By Bob Allen
Pam Durso, executive director of Baptist Women in Ministry, accepted a lifetime achievement award from Christians for Biblical Equality July 25 in Los Angeles.
Durso, who has led the Atlanta-based organization since 2009, was among nine individuals and one organization honored at this year’s CBE annual meeting. The award, established in 2005, recognizes “those who exhibit a lifetime of courage, sacrifice and vision in advancing the biblical basis for gift-based ministry.”
Formed in 1988, Christians for Biblical Equality holds that the Bible teaches “the full equality of men and women in creation and in redemption.” In the church, that means both males and females may serve in leadership roles including pastoral care, teaching, preaching and worship. In the home Christian spouses defer to each other, rather than “one spouse imposing a decision upon the other” on the basis of gender.
Founded in 1983, Baptist Women in Ministry is an advocacy, educational and support organization primarily serving female ministers in the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Alliance of Baptists and state Baptist organizations including the Baptist General Association of Virginia and Baptist General Convention of Texas.
Durso, a former church history professor, has advocated for women in ministry since receiving her Ph.D. from Baylor University in 1992 but wasn’t herself ordained to the gospel ministry until early this year.
Her most recent book, co-edited with LeAnn Gunter Johns, is The World is Waiting for You: Celebrating the 50th Ordination Anniversary of Addie Davis.
Davis, who died in 2005, was the first woman ordained to the gospel ministry by a Southern Baptist congregation, Watts Street Baptist Church in Durham, N.C, in 1964. Today, according to statistics tracked by Baptist Women in Ministry, there are at least 165 women serving as pastor or co-pastor in Baptist churches in the South.
“We were thrilled to present awards to such an outstanding group this year,” Mimi Haddad, president of Christians for Biblical Equality since 2001, said in a press release.
This year’s recipients acknowledged strong ties that exist between CBE and Christian organizations including Fuller Theological Seminary and the Evangelical Covenant Church, a growing multi-ethnic denomination founded in 1885 by Swedish immigrants that has fully credentialed women as ministers since 1976.
“These deserving recipients have sacrificed much and devoted tremendous energy to advocating for the mutual leadership of men and women based on the teachings of Scripture,” Haddad said. “Their work has changed the world, and CBE is proud to work alongside them.”
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