Southern Baptists will vote this week on whether to permanently ban women pastors, after the SBC executive committee decided Monday to give its more than 12,000 members a voice on the topic when they meet Tuesday and Wednesday in New Orleans. Photo courtesy of Southern Baptist Convention
June 12 (UPI) — Southern Baptists will vote this week on whether to amend their church constitution to permanently ban women pastors and keep women from holding church leadership positions.
The executive committee of the SBC decided Monday morning to allow its more than 12,000 members at this week’s full Southern Baptist Convention to vote on the amendment proposed by Virginia pastor Mike Law.
“I move that the constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention be amended to include an enumerated 6th item under article 3, paragraph 1, concerning composition,” Law wrote last year. “The enumerated 6th item would read: ‘6. Does not affirm, appoint, or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.'”
The SBC will hold its annual meeting in New Orleans on Tuesday and Wednesday, during which its members — or messengers — will vote on whether to enshrine a permanent ban on women holding positions in church leadership.
“While the messengers to the 2022 SBC Annual Meeting entrusted the executive committee with this motion,” the executive committee said in its recommendation Monday, “we recognize the significance of the matter, at this given time, and therefore believe it is prudent to place the referred motion before the entire body of messengers.”
After SBC’s executive committee decided Monday to include all members in the vote, it released its recommendation to oppose the amendment.
As advocates for the amendment argue it holds close to Southern Baptist theology, critics warn it could marginalize women in the church.
“The executive committee strongly affirms Article VI of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, which states, ‘While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.'”
“However, the executive committee deems that our beliefs are most appropriately stated in our adopted statement of faith rather than in our constitution and therefore opposes a suggested amendment to SBC constitution, article III.”