Baptists are a big part of my life story.
If you are scratching your head about why this third generation, Methodist-all-her-life pastor would say such a thing, keep reading.
Baptists are a big part of my story because I live in the South, which is full of Baptists. They have been neighbors and friends. They have been teachers for my children. My children and grandchildren go to school together, are in sports together, and we have worked together on all kinds of projects for school and community.
Mary John Dye
Many of the members of my United Methodist congregations were raised Baptist and brought a lot of that background with them. Baptists are elected officials in the communities where I have lived. They are members of the civic clubs I have joined. They attended funerals to grieve over the deaths of members of my churches as people we mutually respected in our communities.
I don’t just live in a United Methodist world. Baptists are my brothers and sisters in Christ.
They also are the people who preached against me in their pulpits, told their friends and neighbors I didn’t believe the Bible, cancelled traditional joint Thanksgiving worship services when it was the Methodist preacher’s turn to preach, and told my young people they would go to hell for having a female preacher.
Even though they were not always happy about it and when they did not act like it, I constantly reminded myself that, whether they liked it or not (or whether I liked it or not), Baptists are my brothers and sisters in Christ.
Some of my best stories (which I am trying to get on paper now) are about Baptists. And some of the most awful, unchristian experiences I’ve ever had were with Baptists. In general, they do not approve of women as ministers.
“Growing up in the very conservative Methodist side of evangelical faith, I understood my Baptist neighbors and friends better than they realized.”
Growing up in the very conservative Methodist side of evangelical faith, I understood my Baptist neighbors and friends better than they realized. Although I was Methodist, I, too, grew up thinking that no woman could be a pastor. And, in all my growing up through college years, I honestly did not know anyone who thought differently. Not in my family (although women could be honored as missionaries). Not in my church (although women had technically been allowed to have full clergy rights since I was in the first grade). Certainly not in my very conservative college in Wilmore, Ky., where it was fine for women to be educated so they would be better equipped to shape the lives of the children they would raise. There was no question that it was fine for a woman to teach babies and children too young to question or think for themselves. But there was a deeply entrenched hierarchy of who was qualified to teach the Bible or preach. That hierarchy was always and only male.
Through the years, everywhere I served there were people (usually Baptists) who believed a woman should not preach. Period. Because of the way I was raised, I understood completely why they believed that. There was a certain handful of verses from the epistles they could quote without hesitation. I know them all.
From the Corinthians admonition that women are to keep silent in church to the 1 Timothy declaration that women were not to teach or have authority over a man, I am very, very familiar with the texts commonly weaponized against women. Over and over again, my background helped me be graceful, understanding and even kind when people came after me with the Scripture backing up their conviction that God does not want women to preach.
My own immersion in this very prevalent anti-women-preacher culture was undergirded by a larger conviction: It is a John 3:16 and 17 bedrock.
God loves the whole world. I am to love the whole world. The folks attacking me are people my Savior loved and died for. Baptists were — and are — my brothers and sisters in Christ. We are people with differing opinions and interpretations of Scripture, but we are not enemies. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. I never could count how many times I have had to repeat that to myself to stay grounded.
“Reaching the world for Christ while sidelining half (or more) of their talented, godly leaders is another handicap.”
This week, as the Southern Baptist Convention gathers, I have had a flood of Baptist memories. They are the same familiar themes of adamant rejection of women in ministry, unkindness and exclusion. Same texts insisting that God agrees with them. Same hurtful language. There also are many memories of my congregations/colleagues/friends standing up for me. Along with that joy, there is terrible pain of seeing my people put on the spot and caught up in a battle they did not seek or ask for.
My basic affirmation holds: Although I am not a Baptist, Baptists are my brothers and sisters in Christ. Each day as I read the increasingly rigid positions of Baptist leader Al Mohler, the PTDS comes back. His zeal to silence women’s voices is increasingly strident and intense. Compromise is unthinkable for him as he and his supporters are pressing to take away the basic Baptist polity from churches: their autonomy to choose.
He is pressing for an amendment that violates Baptist church autonomy. If churches choose to have women leaders in teaching or pastoral roles, they are kicked out of the Baptist fellowship. This is heartbreaking to watch. I grieve for them. Reaching the world for Christ is hard enough. Reaching the world for Christ while sidelining half (or more) of their talented, godly leaders is another handicap. An unnecessary handicap.
In my opinion, denying women the opportunity to follow Christ fully takes them away from the fulness of Scripture, which testifies to God’s call and support of women leaders. I pray this hot-button issue will take them to Jesus.
We all have blind spots. If Southern Baptists can get past this patriarchal entrenchment, it will free them and bless them. Lord, hear our prayers.
Mary John Dye is a retired United Methodist clergywoman in Western North Carolin.