In April 2023, Baptist Women in Ministry shared an Open Letter to Baptist Women in response to an increase in actions against Baptist women who minister, lead and serve as pastors, specifically within the Southern Baptist Convention. In a recent BWIM staff meeting, I learned this remains the most-visited page on our website.
In December 2025, the open letter received more than 2.5 times as many visits as our homepage.
This information surprised me. My first thought was simple: I’m glad something I signed is still making an impact.
Nikki Hardeman
As I looked more closely at the data, I learned much of the traffic likely does not come from people who regularly visit the BWIM website because they are actively participating in our mission. Whatever is driving people to this page, it appears to be coming from elsewhere.
I cannot say with certainty why the letter continues to receive so much attention. BWIM’s executive director, Meredith Stone, observed that not all attention is good attention. Her observation, along with data on the kind of traffic the letter has received, leads me to believe a significant portion of this traffic may represent individuals who continue to actively work against women and the churches that support them.
“Public acts of solidarity can become points of monitoring rather than simple expressions of support.”
I do not offer this as an accusation, but as an acknowledgment of the context in which this letter exists. Within the SBC and its broader ecosystem, female ministers and the congregations that affirm them often experience heightened scrutiny and informal forms of discipline. In such an environment, public acts of solidarity can become points of monitoring rather than simple expressions of support.
A letter that calls out injustice and includes names may be revisited not only by those seeking encouragement but also by those looking to track, pressure or discourage women and churches who refuse to be silent.
An open letter or petition is not a casual or neutral form of communication. It is a politicized act, most often used by people seeking change when formal channels of power are closed to them. For at least two centuries, open letters have emerged in moments of conflict not simply to persuade, but to document dissent and to create a public record that someone objected, resisted and refused to be silent.
History bears this out. In 1898, Émile Zola published “J’accuse,” an open letter that publicly charged the French government with antisemitism for the continued imprisonment of Alfred Dreyfus. In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his now-famous letter from a jail cell in Birmingham, defending nonviolence and exposing the moral failure of white moderates who urged patience over justice. In 2005, Bobby Henderson responded to the Kansas State Board of Education with an open letter so public and satirical that it permanently altered the national conversation about intelligent design.
What these letters share is not tone or outcome, but function. They made dissent visible. They created records that could be revisited, cited, challenged and used against their authors and signers.
“Open letters endure because visibility is the point, and visibility is never neutral.”
Open letters endure because visibility is the point, and visibility is never neutral. These public letters can galvanize movements but also can invite scrutiny, retaliation and risk, especially for those whose power already is contested.
Several months ago, BWIM received a request from a minister to have his name removed from the open letter. This was not a change of conviction, but an act of protection for himself and for his congregation. After signing the letter, his church began to face external pressure tied directly to his public support for women in ministry. The decision to remove his name came from his fear of the mounting cost of being publicly associated with it.
Public acts of solidarity, like signing an open letter, are never small, especially in communities where visibility itself can be punished. When we put ourselves out there publicly, we create a permanent and searchable record, and that record may come with a cost.
Women in ministry understand well the cost of being visible. To visibly join a cause in solidarity with those who are always at risk, such as by publicly signing an open letter, is not performative activism. It is an embodied and empowered act of courage.
When we talk about the risks of visibility, we must also name who is expected to absorb those risks. Women in ministry are not punished simply for speaking publicly; they are punished for refusing to remain invisible in systems not built for their leadership. The consequences they face — the scrutiny, isolation and financial pressure — are not signs of controversy but of gendered power working as designed.
The fact that the BWIM Open Letter to Women continues to be read tells us something important. Open letters fade when the conditions that called them forth have changed. This one has not faded because the conflict it names remains unresolved. Women are still being questioned and punished for answering a call to ministry, and churches that affirm them continue to face pressure to fall in line.
The letter is still there. It is still being read. And the names attached to it still matter. Each one represents a choice to be seen, to join publicly with women in ministry in a context where visibility itself can carry a cost.
Nikki Hardeman serves as director for advocating for women in ministry at Baptist Women in Ministry. She lives in Atlanta with her two children and Jayne, the cutest rat terrier to ever live.