If you are not a go-to-the-Annual-Meeting kind of Southern Baptist, you might not know, but the average reader of this blog is going to be knowledgeable about Mike Law's proposed amendment to the SBC Constitution. His amendment was, itself, amended as proposed by Juan Sanchez. If you really must, I guess you can call it the "Law-Sanchez Amendment." The subject matter was whether Article III of the SBC Constitution should contain language codifying the Convention's already-held stance on whether churches with women serving as pastors are in friendly cooperation with the Convention.
The Law Amendment was proposed in Anaheim in 2022 and was referred to the Executive Committee. The Executive Committee reported out their opinion that the Convention should not pass the amendment in New Orleans in 2023, but gave the matter to the messengers for a vote. The vote was not counted by ballot, but the chair ruled that a vote by show of ballots cleared the two-thirds supermajority for the proposed amendment to advance to a second vote in 2024 in Indianapolis. At that meeting, the Convention did count the ballots, and the amendment, while it received a majority of votes, did not receive the supermajority necessary for passage. The amendment was therefore lost. The same language was presented in Dallas in 2025. Again, the Convention counted marked ballots. Again, the measure received a majority, but not the supermajority necessary for advancement. The amendment was lost again.
There are three possible futures for the proponents of this motion:
First, the proponents, the opponents, the undecideds, and the whole Convention apparatus can just consider this to be a closed matter. The people have spoken three times. The votes aren't there. Let the thing go, already.
For my part, I think that's a bad idea. And I never supported this motion, so maybe it would surpise you that I don't think we should just let it go.
Here's why. I believe in congregational governance. I believe in it not in a legalistic fashion, but in terms of a theological belief that the Spirit of God works to lead the people of God to consensus about what God's will is. Because of those beliefs, I am never really satisfied with narrowly decided matters. In our church, if we've come to a 51/49 decision, I do not think that's time to consider a matter settled and just move on; I think that means it is time to get on our knees, ask for God to speak more clearly to us all, and seek to build consensus (even if that just means working to make sure that the preponderance of us are comfortable with moving forward with the results of the vote).
We have a ruling, but we do not have a consensus.
On three consecutive occasions, a majority of our messengers have expressed their support for this change in our governing documents. I think it is unhealthy for our Convention for us to just shrug that off. The opinion of the majority of messengers deserves respect. Achieving consensus is worth a little work. Lingering frustration held by large numbers of messengers is not a healthy thing.
Second, the proponents of the Law Amendment can just propose the same motion again and again and again, hoping to find that one year that they can stumble their way over the supermajority line.
For my part, I think that's a bad idea, too. My sense of that arises out of (a) my guess about why the amendment failed and (b) my convictions about what to do when you lose a vote.
Here's my take on why this proposed amendment lost. The wording of the amendment just couldn't live up to the hype about the amendment. New language in Article III wouldn't be self-enforcing. Someone would still have to decide what "any kind of pastor" means as applied to a particular person serving at a particular church. Guess who that's going to be? The Credentials Committee. No different from the way things are right now.
Many proponents were asked over the course of three years, "Would this apply to a 'Preschool Pastor' at a church who doesn't do any of the things that a pastor/elder/overseers does (preaching, governance, etc.)?" Any answer you can imagine ("No!", "Yes!", "It depends.", "That's a dumb question and I'm not going to answer it.") was given at some point along the way. There was no consistent answer to this question.
And so, I think the Convention's messengers could imagine enough edge-cases that they weren't excited about moving away from case-by-case examination and establishing a "When it doubt, kick them out!" mandate to be carried out by a tiny group of people serving on the Credentials Committee.
Empirical data to prove or disprove my read on the messenger body does not exist, so feel free to quibble over my analysis. For our purposes, it really doesn't matter whether I have missed the mood of the body to some degree or another. All that must be true to justify the conclusions I'm going to draw here is this:
The messengers weren't uninformed when they voted, and they were not egalitarian when they voted. They rejected this proposal for reasons—reasons compatible with their strong complementarian convictions.
If I am right about that, then continued proffers of the same solution are not going to fare any better in the future.
Also, when you repeatedly lose a vote, I think you owe it to the body humbly to accept the loss and look for a good way forward. That's what brothers do.
Third, the proponents and the opponents of the amendment could talk to one another and find language that UNITES the Convention's messengers, pushing the support numbers not just a little above 66%, but far closer to the 90% votes that case-by-case questions have enjoyed.
I have tried my hand at specific language that I think would work. I'm not going to make you read it. I'm not even confident that I'm the best person in the Convention to write it. But I am willing to sketch out what I think is a win-win proposal that would sail through. It goes along these lines:
- Forget about Article III. Focus instead on Bylaw 8.
- Take another look at the Cooperation Group's recommendations, and change the Bylaws such that all faith-and-practice questions regarding friendly cooperation automatically come back to the messenger body for final ratification unless both the referring party and the referred church consent to the Credentials Committee's decision.
Conclusion: Remember, I personally am content with the status quo. I don't think a single one of these cases has come before the messenger body that the messenger body hasn't decided rightly. I trust the messengers.
But I do think that it is healthy for us to try to achieve a decisive consensus about any question that, like this one, touches upon the fundamental questions of who the Convention is—its very makeup—and what core beliefs it wishes to hold fast.
