The Law Amendment is not dead yet.
The controversial amendment to the Constitution of the Southern Baptist Convention — which failed to get a two-thirds vote on second reading last June — would enshrine a prohibition on SBC churches allowing women to preach or giving women jobs with the title “pastor.”
The amendment garnered support of 61.45% of messengers to last summer’s SBC annual meeting — a majority but not the required two-thirds majority.
Now, a Texas pastor has announced he intends to present a motion to change the standing rules of the convention so the amendment may be brought back and voted on again immediately.
Juan Sanchez
Juan Sanchez, pastor of High Pointe Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, and others who oppose women as pastors are upset that the SBC Credentials Committee recently refused to expel a South Carolina church that employs a woman as a teaching pastor. Therefore, he says, it is urgent that the Law Amendment be brought back to the floor for another vote.
He and others published an “Open Letter to Our Southern Baptist Family” that asks messengers to this summer’s meeting in Dallas to suspend the convention’s sixth standing rule that says all motions to amend governing documents that are not presented to messengers by the Executive Committee will be automatically referred to the Executive Committee for review and reporting back at the next annual meeting.
That means any motion to revive the Law Amendment would have to back to the Executive Committee for review before messengers could vote on it again.
There’s another problem with his proposal, though, because the SBC Constitution states: “Any alterations may be made in these articles at any annual meeting of the convention by a vote of two-thirds of the messengers present and voting at the time the vote is taken, provided that an amendment shall be so approved by two consecutive annual meetings of the convention.”
Bringing back the Law Amendment for a second reading in 2025 after it failed in 2024 would not constitute approval at “two consecutive annual meetings.”
Therefore, the group hopes to expedite a renewed first reading at this summer’s annual meeting in Dallas, which would set up the required second reading at the 2026 convention in Orlando.
To do that first would require a suspension of the standing rules of the convention, which takes only a simple majority vote. Thus, a two-step agenda could play out in Dallas this summer, with the motion to suspend the rules first and, if that passes, a motion to reconsider the Law Amendment with the same language as the previous two years.
The amendment got its name from its original drafter, Virginia pastor Mike Law.
His motion was to amend Article III of the Constitution by adding a sixth item saying a cooperating church may “not affirm, appoint or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.”
“We believe this honors the Lord as we ask him to bless our efforts to reach the world for Christ.”
Later, at Sanchez’s suggestion, a friendly amendment was accepted to flip the language to say qualified churches must affirm, appoint or employ “only men as any kind of pastor or elder as qualified by Scripture.”
The letter from Sanchez and his allies identifies them as “Southern Baptist pastors and leaders who love our family of churches and who are grateful for the hard-won complementarian commitments expressed in the Baptist Faith and Message.”
Complementarianism is the belief that God created men and women for distinctly different roles in the home and church that “complement” each other.
“We are deciding right now what kind of convention we are going to be,” the letter says. “We want to be a convention in friendly cooperation with churches that closely identify with our confession of faith, including our clearly stated beliefs about biblical qualifications for pastoral office. We believe this honors the Lord as we ask him to bless our efforts to reach the world for Christ.”
In addition to Sanchez, those signing are Nate Akin, executive director, Pillar Network; HB Charles, pastor-teacher of Shiloh Metropolitan Church in Jacksonville, Fla.; Jed Coppenger, lead pastor of First Baptist Church in Cumming, Ga.; Aaron Harvie, senior pastor of Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky.; Brian Payne, pastor of Lakeview Baptist Church in Auburn, Ala.; Clay Smith, senior pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga.
The SBC annual meeting will take place June 10-11 at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas.
Related articles:
Don’t be lulled by the failure of the Law Amendment | Analysis by Mark Wingfield
Dear Baptist women: ‘We see God’s image in you’ | Opinion by Meredith Stone
Day before voting on Law Amendment, SBC removes church that is Mike Law’s neighbor
The Law Amendment is one more SBC backlash against women | Opinion by Meredith Stone
Second vote on Law Amendment will take the spotlight at this summer’s SBC annual meeting