Back to That Other Issue. No. Not That One.

I wrote the other day about the Southern Baptists now meeting in New Orleans. The issue is over female pastors. Within the Southern Baptist Convention, several churches have ordained women as pastors. To be clear, some are called “pastor” without actually being actual pastors. But several, including at Saddleback in California, are in the role of a pastor leading a church.

So hear me out on this.

I noticed several of you and your responses, including texts from some friends who disagree with me on female pastors. I think a clear reading of scripture makes clear men are to be pastors, not women.

But, again, hear me out. It is okay if you disagree.

I did think it was notable that several people reacted with their preference, not scripture. They want women to be pastors; therefore, it should be so. It was their preference, not a scriptural thing, and I think that’s dangerous ground. If you arrive at the conclusion that scripture makes it permissible, okay. But if you just think women should be pastors and who cares that Paul specifically writes they are to be men, you’ve got a problem.

But, again, I recognize some people interpret Paul as writing to a particular church set up at a particular time, and, in fact, the word choice describing elders and the word choice for deacons is different. So the latter implies those at the level of deacon might not have to be men. I get all that and hope you do too.

We can disagree, and that’s fine. But here is what is not fine.

We have first and second-order things within Christendom.

First-order things are those things one must believe to be a Christian. They include the virgin birth, the physical resurrection of Christ, and the Trinity. While some non-Christians claim to be within Christendom while rejecting the Trinity, no Christian denomination accepts one can be Christian and reject the Trinity. Christendom has been consistent on this for almost 2,000 years.

Those are first-order things within Christendom.

But we have denominations because Christians have divided over second-order things. Every Christian believes in the physical resurrection of Christ. Not every Christian believes in infant baptism. Every Christian believes in the second coming. But Christians divide between complementarians and egalitarians. Every Christian believes God created man. But Christians divide over communion.

First-order things divide Christians from pagans.

Second-order things divide Christians from Christians and give us denominations.

That gets me back to the Southern Baptists.

There are multiple Baptist denominations. The largest is the Southern Baptist Convention. Southern Baptists are Congregationalists, meaning each congregation is independent. But the churches work cooperatively for a common purpose, and they have distinctives that make them Southern Baptist, as opposed to Cooperative Baptist or Presbyterian.

One of those distinctives is that the Southern Baptist Convention is complementarian, and the Baptist Faith and Message reads, “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”

You can disagree with that. But that is a Southern Baptist distinctive. It may not be for you, but it is supposed to be binding on the Southern Baptists.

Except, for reasons no one seems clear on, Pastor Rick Warren is leading a rather hard-hearted rebellion against the standards of the Southern Baptists. His church ordained three women as pastors despite the church being Southern Baptist.

You can agree with Warren, but the Southern Baptist Faith and Message is clear. “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” Therefore, Saddleback was removed from the Southern Baptist Convention.

Each denomination is allowed its distinctives. The Southern Baptists this week will vote to bring Saddleback back or keep it out. If it were to bring Saddleback back in, the Messengers would be in direct conflict with their own Baptist Faith and Message.

An amendment has been proposed to the constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention that would add the same language of the Baptist Faith and Message to the constitution. I think they should vote for Pastor Law’s amendment. Reaffirm the commitment to complementarianism not just through a rejection of Saddleback, but through the affirmative act of putting the Baptist Faith and Message language into the SBC’s operating document too.

Pastor Warren calls his opponents “warriors” and “fighters” and many other things. He has sought to muddy his message and demands. But, like with the culture war we all face now, the progressives keep telling us we are “culture warriors” when all we want is to preserve the status quo. We didn’t start the fight. Neither did the Southern Baptist Convention. But the Convention can end it this week and stop further outbursts along the same lines by supporting Pastor Law’s amendment.

You can support female pastors. That’s fine. But the Southern Baptist Convention does not and should resist being bullied by megachurch pastors with friendly, fawning reporters heckling from the sidelines.

And no, I have no desire to write about the indictment. However, if you tune in at noon Eastern time today, I will let you in on some gossip about private focusing groupings some of the candidates are doing to persuade voters to ditch Trump over the matter.

And if you’re in New Orleans for the SBC, go to Guy’s Po Boys on Magazine Street. It’s open for lunch until 4pm and you can thank me later.