10 years within the past could perchance well perchance name a single workers member at Saddleback other than Rick Warren?” acknowledged Gulledge, relating to Saddleback’s legendary pastor, who retired from the church in 2022. In distinction, Saddleback introduced the ordination of three females staffers as pastors on the church Fb web page in 2021 — atmosphere off a denomination-broad debate. The controversy intensified after the church named Stacie Wood, wife of Andy Wood, who succeeded Warren, as a teaching pastor.

He moreover acknowledged that for pragmatic reasons, churches bear for years outdated the time length “pastor” incorrectly — making employ of it to a huge selection of roles. He acknowledged Southern Baptists agree on what a pastor is. Nonetheless they’ve no longer always been consistent in how they employ the observe.

Altering that will be subtle, Gulledge acknowledged. Some would prefer churches appropriate change titles for staffers, whereas others want a extra prime-down methodology alongside the lines of a Legislation Modification. He does no longer understanding extra special widescale make stronger for females pastors.

“There could be zero probability that what the long mosey holds for the Southern Baptist Convention is a consensus that lets in for females pastors,” he acknowledged.

Goodman worries that the extra the SBC draws laborious lines, the extra this can shrink.

“They retain narrowing the figuring out of what it methodology to be a Southern Baptist church,” the Alaska pastor acknowledged.