Topline
The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant Christian denomination in the U.S. and widely considered a bellwether for evangelism in the nation, preliminarily voted Wednesday to more explicitly bar women from serving as pastors within its churches.
Linda Barnes Popham, the female pastor at Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, sings … [+]
Key Facts
Thousands of delegates representing SBC churches throughout the country voted Wednesday to amend its constitution to specify that a church can only be Southern Baptist if it “affirms, appoints, or employs only men as any kind of pastor or elder,” during the SBC’s annual meeting in New Orleans this week.
This comes after the SBC decided to expel five churches from its membership—including Fern Creek Baptist Church in Kentucky and Saddleback Church in Southern California which both unsuccessfully appealed their expulsions Wednesday—because those churches had female pastors and were therefore “not in friendly cooperation with the Southern Baptist Convention.”
Key Background
The SBC represents more than 47,000 churches and 13 million protestant Christians. However, its membership has been in decline in recent years, according to the Religion News Service. The SBC, unlike other hierarchical churches such as the Roman Catholic Church, has historically served more as an association of churches that are mostly led and managed independently. This means the five churches that were expelled will likely continue operating, just not in partnership with the SBC. One of those churches, Saddleback Church, is the largest church in California and was founded by celebrity pastor Rick Warren, who argued passionately in defense of the three women he ordained as pastors.
Tangent
The SBC was rocked by scandal in 2022 when the Houston Chronicle revealed a previously secret list of hundreds of pastors and church personnel that had been accused of sexual abuse. Those allegations had been suppressed by the SBC. The U.S. Department of Justice subsequently launched an investigation and the SBC has promised it will fully cooperate.
Chief Critic
“I never believed this would happen,” Linda Barnes Popham, the female pastor of the now-expelled Fern Creek Baptist Church, said during the New Orleans meeting Tuesday afternoon. “Why would you want to silence the voices of the faithful churches? Why?”
Further Reading
Southern Baptists Elect New Leader Amid Deepening Divisions (New York Times)
In a last-ditch effort, longtime Southern Baptist churches expelled for women pastors fight to stay (The Associated Press)
UPDATE (6/14): This story has been updated to clarify that the Southern Baptist Convention must hold a second vote for the amendment to be enacted.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/willskipworth/2023/06/14/southern-baptists-approve-stricter-ban-on-female-pastors/