A Note to My Southern Baptist Friends

I was going to push this out this morning, but in light of the Trump news, that took precedence.

Many of my friends are off to New Orleans for the Southern Baptist Convention. I wish to urge them to stick to their long-held convictions and principles.

Rick Warren, now retired from Saddleback, is leading the charge to get the Southern Baptists to allow into the SBC churches with female pastors. The SBC should not.

The move comes because the leadership of the SBC voted to sever ties with both Saddleback and a smaller church who have embraced female pastors. The Messengers at the SBC should be faithful to the long-held practice of the SBC in affirming men in the pastoral role.

It is true that there are some denominations with long histories of female pastors who have otherwise maintained a level of biblical fidelity. But, in each of those cases, whether it is the Wesleyans or some Assemblies of God, those churches made those moves a hundred years ago. In those cases, other social issues were not in contention. Likewise, those denominations do not have much in common with the Southern Baptists in many ecclesiological and theological levels.

The Southern Baptists have long maintained the role of pastor, in compliance with the mandates of scripture, must be a man. See e.g. 1 Timothy.

Every protestant denomination that has embraced female pastors since the big trend in the seventies has ultimately begun walking away from Christendom. The United Methodist Church is the latest church to start walking out the door of Christendom, having been preceded by the United Church of Christ, some Lutherans, the Episcopalians, etc.

All of them went the same way. First, they decided to revise their readings of 1 Timothy and other sections of scripture that clearly dictate the pastorate is for men. Notably, the Wesleyans, etc. never revised, but had for a long time read those passages differently.

The SBC, frankly, need look no further than the Cooperative Baptists who moved first to embrace women in the pulpit and now embrace gay marriage. Just consider David Gushee who went from writing about the incompatibility of gay marriage with scripture to embracing it and defending it.

You don’t need to cite Wesleyans and Assemblies of God — look at what has happened to your Baptist cousins who embraced female pastors. Look at the PCUSA and what happened there. The last member of the PCUSA has already been born in this country given that denominations decline after it embraced a female pastorate and all that came from it.

To read 1 Timothy 2:12 et seq differently from how the SBC has long, in common communion, viewed it is to disrupt the SBC. That passage reads, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.” The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (1 Ti 2:12–14). (2016). Crossway Bibles.

Likewise, 1 Timothy 3:1-3 reads;

The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. 2 Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (1 Ti 3:1–3). (2016). Crossway Bibles.

Historically, the Southern Baptist Convention has long maintained the pastors in a church must be men. That does not preclude women from serving in ministry, but it does preclude women from serving as pastors in ministry.

If the SBC rejects its long-held doctrines, beliefs, and common interpretations of the Bible to please one megachurch, it is putting the glory of one church ahead of the glory of God’s whole church and God’s wholly inerrant word. If the SBC yields on this issue, it might as well start redacting other passages of scripture it will no longer defend as inerrant.

I would urge my friends in the Southern Baptist Convention to hold the line on Biblical inerrancy and the historic, Biblically orthodox view of pastoral qualifications.

More specifically, I would urge by SBC friends to stand by the decision to oust those churches with female pastors but also I would urge my SBC friends to vote for a real statement of support for pastors as men. Affirming the removal of Saddleback does not actually do that. It feels like it does that, but it really does not. The messengers should also vote on language to make it clear.