Editor’s note: Woodland Baptist Church in San Antonio, Texas, is one of two churches recently expelled from the Baptist General Convention of Texas after being found out of compliance with the BGCT’s stance on sexuality. What follows here is the…
The SBC and its sacrament of power
The Southern Baptist Convention continues on its crusade to rid Baptist churches of women in ordained leadership of any kind. I have looked with dismay at its inexorable path of patriarchal power and the denigration of women. So churches with…
The SBC 2023: When dogma trumps gospel
In 1964, Addie Davis was ordained to the gospel ministry by Watts Street Baptist Church, Durham, N.C., becoming the first female ordained by a congregation affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. A new generation of female ordinands soon followed, not…
The Southern Baptists left me
Last week in its annual meeting held in New Orleans, messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention voted to uphold the denomination’s Credentials and Executive Committees in expelling Saddleback Church in California and Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville Ky. The…
The best way to protest the SBC is to carry on and preach louder
Last week, the Southern Baptist Convention’s overwhelming number of messengers voted to kick out Saddleback Church and Fern Creek Baptist due to their inclusion of female leadership. I support the credentialing of female pastors as not only legitimate in our time, but also…
‘May they all be one’
“I ask not only on behalf of these but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one.” — John 17:20-21 John 17 often is labeled as Jesus’ “high-priestly prayer.” This…
Baptists, football and women who changed the game
Baptists love football. How many college and pro football illustrations did I hear in sermons preached in my childhood Southern Baptist church? How many Baptists are just as likely to don college colors and spend Saturdays watching the game as…
My ordination is precious to me
When the Southern Baptist Convention voted last week to reaffirm its expulsion of churches with women pastors on staff and to begin the process of amending its constitution to make sure any member congregation “does not affirm, appoint or employ…
Juneteenth: Moving from symbolism to substance
When President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation Jan. 1, 1863, it changed the legal status of more than 3.5 million enslaved Black people in the Confederate states from enslaved to free. It was two-and-a-half years later, on June 19,…
SBC annual meeting reveals little progress on sexual abuse, not even ‘bare minimum’
When a pace of change is so glacial as to resemble inertia, it means people don’t really care about change. This is what we are seeing in the Southern Baptist Convention with its reform efforts for addressing clergy sex abuse….
The cost of being comfortable is too high
“Men are the primary theologians in their family.” The words sent a jolt through my brain, and my back straightened as I stared up at the guest preacher behind the podium. I scanned the room. Heads were nodding in agreement,…
In support of women in missions and pastoral leadership
“Nonsense,” the disciples exclaimed as the Spirit-filled women ran from the empty tomb to preach, “He is not dead, he is risen!” I am a preaching woman too. I am so glad that prophecy had it that the Spirit will…