The Southern Baptist Convention voted overwhelmingly Tuesday night to uphold the expulsions of Saddleback Church in California and Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., for having women pastors. Both churches had appealed those decisions, announced in February.
Voting results of more than 10,000 messengers (or church representatives) attending SBC’s annual convention in New Orleans were announced this morning. Saddleback Church’s removal was sustained by 88.46 percent of those attendees who voted, according to the Baptist Press, while Fern Creek’s disfellowshipping was sustained by 91.85 percent.
Saddleback’s longtime pastor Rick Warren, who named a husband and wife to serve as his successors at Saddleback when he retired last year, had mounted a campaign in recent weeks that challenged the SBC Executive Committee’s ruling that five churches were “not in friendly cooperation” with the SBC due to having female pastors.
Both Saddleback and Fern Creek appealed.
“No one is asking any Southern Baptist to change their theology! I’m not asking you to agree with my church,” Warren said during his three-minute speech on Tuesday afternoon, according to Christianity Today. “I am asking you to act like a Southern Baptist, who have historically agreed to disagree on dozens of doctrines, in order to act on a common mission.”
“Southern Baptists are supposed to be autonomous with respect for different practices as they work together to spread the gospel,” Warren added, according to the Washington Post.
“We should remove churches for all kinds of sexual sin, racial sin, financial sin, and leadership sin—sins that harm the testimony of our convention,” said Warren, a fourth-generation Southern Baptist and author of The Purpose Driven Life. But the hundreds of churches with women on pastoral staff “have not sinned. If doctrinal disagreements between Baptists are considered sin, we all get kicked out!”
In rebuttal to Warren, Southern Seminary president Albert Mohler said, “Southern Baptists decided this is not just a matter of church polity, this is not just a matter of hermeneutics, it’s a matter of biblical commitment—to a Scripture we believe unequivocally limits the office of pastor to men.”
“I never believed this would happen,” Linda Barnes Popham, Fern Creek Baptist Church’s pastor for the past 30 years, told The New York Times. “Why would you want to silence the voices of the faithful churches? Why?”
Barnes Popham also spoke to those gathered at the SBC on Tuesday, saying, “[Satan] is tearing this convention apart.”
With a membership of approximately 13 million, the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States.
Thankful to be nondenominational every time I hear about one more contentious vote.
While we look on this from outside the SBC we can see that the values and principles of the RM are different from the denominational world. I’m glad that the SBC stood for truth on this issue. I’m sad that unity could not be preserved.
Let’s remember that unity under the authority of the New Testament is our goal, not relativistic license to do whatever you want on a given issue. This is an issue where the Bible speaks, so we speak. We should be able to speak with a unified voice. I pray that unity can be preserved within the RM as this contentious issue also faces our brotherhood. Many ignore the biblical instructions to follow popular trends. Many seem to want to provoke division. We must stand for unity under the truth and authority of the New Testament.
Deborah, a woman, was a successful leader, “Judge,” of Israel for over 40 years. She was described as a prophetess, a wife, a judicial leader: “The sons of Israel came up to her for judgment”; a military leader: she took a leadership role as Barak and his forces delivered Israel from Canaanite oppression. Her leadership brought peace to Israel for 40 years. Judges 4 and 5.
Esther risked her life to save the Jewish people from destruction at the hands of Haman.
The Gospels describe several women who were disciples who followed Jesus in his travels just as his male disciples did, and in addition provided financial support to Jesus and the group.
Jesus was visiting Mary and Martha, and Martha was upset because she was busy in the kitchen while Mary was sitting with the men listening to Jesus’ teaching. Jesus praised Mary for his actions and her desire to hear him speaking. Luke 10:38-42
Women were the first witnesses of the resurrection and were told by Jesus to take the message to the other disciples.
When Apollos came to Ephesus, both Aquila AND Priscilla took him aside and “explained to him the way of God more adequately.”
Romans 16
Phoebe, whom Paul called a deacon, delivered the letter to the Romans to Rome for him, and as the carrier of the letter she would have been the one to read and explain the letter to the gathering, and answer any questions that may have been asked.
Paul describes both Priscilla and Aquila as “my co-workers in Christ Jesus.”
Paul describes Junia as an apostle.
Paul names several other women as faithful workers in spreading the gospel.
In a culture where women are competent managers, business owners, political leaders, business leaders, corporate executives including CEOs, medical doctors, academics, etc., it is a disgrace to the gospel of Jesus to deny these and other competent women leadership roles in the Kingdom of God which is on earth right now represented by local fellowships of believers (local churches).
The few scriptures in the New Testament that are used to deny women leadership roles in the church have very reasonable alternate interpretations that allow many of us to get beyond a flawed interpretation based on a flawed ancient Jewish cultural view of women.
How many people, how many families, are we pushing away from the essential gospel of Jesus and from a relationship with Jesus by disputing over this non-essential issue? “In essentials unity; in non-essentials liberty; in all things love.”