A group of pastors from the Southern Baptist Convention are now urging the denomination to give an amendment designed to permanently ban female pastors at churches who are members of the organization a second chance after it fell shy of the two-thirds it needed to pass by 5 percentage points in 2024.
A statement that was called, “An Open Letter to Our Southern Baptist Family,” the various pastors and ministry leaders made a call for the Law Amendment to once again be up for consideration at the SBC Annual Meeting to be held in Dallas later this year.
The letter discusses a decision the denomination’s Credentials Committee made to allow a church located in South Carolina to stay in a state of friendly cooperation with the SBC despite a woman serving as the teaching pastor.
Scripture is clear on this topic. It’s amazing that there is even a debate on the topic. The Apostle Paul clearly forbids women from teaching adults in worship services. Allowing women clergy violates the order of creation established by God in Genesis.
“That amendment would have clarified that the Convention will only deem a church to be in friendly cooperation which ‘Affirms, appoints, or employs only men as any kind of pastor or elder as qualified by Scripture,'” the open letter said. “It is apparent that the Credentials Committee needs the clarification that this Amendment would have provided. For that reason, we are supporting a renewed effort to amend the SBC Constitution.”
The pastors then said that they were “not offering new language but are supporting an effort to adopt the same language that a majority of the last two conventions wanted to be passed.”
According to The Christian Post, in order to push the proposed amendment forward, the group of pastors called for the annual meeting “to suspend the standing rule that would put the amendment in the hands of the Executive Committee, which may or may not report out the amendment the following year.”
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“Because we have already debated this language at the last two conventions, we do not believe that we need to spend another year waiting for the Executive Committee to decide whether to put the amendment before the convention for a vote,” the statement read.
From there, they want to vote on the proposed amendment, with a supermajority needed to advance it. It would need final approval from messengers at the SBC Annual Meeting in 2026.
“We want to be a convention in friendly cooperation with churches that closely identify with our confession of faith, including our clearly stated beliefs about biblical qualifications for pastoral office,” the pastors added.
Signatories of the letter include Nate Akin, executive director of the Pillar Network; Pastor H.B. Charles of Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida; Lead Pastor Jed Coppenger of First Baptist Church in Cumming, Georgia; Senior Pastor Aaron Harvie of Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky; Pastor Brian Payne of Lakeview Baptist Church in Auburn, Alabama; Senior Pastor Juan Sanchez of High Pointe Baptist Church in Austin, Texas; and Senior Pastor Clay Smith of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia.
The Baptist Faith and Message, which is a sort of confession for the SBC, clearly states that the office is limited to men who are qualified by Scripture. Any church who employs a female pastor that is part of the denomination is technically in violation of their confession and should either remove the pastor or be kicked out of the organization.