Southern Baptists are voting to not allow any churches in their organization that allow women to be pastors in any capacity
I will preface this by saying that I am most definitely NOT an expert on Southern Baptists. What I do know is bits and pieces I’ve picked up when the name Beth Moore is thrown out. (For those of you unfamiliar she is a Southern Baptist, but she leads extremely popular nondenominational women’s Bible studies and has slowly expanded her reach. At some point I think she might have left the Southern Baptist church.)
That said, my understanding is that as a denomination Southern Baptists have never allowed women pastors, citing a verse in Titus where Paul specifies “I do not allow a woman to teach”, and maybe a few others as well, as justification for having only male pastors. I think it’s more or less the same rationale as the Roman Catholic Church uses.
I think Southern Baptist churches that have “ordained” female pastors have done so in defiance of denomination rules and those pastors / ordinations are not really considered valid / legitimate by the denomination as a whole. Given that these churches are defying the rules, I don’t view this as a surprising development.
(I am not endorsing this view. Since the age of 3 I have only ever been affiliated with churches that allow female clergy. I’m just stating my understanding of their view.)
If anyone thinks I have misstated any part of this, please correct me.
I do know the southern baptist convention became much more conservative in the 1980s. it purged itself of all of its more liberal elements.
it wouldn’t surprise me if it were more silent on the issue prior to that decade. this is not the same as allowing women pastors of course.
Yeah, Beth Moore left SBC. She never considered herself a pastor but she was sometimes asked to fill a pulpit on a Sunday morning and SBC bigwigs called her out. She would not bow. She stood her ground for a long time but finally had enough. She left graciously. I have so much respect for her and other SBC women standing up against this rhetoric.
Beth Allison Barr, a history professor at Baylor, wrote The Making of Biblical Womanhood which explains the historical context for this view and why it’s a misinterpretation of Scripture. She is married to an SBC pastor.
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They do cite keeping women in their place as “biblical”.
They previously cited slavery, segregation, and prohibitions on interracial marriage as biblical too. The whole reason the SBC was founded was in support of slavery and white supremacy.
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As a side note: Does anyone have any firsthand experience (or know anyone who does) with that Lifewise Academy that’s trying to sneak into public schools? Supporters say it’s just trying to teach (biblical) truth, but what I’ve read/heard/seen about it feels kind of culty (the way that evangelicalism/fundy-ism in general feels).
At a glance, I see that a lot of the positive reviews are adamant that it’s NOT brainwashing and it’s NOT indoctrination.
Sounds very much like it is indoctrination.
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I grew up in a southern baptist church for a while. I can’t recall if this was the verse they cited, but yeah. Women could not be pastors, some/many churches wouldn’t allow women to teach Sunday school. At my church they had a sort of youth leadership program, roughly like a junior deacon I guess. For junior high and high school students. A girl was nominated and that got quickly shot down.
Hmmmm, maybe I should pick up this book.
STBX was always claiming that we didn’t have a Christian marriage which, as far as I could tell, appeared to mean that he didn’t like it if I didn’t kowtow to his every whim.
Wow, I thought most churches with the prohibition tended to allow women to teach children or even other women. Just not men. Because, you know, there’s a hierarchy. Or something.
Beth Moore certainly taught women for decades before she started getting in hot water with her denomination.
I’m guessing this isn’t Starbucks that was judging you?
Soon To Be eX.
Although the “soon” could certainly be debated given that this has been dragging out for almost 2 years.
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Orthodox Jewish groups that don’t allow women on the pulpit do allow women to read torah to other women, and allow them to teach children. But the reasoning is different. Orthodox Jews say that it’s too distracting for the men if they are looking at a woman, and they will be looking at her, and not paying attention to what she’s saying. (And maybe that’s even a problem just hearing a woman’s voice. Just too horny to concentrate…) So there’s no problem with a women’s minyan led by a woman, or with women teaching young boys.
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Now that you say that, I do think some of the churches did allow women to teach kids.
Yes, unless they’ve changed something women may teach women and children under 12. They cannot teach 12yo boys.
Seems a logical conclusion, given the assumption (belief) that believe life begins at fertilization. Lots of “lives” are lost during IVF, be it natural or “murder.”
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This won’t be as easy a target as abortion.
Agreed. It’s an interesting one though because in the case of abortion they can think of the women as promiscuous. In the case of IVF these are typically married couples desperate for a baby.
I give a nod of respect that they took their abhorrent beliefs a step toward consistency. If you’re going to scream “life begins at conception”, you can’t turn a blind eye to millions of ensouled pre-born infants being chucked into the incinerator.
Thankfully I only see men voting in that photo. Would have been heretical if women had a voice in the Church.
Lol - context update. In the same convention, the Southern Baptists rejected a ban on female pastors. So we’re taking some out-of-context bits (I knew you in the womb) very seriously, but ignoring the Biblical support for abortion because who reads the Bible anyway. And when it comes to “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet”, well, that was a metaphor and here’s a treatise on why this actually means a woman can be a pastor.