If you followed the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting for 2023, you’re probably aware that the convention voted to oust several churches, including one of the largest megachurches in the denomination, Saddleback Church, over their ordination of women to the pastorate. Among those churches was Fern Creek Baptist Church which is led by a woman named Linda Barnes Popham.

During the meeting, Popham took the mic to appeal to the messengers for her church to remain in the SBC. And during her “sermon,” which she never actually got around to making her appeal, she blasted “extreme Calvinists” and used them as an example of why women should be able to preach in the SBC—because she disagrees with them.

“And I’ve served Fern Creek Baptist Church for over 40 years,” she ranted. “The last 33 preaching the Word of God. So why now? We’re not here to seek any of you to convince any of you to allow your church to have women pastors.”

“That’s not the issue here. We disagree with some of you in your faith practice. I mean, look at you extreme Calvinist. I don’t agree with you. Look at all of you who closed your churches during COVID.”

Ultimately, she had the mic cut off on her, thankfully. But going back to look at her previous sermons, something stood out about her during a recent sermon—Southern Baptist Lady Preacher, Linda Barnes Popham, was wearing a rainbow stole around her neck during a May 28 sermon prior to the kick-off of LGBTQ “pride month.”

Knowing that these rainbow stoles are emblematic of various apostate clergy from apostate denominations such as the PCUSA or the United Methodist Church who are fully affirming of LGBTQ, my first inclination was to think: there must be some other explanation for her wearing this. But a cursory followed by an in-depth look online revealed nothing—the rainbow stole, in its many forms and colors, is a clear symbol of LGBTQ support.

Does this mean that this is what Barnes Popham, who stood at the microphone during the 2023 annual meeting claiming to be “as conservative as many of you” while pleading with the messengers to reinstate her church into the SBC, is affirming of LGBTQ? I could not find a definitive answer—neither from her May 28 sermon nor any of her other sermons—as to where she stood on the issue. However, one thing is abundantly clear. If one believes that the Scriptures affirm women in the pastorate, there is no logical basis to believe that the Scriptures do not affirm homosexuality. And if one is brazen enough to stand in the pulpit declaring that God affirms women pastors while wearing a rainbow stole that carries with it the connotations that it does, it’s not far-fetched to believe that this is the clear trajectory that this church is on.