NEW ORLEANS, USA – The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the largest Protestant denomination in the United States of America, reinforced its conservative stance on the role of women in the church at their 2023 annual meeting in New Orleans.
Voting delegates, known as messengers, upheld the removal of two churches for appointing women in senior pastor roles and initiated a constitutional amendment to prohibit female pastors.
These discussions and subsequent decisions were a critical focal point of the gathering, clearly indicating the denomination’s readiness to expel churches that appoint women as pastors.
“These votes devalue the worth and callings of women to participate in God’s work through the local church,” lamented Meredith Stone, executive director of Baptist Women in Ministry.
She further expressed concern about the impact of this political denominational battle on the safety of women.
Despite impassioned appeals from Saddleback Church’s founder Rick Warren and Fern Creek pastor Rev. Linda Barnes Popham, the expulsion of their respective churches was upheld by an overwhelming majority at the convention which held on Tuesday, June 13, 2023.
The SBC’s doctrinal statement, the Baptist Faith & Message, was amended in 2000 to assert that “the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”
However, only recent debates have sought to enforce and define the practical application of this belief. Southern Baptists generally uphold a complementarian view, asserting men and women have different roles within the church.
Popham’s repeated question, “So, why now?” underpinned her address to the convention. Both Fern Creek and Saddleback were among five churches disfellowshipped in February for practices out of sync with the SBC’s doctrinal statement, including the appointment of women pastors.
This week, the full convention had the opportunity to finalize those decisions.
Seminary President R. Albert Mohler emphasized the importance of biblical authority in his rebuttal to Warren’s and Popham’s appeals. “It is the unity and harmony of the Southern Baptist Convention that is now at stake,” he declared.
Popham’s address was particularly poignant given Fern Creek’s geographic proximity to Mohler and other SBC leaders calling for a stricter stance on women pastors.
She lamented the divisiveness within the convention, stating, “Satan loves seeing religious leaders sitting on protected and padded pontifical thrones being consumed by tradition and opinions and power and non-salvific issues.”
Warren’s appeal sought to challenge the SBC on fellowship with churches holding differing views on certain issues.
Despite the national convention’s decision, both Saddleback and Fern Creek remain part of their respective state conventions.
The decisions set a precedent for the SBC Credentials Committee to recommend disfellowshipping more churches with women pastors in the future.
These recommendations must then be approved by the SBC Executive Committee.
After the vote, Warren warned about the dangerous precedent and argued that it’s not representative of many Southern Baptists’ stance on the issue.
“The face of Southern Baptists does not look at all like our annual meeting,” he observed.
