Posted on 06/15/2025 9:45:31 PM PDT by Morgana
DALLAS (RNS) — For the second year in a row, a move to bar churches with women pastors from the nation’s largest Protestant denomination failed.
A proposed amendment to the Southern Baptist Convention’s constitution, which would have kept any church that affirms, appoints or employs a woman “as a pastor of any kind” from belonging to the SBC, got 60.74% of the vote Wednesday (June 11), just shy of the two-thirds majority needed to move forward.
A similar proposal failed last year on a second vote.
Since 2020, the SBC’s statement of faith has upheld the office of pastor as being limited to men. But a number of churches have given women in supporting roles a ministerial title — such as children’s pastor, women’s pastor or worship pastor. Those churches have often interpreted the ban on women pastors as applying only to the senior pastor role.
The ban on women pastors was rarely enforced on a national level until two years ago, when Saddleback Church, one of the largest churches in the SBC, was expelled for having women pastors on staff.
If it passed, the amendment would have made the statement of faith’s rule against women pastors binding on churches that want to be part of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
SBC President Clint Pressley, a North Carolina pastor, said he wasn’t sure why the measure fell short, saying he believes the SBC’s statement of faith is clear that only men can be pastors.
He also said the debate on the amendment was a “family discussion” and that Southern Baptists remain unified.
“I’m not sure as to why messengers vote the way that they do, but there was a sense that we’re in this together,” Pressley told reporters after the vote.
Juan Sanchez of High Pointe Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, who brought the proposed amendment to the convention floor, said earlier in the week that some Southern Baptists have misinterpreted the Bible when it comes to the role of pastor. He told a gathering of pastors on Monday that some evangelicals cite Ephesians 4:11 in saying that women can be pastors.
“Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers,” that passage reads.
But Sanchez said other passages of the Bible clearly define the role of pastor in a local church — which, he said, is different than a gift.
“The concern that I have is that there are brothers and there are churches, and there are messengers and members that are buying the idea that pastor can be a gift,” he said during a meeting of Baptist 21, a group that appeals to younger pastors.
Sanchez also called the debate a family discussion rather than a conflict.
A vote to abolish the SBC’s public policy arm, known as the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, also failed on Wednesday afternoon, with 42.84% of the messengers voting to abolish and 56.89% voting against abolishing. It was the fourth failed attempt to shut down or defund the ERLC during the Trump era. Leaders of the ERLC have clashed with supporters of President Donald Trump over issues such as immigration, and the agency has been accused of causing division in the denomination.
“Why bring a motion to abolish the ERLC?” said Willy Rice, who made the motion to do so. “Because this is how we save it.”
Rice, the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Clearwater, Florida, called his motion a wake-up call to the ERLC, giving it time to reform. A vote to shut down an SBC agency requires approval two years in a row.
Willy Rice, senior pastor of Calvary Church in Clearwater, Fla., speaks from the floor during the SBC annual meeting on June 11, 2025. (RNS Photo/Tim Heitman)
Brent Leatherwood, the ERLC’s current president, defended his agency during his annual report on Wednesday, noting that for more than 40 years it has opposed abortion, which he called a “wicked scheme.”
He spoke of ERLC’s advocacy for Israel and its resources opposing “predatory gambling” and supporting religious liberty.
Before he took questions from messengers, or local church delegates, Leatherwood acknowledged the pending vote on his agency’s existence.
“It would put an end to our legal efforts on some of the most consequential cases for our churches,” he said. “It means the public square would be abandoned by the SBC, losing a powerful voice for the truth of the gospel and, in effect, rewarding secular efforts to push religion out.”
“I lament that once more this is before our convention,” he added. “I realize that even as your smallest institution, we attract outsized attention and scrutiny.”
Leatherwood—like leaders of other evangelical groups that oppose abortion—has objected to proposed laws that would jail women who have an abortion. That has earned him the ire of abortion abolitionists within the SBC, who support such laws.
After the vote, Leatherwood thanked messengers for their support of the ERLC.
“We are committed to continually listening to Southern Baptists on ways to better serve our convention in the public square,” he said in an email after the vote was announced.
