Southern Baptists may have rejected a constitutional amendment opposing female pastors, but that does not mean they are changing their views on women’s leadership in church

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Susan M. Shaw, Oregon State University

(THE CONVERSATION) The recent annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention saw a number of motions related to women. The Conversation asked Susan Shaw, a gender and sexuality studies scholar who studies Southern Baptist women, to explain the votes and other developments in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

The Southern Baptist Convention rejected a proposal that would explicitly state that only men could be pastors. Does that mean that the SBC is changing and becoming more accepting of women in leadership roles?

Absolutely not. The day before the vote on the denomination’s proposed constitutional amendment to exclude churches with women serving in pastoral roles, the convention expelled the First Baptist Church of Alexandria, Virginia, for its views that women can serve as pastors. That vote wasn’t even close at 6,759 to 563.

How many female pastors are in the SBC at the moment? Could you also explain some of the history of the opposition to women serving in leadership?

There are somewhere between 1,000 to 1,800 women serving with the title of pastor in Southern Baptist churches. Few, if any of these women, are senior pastors. Instead, they are associate pastors, youth or children’s pastors, women’s...