Representatives of Baptist Women in Ministry are in Indianapolis this week to push back against the anticipated ban of female pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention, Executive Director Meredith Stone said.
Stone said she and two other BWIM staff members would demonstrate outside the Indianapolis Convention Center June 11-12 as SBC messengers consider a constitutional amendment prohibiting cooperating congregations from affirming or appointing women pastors.
Being at the annual meeting site provides a tangible example of women in ministry and expresses solidarity with those denied the opportunity to live out their callings, Stone said during BWIM ‘s 2024 Annual Gathering Virtual Prayer Vigil June 10.
The one-hour gathering blended periods of prayer and meditation with live music and opportunities for participants to share lamentations and hope via the Zoom chat box. Paul Baxley, executive coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, and Rob Fox, president of CBF Church Benefits, joined the female leaders to acknowledge women’s spiritual gifts and to express remorse for the injustices women have endured through patriarchal systems.
Julie Tai
The online vigil was an important component in lamenting and resisting the actions of the SBC and other Christian organizations in limiting the gifts of women, said Julie Tai, co-director of Kinship Commons, the ministry that curated the “Limiting Women Limits God” vigil.
“It is important for us to gather together to pray because in just a few days, as you know, the SBC is going to be changing some things and there’s a lot to grieve, there’s a lot to be angry about, there’s a lot for us to be coming together over. It is a call to prayer, a call to protest and it’s a call to demonstration,” she said. “We are going to be angry together, we are going to be sad together, we are going to weep together and we’re going to be uplifted and encouraged and affirmed.”
After a live performance of the hymn “Sing A New World into Being,” a hushed reading of Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus commenced simultaneously with the reading and display of historic Baptist female leaders and their lineages, including Nannie Helen Burroughs, who was described as “founder of the Women’s Convention Auxiliary of the National Baptist Convention, was a daughter of Martha Stearns Marshall, the 18th-century Baptist preacher, who was a sister of Helen Barrett Montgomery, first elected female president of the Northern Baptist Convention.”
Baptist women had to fight throughout their lives for recognition and for the opportunity to serve as God called them, Kinship Commons Co-Director Angie K. Hong said. “We’ve seen and experienced many of the same things. We swallowed our grief when we were told we weren’t ready to lead. We swallowed our grief when we were told we were too emotional, we were too angry, we were too provocative, we were too much.”
Such lies have caused spiritual and emotional wounds and led many women to question their faith and callings, she said. “It’s important to name some of these lies just to know that we are not alone, and that we are together here in community to stand witness and to stand with each other.”