In a denomination that is increasingly sliding to the left — and a denomination that claims to believe female pastors are unbiblical — the Southern Baptist Convention has invited a female “pastor” to “perform” at the 2020 Pastors’ Conference.

According to the newly-launched Pastors’ Conference website, the denomination has announced a number of speakers and included two “special guests” — Phil Wickham and Hosanna Wong. According to Wong’s biography on her own website, “Hosanna is the Teaching Pastor at EastLake Church in the San Diego area, & the Executive Director of Calvary Street Ministries, an outreach bringing hope to the homeless & low-income families in San Francisco.”

Teaching pastors hold the highest responsibility of teaching and exegeting the text in Evangelical churches — they are responsible for shepherding the flock. According to Southern Baptist doctrine, this is a big no-no and those involved in it are breaking God’s commandments.

According to a Baptist Press news article, Hosanna Wong will not be “preaching,” per se, but will be “performing” spoken word poetry. While some may view this an acceptable — as spoken word is largely considered artistic and a form of worship rather than teaching — the bigger issue here is that Wong claims to be a pastor when the denomination, according to its own resolutions, rejects this as unbiblical.

Now, you might be wondering who is responsible for inviting a female pastor to a male pastors’ conference. Well, David Uth is the man in charge of this years’ conference and he is the same man who invited all of the homosexuals in Orlando to take the stage in his church after the gay nightclub shooting in 2016. Further, Uth allowed another pastor to refer to the “LGBTQ community” as the “head cornerstone,” — a title reserved for Christ Himself. David Uth is the pastor of FBC Orlando, a Southern Baptist megachurch.

While some on social media expressed their concern that the SBC has now “crossed over,” Tom Ascol, leader of Founders Ministries and a prominent anti-social justice Southern Baptist holds out hope saying, “Well, let’s show up in Orlando.”

Egalitarianism — the doctrine that both men and women hold equal roles in the family, church, and society — has been a subject of intensive debate over the last year in the Southern Baptist Convention. One of the most outspoken egalitarians in the denomination is Beth Moore, who clearly functions in the role of elder and teacher by regularly preaching and teaching men, has been at the forefront of the fight to “soften” the dogma of complementarianism.

At a Southern Baptist conference in October, Beth Moore attacked biblical gender roles stating that complementarian theology has been used to justify the abuse of women and urging people to move away from it.