What should the SBC do regarding churches with women serving as pastors?
If you want to know my beliefs, you'll find them clearly revealed in my actions. The record speaks for itself:- Before I ever considered being nominated for President of the SBC, I said that I supported disfellowshipping churches with women serving as pastors (Click here for related tweet).
- After my name was proposed for nomination, I repeated, both online and in live venues, that I supported disfellowshipping churches with women serving as pastors.
- When interviewed by the podcast Doctrine and Devotion, I clearly stated that I was in favor of disfellowshipping churches with women serving as pastors (Click here for related podcast).
- When interviewed by Jason Allen on his podcast, I clearly stated that I was in favor of disfellowshipping churches with women serving as pastors (Click here for related podcast).
- In private conversations with people who are opposed to doing so, I have supported disfellowshipping churches with women serving as pastors.
- In private conversations with leaders at Saddleback themselves, I have supported disfellowshipping churches with women serving as pastors.
- After being elected as President of the SBC, I have advocated for and voted for the disfellowshipping of multiple churches with women serving as pastors (Click here for story).
- Some of these are historic and unprecedented moves. Many of these churches have been in friendly cooperation with the SBC for many years with women serving as pastors, but previous SBC EC administrations did not disfellowship them. This year, we did.
But I know that some of you coming to this page may not know much about Southern Baptists. There are a lot of Southern Baptists in some parts of the country, but fewer Southern Baptists in other parts of the country. You may wonder why I would hold these opinions and take these actions.
If you aren't familiar with Southern Baptists, you're probably familiar with Roman Catholics, because they generally have a strong presence in parts of the country where Southern Baptists have fewer churches.
Catholics only let men be priests. This has been the doctrinal belief of Roman Catholics for more than a millennium.
And yet, there are many other ways that Catholic women are involved in ministry. There are Catholic religious orders designed for women (e.g., nuns). Roman Catholics venerate the Virgin Mary. So, although Roman Catholics restrict the priesthood to men, they are inclusive of women in other ways.
But in Catholicism, the decision-making structure of the denomination is bound up in the priesthood and the magisterium. Those structures are male-only.
Southern Baptists, on the other hand, open the priesthood to both men and women. In fact, we believe what God said in the New Testament, that all believers are priests (Click here to read 1 Peter 2:4-10 in the ESV).
We do not venerate the Virgin Mary, because God never told us in scripture to do so and because Mary was conceived in the same way we have been, was a sinner just as we are, and is nowhere in the New Testament made an object of veneration or worship.
However, in Southern Baptist life, our heroes are overwhelmingly women. We collect missions offerings that honor Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong. We send both male and female missionaries all around the world. Women serve as both seminary professors and seminary students in our seminaries. While serving as a trustee for Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, I voted to hire as professors several women who were recommended for professorships by Paige Patterson's administration.
This should not be surprising, because our statement of faith, The Baptist Faith & Message, says that "[All Christians are] under obligation to serve [God] with their time, talents, and material possessions; and should recognize all these as entrusted to them to use for the glory of God and for helping others." So, according to Southern Baptist belief, women who have the time and the talent to glorify God and help others by serving their churches are not only permitted to do so but are "under obligation to serve" (like FBC Farmersville's Missions Director Nancy Gilmer and FBC Farmersville's Kids Minister Lanette James). Southern Baptists are in favor of Southern Baptist women serving God with all of their hearts and in as many ways as God calls them to do so.
We do, however, restrict the office of pastor (also known as "elder" or "overseer") to men only. We make this clear in our statement of faith: "While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture." If you visit the link to The Baptist Faith & Message, you will find listed there the many places in the New Testament that, when we read those passages, lead us to this clear belief.
If you are a member of a church where people who aren't pastors are shut out of the opportunity to serve God with their time, talents, and material possessions, then you are at a church that is not living up to the fulness of the New Testament message.
There is one other very important point at which Southern Baptists differ from Roman Catholics. It has to do with the way that we make decisions. Reading again from our statement of faith, "Each congregation operates under the Lordship of Christ through democratic processes. In such a congregation each member is responsible and accountable to Christ as Lord."
You see, Baptist churches are congregationally governed. I've never been a member of any Southern Baptist church that did not have more women who were members than men who were members. So, in a Baptist church, women have an opportunity to pray about decisions that our churches face and to cast their own votes according to their consciences and the leadership that God has given to them. In many churches, they form the majority.
Ultimately, men and women are serving alongside one another as disciples of the Lord. We are not male lords over female vassals; we are brothers and sisters. How does a male-only office of pastor survive in so many churches where there are more women voting than men? If I were to disregard what the New Testament teaches and to lead FBC Farmersville to open the office of pastor to women, the first opposition I would encounter would be from my wife Tracy. It's not a male-only structure imposed by males upon voiceless females. Southern Baptist men and Southern Baptist women alike are trying, side-by-side, to observe all of the things that Christ has commanded us to do.
