If you’ve been following the women pastor scandal in the Southern Baptist Convention, you might be aware by now that thousands of Southern Baptist churches have been found to be in violation of the denomination’s confession, the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, regarding the doctrine of women in the pastorate. Because of this, at least three of the five presidential candidates at this year’s annual meeting favor passing what has been dubbed the “Law Amendment,” which would forbid cooperating churches from having women pastors.
The so-called “Law Amendment,” slated for reaffirmation by the SBC in June, affirms the fundamental biblical principle that pastoral leadership is reserved for men, as ordained by Scripture. This isn’t about intolerance or divisiveness, it’s about fidelity to God’s non-negotiable Word. Yet, the other two candidates, Bruce Frank and Mike Keahbone, oppose passing this amendment, demonstrating just how volatile sound doctrine in the SBC really is.
The primary argument against the amendment isn’t necessarily an open and blanket endorsement of women pastors but rather that the amendment isn’t “necessary” because the Baptist Faith and Message already sets the standard. However, the problem with this argument is that the Baptist Faith and Message is being violated, and there is no real recourse to disfellowship those churches that violate God’s command.
A few years ago, the Southern Baptist Convention created a “credentials committee” charged with investigating cases of churches accused of violating the SBC’s standards and making a recommendation to the SBC on whether to flag these churches for “disfellowshipping.” But the credentials committee ultimately continues to fail in its duties, as out of the thousands of churches with women pastors, only a handful have been disfellowshipped.
Here, in the video below, demonstrating exactly why the SBC needs to pass the Law Amendment, Robert Stephens, the senior pastor of First Baptist Church Alexandria, explains how despite openly admitting to being in open violation of the Baptist Faith and Message’s definition of pastor, the Southern Baptist Convention’s credential’s committee found them to be in good standing.
The amendment was proposed by a Virginia pastor right here in our own community and in the year 2022, and he compiled a list of churches through an Internet search that had female pastors on their staff, and then he presented those those churches to the credentialing committee for review.
The credentialing committee did their work. We were one of the churches that came under review prior to me even coming on board. And ultimately, they deemed us to be in fellowship with them. This has been the stated position of the Southern Baptist Convention since the year 2000.
This is not a new position for the Southern Baptist Convention. And for the last 23 years, we have been in fellowship with the Southern Baptist Convention even though we were no longer in line with its definition regarding the two offices of the church as stated in the quote above.