Scott Foshie, chair of the ERLC board of trustees, also thanked messengers and said the board was listening to the agency’s critics.
“We are committed to listening well to pastors and lay leaders — both those who support and those who question — as we work together to best serve Southern Baptists and advocate for their priorities in the public square,” Foshie said in an email.
William Wolfe of the Center for Baptist Leadership, who has been a vocal critic of the ERLC, said the vote showed Southern Baptists are divided about the agency. He said the vote shows the ERLC needs new leaders.
“If any pastor of a local church was put to a referendum, and over 40% of his congregants essentially voted no confidence in him, he would resign the next day,” he said.
Earlier in the day, messengers approved a $190 million budget, which included a $3 million priority allocation to pay the denomination’s legal bills. Messengers also approved a new business and financial plan but rejected a call for more financial transparency from the SBC’s entities.
During the meeting, the messengers also paused to note the death last week of sexual-abuse whistleblower Jen Lyell. Paul Cooper, a messenger from Marshall, Illinois, asked Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, to pray for Lyell’s family and friends.
Cooper said that he had met Lyell while a student at Southern and described her as kind and gracious, and that he was saddened to hear of her death. Lyell, a former publishing executive at Lifeway, a Southern Baptist publisher, was also a Southern graduate.
“We pray with broken hearts in the death of our sister, Jennifer Lyell,” Mohler prayed.
The 12.7 million-member denomination will hold its 2026 annual meeting in Orlando, Florida. It’s unclear whether the ban on women pastors or the ERLC will be up for debate in the future.
The Southern Baptist Convention is slowly, but surely be lost. The last of the major denominations, but slowly sinking into apostasy.
Women pastors are already barred under current doctrine. Any church that has a woman pastor is being expelled by the same messengers with well over 90% of the vote.
This amendment is considered overly broad (possibly excluding women from any leadership role at all, even under the leadership of the main pastors) or redundant by many of the messengers.
Idea: Then LEAVE the SBC!
When the SBC fails to affirm doctrine then you know that the US protestant family is splintered; and not in a good way.
Is that Jimmy Swaggert? He’s near death.
Swaggart is not Southern Baptist he’s AOC
>> slowly sinking into apostasy
Show me in Scripture where allowing women in the pulpit is apostasy?
Do you have any case at all that does not rely SOLELY on 1 Tim 2:12? If so, please expose it.
Are you an SBC adherent?
Notwithstanding that not all error is apostasy, why isn’t 1 Timothy 2’s admonition sufficient?
A two-thirds majority is really a fantastically high bar to clear.
(Actually, a mere 50 years ago, no one would have batted an eyelash at summarily expelling any such congregation appointing female pastors!)
Weren't the Southern Baptists once actually more conservative than, say, the Roman Catholic Church?
Regards,
uhhhhhh......
And don’t let the door hit on the way out.
“SBC President Clint Pressley, a North Carolina pastor, said he wasn’t sure why the measure fell short, saying he believes the SBC’s statement of faith is clear that only men can be pastors.”
It’s the typical case of leftists stealthily infiltrating EVERY institution, no matter how conservative. Add to that a healthy helping of feminists ideology people hold unaware and you get this result.
I don’t think that women should even be delegates at the Convention.
Golly, Mr. Wilson, the SBC, who stands on the word of God as infallible, can not get them all to say yes to a support of the word of God?
Wow..
Rip another page out of the bible. I see how you work.
So something being a part of the Bible is not good enough for you? This matter is clearly settled by 1 Timothy 2:12.
Do you suggest that we ignore that portion of the Bible? What other sections do you feel should be cut out and ignored?
Titus 1:6 “An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient.”
Notice it makes no allowances for a female elder
Isaiah 3:12 “My people—infants are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, your guides mislead you and they have swallowed up the course of your paths.”
Notice it is a curse in Isiah to be ruled by a woman.
Ephesians 5:23-25 “For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”
Notice Ephesians clearly states a wife to submit in everything.
There verses and truth is there for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.
Thanks for the explanation.
“The Southern Baptist Convention is slowly, but surely be lost. The last of the major denominations, but slowly sinking into apostasy.”
It’s just the Church returning to its pagan ways of yore.
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.