Posted on 06/11/2024 8:37:49 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is sharply divided over a proposed amendment to ban affiliated churches from allowing women to serve as pastors and elders. A vote on the amendment will take place at the annual SBC meeting this Tuesday. While there is a general theological consensus that senior pastor roles should be exclusively filled by men, opinions vary widely on the broader implications of what is being referred to as the “Law amendment.”
The amendment, proposed by Arlington Baptist Church pastor Mike Law, would insert new language into article three of the SBC’s governing document, which outlines the requirements for churches in the SBC.
“A church [is] in friendly cooperation with the Convention . . . which . . . ‘6. Affirms, appoints, or employs only men as any kind of pastor or elder as qualified by Scripture,'” the amendment states.
“Cooperation with the convention” means a church can send voters to the annual meeting and participate in SBC business, among many other privileges.
Supporters argue that the amendment will enforce the doctrinal statement of the Baptist Faith and Message, which asserts, “the office of pastor/elder/overseer is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” Churches within the SBC are fully autonomous and expected to “closely,” but not strictly, follow this statement, and interpretations vary. Most churches apply this limitation to all pastoral roles, while some restrict it only to the senior pastor.
“For a long time, contrary to our Convention’s statement of faith, women have served as pastors in our Convention,” Law wrote in a letter to the SBC’s executive committee. “The problem is clear. The Bible is clear. Our Confession is clear. Now it is time for our Constitution to be clear, which will help secure our unity in the truth as a Convention.”
At the heart of the amendment is theological disagreement over the role of women in church leadership. The vast majority of SBC churches hold to “complementarianism,” the belief that men and women have different roles in the church and pastoral ministry is limited to men.
However, many prominent complementarians within the SBC have opposed the amendment.
They warn of collateral damage for churches that adhere to complementarian doctrine but have a nomenclature problem. These churches may title women as pastors even though they are not actually serving in lead roles, such as children’s pastors.
J.D. Greear, former SBC President and pastor of The Summit Church in Durham, North Carolina, shares this concern.
“Complementarian churches with inaccurate titling for some of their women in ministry are put into the same category as those harboring known sex abusers or marrying gay couples,” Greear wrote in a blog post. “Southern Baptists may well end up pushing away some churches that are actually with us theologically but choose to use a term that most of us believe is not biblically accurate for a particular ministry role – just as if they were either unrepentant racists…”.
Like Greear, current SBC President Bart Barber agrees the amendment is not the way to enforce complementarianism.
“I think that when we face extremely confusing and convoluted questions, we ought to just let the messenger body pray about it and sort that out,” he said in an interview at First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida. “We have the framework in place right now without any amendment.”
The amendment comes amidst growing concern that allowing female pastors will cause the SBC to drift toward liberalism. Law describes the issue as a “canary in the coal mine,” noting the decline of conservatism in the Episcopal Church USA and United Methodist Church after they permitted female pastors. Others have noted that many Pentecostal denominations ordain women but still maintain conservative theology.
The nominees for SBC president, all conservative-leaning, remain split on the issue. The SBC’s Executive Committee previously recommended that the amendment be declined.
Tuesday’s vote comes after the amendment was overwhelmingly approved at the 2023 annual meeting. According to SBC bylaws, constitutional updates require a two-thirds vote at two consecutive meetings. If approved this year, the SBC’s “credential committee” would begin the task of determining whether churches are qualified to send voters to the next annual meeting. Therefore, the amendment will not take full effect until 2025.
Should have been 100%.
Aside from the Scripture and theology ...
The practical reason for rejecting women as pastors/preachers/priests is that the women who clamor most loudly for admittance to such ministry are manifestly unfit for it. They see it as a matter of power rather than service.
Exactlt! “have a nomenclature problem. These churches may title women as pastors even though they are not actually serving in lead roles, such as children’s pastors.”
If it is just a matter of how a title is phrased, and not PRIDE, then changing the title to “Children’s Teacher” would be easy and satisfy everyone. But the problem is - largely in black churches - where the wife of the pastor is also called “pastor” - and she wants everyone to know she is Head Chick!
If nothing is done, then you end up with churches like Jimmy Carter’s old church, hiring a divorced woman as head pastor.
“Let Christ himself be your example as to what your attitude should be. For he, who had always been God by nature, did not cling to his prerogatives as God’s equal, but stripped himself of all privilege by consenting to be a slave by nature and being born as mortal man. And, having become man, he humbled himself by living a life of utter obedience, even to the extent of dying, and the death he died was the death of a common criminal.” - Philippians 2
I’ve been a deacon, but I’ll never be a pastor. So what? The God who plants oak trees also plants wildflowers. And grass. If He wants me to be a bit of grass instead of an oak, I need to be the best bit of grass I can be - and not envy the oak!
As my professor told me, hermeneutics is the most important class. Everyone uses hermeneutics. The problem is, liberalization of hermeneutics will spit out a theology unknown to the Reformers and Puritans. Such as we have today.
“Knowing Scripture” by RC Sproul is the gold star standard, IMHO. “Basic Bible Interpretation” by Roy Zuck is a close second.
Please God, ban female pastors. Please.
Grant Osbourn’s “The hermeneutical Spiral” is also very good.
Amendment narrowly failed.
Further, if you are going to ignore the Word on this what’s next modern mans/women’s desire the liberals can introduce: women deacons, gay pastors and deacons, gay Sunday school teachers, drag shows for the youth classes? You have just said we approve of women pastors never mind what God said, so now that you speak for God as to what is right and wrong, where does this sleigh ride end. History shows us.
All the other denominations have went down this road and all are floundering so what does the liberal leadership of the SBC do, take the wide open road of least opposition and get hip. The leftist will hate you less but still hold you in contempt and the anti-religious crowd will still hate you just as much and mock you as always and like their leftist kin still hold you in contempt.
Or every Church winds up being like Jim Jones’ “Peoples Temple”, sans Kool-Aid.
The way this has been reported has been quite convoluted. The current SBC doctrine already disallows women in senior pastoral positions. The same delegates at this convention just voted the other day to expel another church - with 92% of the vote - that had women in pastoral roles.
The controversy over this particular amendment was over how broad this language was in seeming to disfellowship any church that had women in any church leadership roles at all. With its failure to pass, it is seemingly being reported that the SBC voted to “allow” female pastors. Clearly, that is not correct, as the vote did not change the established doctrine of the SBC, and the same messengers who voted this down also voted 92% to completely expel another church for having female pastors.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.