Expelling Women from Pastoral Duty
Latest news from the Baptists. At the 2023 Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in New Orleans a move is underway to expel almost 2000 women from pastoral functions in its churches. A general vote will take place this week.
Apparently, the right wing of the SBC wants to crack down on what it sees as a liberal shift in its membership. Ultraconservatives believe that women pastors are just the beginning of future acceptance of homosexuality and sexual immorality. The ultraconservative fraction of American evangelism has been melding with Republican politics for decades since President Reagan and Jerry Falwell.
Pastor Mike Law from Arlington Baptist Church in Arlington, Virginia, wrote a letter suggesting an amendment to the SBC constitution stating that a church could only be regarded as Southern Baptist if it “does not affirm, appoint or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.” The 111 page letter co-signed by 2000 male pastors and professors. Law cites 1 Tim. 3:1–7; Titus 1:5–9 in the Bible as backing up his assertion of the role of women in the church.
The language of these verses do not explicitly declare women as ineligible as an “overseer”, but they state that the overseer must be a “husband of only one wife“. The rest of the language goes on to list a number of personal qualities that an overseer must have.
I’m obviously not a Biblical scholar nor a believer in magic. Furthermore, this is a private matter among Baptists. Actually, it amuses me to watch them agonizing over how to polish the big brass knob on the doorway to their hoped for afterlife.
What I do care about is that this is a major setback for women in the 13 million member SBC organization. It imposes an inherent subordination on females based on the assertions of males who have appointed themselves in charge based on their literalist interpretations.
The text that they cite was written in a time when women were mere chattel who were deemed lesser than men. People get so wrapped up trying to do biblical things in biblical ways that they forget the core humane purpose of the church.
Worse than the unreasonable restraints on SBC women is how it will validate the woefully misguided instincts of the ultraorthodox Baptists as they spread into the greater population through politics. They want a theocratic state where people like themselves will rule under “biblical law”. They’re going to be disappointed.