At first I thought the Southern Baptist Conservatives of Virginia had an ad on your back page about a leadership conference [March 5], but it says Virginia Baptist Mission Board. I lived through the “Baptist Wars,” and my jugular is still sore. Someone has invited the president of a Southern Baptist Convention seminary to be the plenary speaker and lead a seminar for our Virginia pastors at the Leadership Gathering.
I got to wondering. Suppose that woman pastor that you allow to write an opinion column shows up with other female pastors at Eagle Eyrie. Imagine she and other women pastors start a discussion about his book, Is God Calling Me?, in the pastors’ seminar. Might God get the fellow under conviction as he did Simon Peter on the rooftop? If the president were suddenly to see women pastors as clean in God’s sight, he would have to resign his position. Then Virginia Baptists would be blamed for it.
On top of that, suppose those women bring their husbands. Where would they put them? There are breakout sessions for ministers’ wives, but not for husbands. Maybe we should have one for ministers’ spouses. Perhaps we aren’t thinking as far out of the box as we thought! Or maybe I just need a new paradigm. (Lawson Pankey taught me that word back in the seventies!)
God bless you and our Herald as you consider these things.
— Kenneth Fleet, Richmond, Va.