Global Courant
The Southern Baptist Convention voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to finalize the removal of two churches from the nation’s largest Protestant denomination for having female pastors.
And the vote wasn’t even close, according to to the SBC‘s to count.
Spurred on by archconservatives in the SBC, the 12,000 or so “messengers” who had gathered at their annual meeting in New Orleans voted by a 9-to-1 margin to block the exit of California’s Saddleback Church and a smaller Kentucky congregation. seal .
That vote, which took place on Tuesday, set the stage for another vote on Wednesday on a proposal to amend the SBC’s constitution to tighten the ban on women from leadership positions.
“In a culture that is unclear about the roles of men and women, we need to be crystal clear,” she told The Associated Press. “We shouldn’t leave room for our daughters or granddaughters to have confusion about where the SBC stands.”
SBC president Bart Barber defended the vote to expel the churches, noting that the Roman Catholic Church also does not allow women to serve as pastors or priests.
“We believe that every believer is a priest,” Barber said. “We have women who served as messengers. It’s just scripture that says the office of minister is limited to men.”
Barber was echoed by Sarah Clatworthy, a member of Lifepoint Baptist Church in San Angelo, Texas, who has called on the SBC “to close the door on feminism and liberalism.”
“In a culture that is unclear about the roles of men and women, we need to be crystal clear,” Clatworthy said The associated press.
Saddleback Church, a Southern California megachurch with a congregation of about 23,000, was founded by Rick Warren, author of the bestselling phenomenon “The Purpose Driven Life.”
The Church then drew the wrath of the SBC ordained three women if pastors in 2021.
But the vote to declare that the Saddleback Church is “not in amicable partnership” with the denomination was due to “the church still having a female teaching pastor serving in a pastor’s office,” the SBC said in a statement.
That was a reference to Stacie Wood, the wife of Warren’s successor, Andy Wood, according to the SBC.
Reverend Linda Barnes Popham sings with the choir at Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, on May 21, 2023.Jessie Wardarski / AP file
The male and female convention attendees rejected a personal appeal from Warren, voting 9,437 to 1,212 for the expulsion of Saddleback Church, which happened in February.
Afterwards, a disappointed Warren said, “There are people who want to take the SBC back to the 1950s, back then white men reigned supreme and when the woman’s place was in the house.”
“Messengers voted for conformity and uniformity instead of unity,” Warren added at a news conference. “The only way to get unity is to love diversity. We made this effort knowing we wouldn’t win.”
The Southern Baptists also voted 9,700 to 806 against an appeal from the Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, led for three decades by Reverend Linda Barnes Popham.
When asked why the SBC didn’t expel this church sooner, Barber said the denomination has never been in favor of having women as pastors and they hoped Fern Creek would “clarify” Popham’s role in its own right.
While all Baptist churches are independent, the SBC’s official statement of faith states that the office of pastor is reserved for men. That being said, The AP reported that this is reportedly the first time the SBC has expelled churches for having female pastors.
The SBC also evicted Freedom Church, which is based in Vero Beach, Florida, for failing to “cooperate in resolving concerns about an abuse allegation” involving a male senior pastor who reportedly preyed on female parishioners.
