By Steve BermanBest-selling author and megachurch pastor Rick Warren has repented of keeping women out of ministry, and the Southern Baptist Convention is roiling over it. But so far, they refuse to take a strong stance against their history of unbridled support for Donald Trump. That was one of the themes of the last SBC meeting in Nashville, but anyone who has followed this knows the battle over Trump was fought well before 2021, and the former guy’s opponents found themselves in self-imposed excommunication.
The SBC, a confederation of over 50,000 independently-run churches, is having its bi-annual meeting, this time in New Orleans. If 2021 was an ugly year for the SBC, with sex scandals, political intrigue, and an attempted takeover by the “alt-right” fundamentalists, since then, it’s only gotten worse. In 2022, two major Texas newspapers released a shattering storyof years of sexual abuse allegations, coverups, and victim-blaming. Now in 2023, the SBC is facing a vote to allow women to serve in leadership, having ousted five congregations that dared to break the ban.
The SBC is run solely by men, and women are formally barred from serving in leadership positions. This is a long-held “distinctive” by the denomination, and they base it primarily on 1 Timothy 2:12; the Apostle Paul wrote: “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.” Warren, who has pastored Saddleback Church—one of the expelled churches—for 43 years, tweeted that his “biggest regret” is failing to personally study the Biblical basis for restricting women from the pulpit.
“Shame on me,” he continued.
I don’t expect to win in New Orleans and I certainly don’t expect to change the mind of any angry fundamentalist [sic]. They are responsible to God, not to me. I’m doing this as a [sic] act of obedience to the Holy Spirit.
But I DO want to do this: I PUBLICLY APOLOGIZE to every good women [sic] in my life, church, and ministry that I failed to speak up for in my years of ignorance. What grieves me is that I hindered them in obeying the Great Commission command (And Acts 2:17-18) that EVERYONE is to TEACH in the church. I held them back from using the spiritual gifts and leadership skills that the Holy Spirit had sovereignly placed in them. That breaks my heart now, and I am truly repentant and sorry for my sin. I wish I could do it all over. Christian women, will you please forgive me?
Personally, my experience with Southern Baptists is just about all the ones I know are decent, God-fearing, honest, and generous people. However, tradition and fear are the twin weaknesses all people of faith must resist. I am not a Southern Baptist, just so you know, I have been a member of Assembly of God churches just about the entirety of my walk as a Christian. The Assemblies, for over 100 years, has taken a careful and measured approach to women in ministry:
“While the precise nature of Paul’s prohibition in this text is a matter of ongoing study, we do conclude that it does not prohibit female leadership, but like the rest of the chapter, it admonishes that “everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way” (1 Corinthians 14:40).”
From what Warren has written, it seems he has come to that conclusion also, putting him in direct contradiction with his denomination. Most reasonable, intelligent people with seminary educations, and years of preaching in the SBC should be able to come to some kind of graceful end to this question, but I’ve also found that when such people are dropped into a contentious business meeting environment, a pit of vipers does tend to emerge. (That’s not just with Baptists: I’ve seen it happen in otherwise loving, joy-filled Pentecostal congregations that have treated their pastor as if he’s a con man swept into town in a carnival wagon.)
Reading the scorching accusations flying through Twitter is disheartening regarding the character and Spirit-leading of many self-identified Baptists, at least online.
Politics-wise, some pundits, like my friend Erick Erickson (also not a Baptist), think though it might be Biblically fine to allow women to teach, and therefore the SBC is on solid ground to allow it, but they should not in any case. This is due to the perception that the denomination is bowing to worldly pressure and political winds in its change of long-held precepts. The reasoning here is what’s waiting in the wings: next it will be gay pastors, or transsexual Sunday School teachers, or a complete deconstruction of the Bible.
I have no doubt that there will be plenty of critics outside the SBC who would love to see America’s largest protestant denomination self-destruct by allowing sweeping, liberal interpretations of Biblical truth. They’d love to see it break up the way the United Methodists are doing to themselves, or the Presbyterians have already done. They’d like to see Christians in general lose cultural and political relevance, which leads to public policy, business governance, and control of so many institutions where for years the church has exercised influence.
But what’s worse: holding on to questionable Biblical restrictions based on sex alone, because of years of tradition, stained by abuse, incidents of “toxic masculinity,” with its end in the movement to support political avatars like Donald Trump; or, deciding to humbly end one aspect of that wall excluding women from power, and having to build a doctrine capable of defending Christian truth without that tradition?
This brings me to the problem I see Baptists ducking in New Orleans. The elephant in the room isn’t whether women should teach. Every Baptist mother knows women teach every day, and are generally more qualified to do so in the family unit. Statistics by Pew Research bears out the fact that women in the SBC are better educated than men, hold more absolute certainty in their belief in God, consider religion to be of greater importance in life, attend church more, pray more often, attend more study groups, feel more at spiritual peace, and consider religion to be a more reliable guide than any other source for right and wrong, than men.
Yet men decide to support a thrice-married, porn-star boinking, cheating, lying, Biblically ignorant little tyrant because he “fights” for their traditions and promises to scratch the itch of their fears. The SBC is a major source of support for Donald Trump, and I don’t expect to see any strong statement opposing Trump’s candidacy come out of New Orleans.
In 2021, Alabama pastor Ed Litton narrowly won over Trump-aligned Mike Stone to lead the SBC. The bugbear in 2021 was Critical Race Theory, which somehow has blown over like a freak storm this year. In 2021, Beth Moore left the SBC over what she described as persistent racism and sexism; while Dr. Russell Moore (no relation) quit as head of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission over the treatment of women (never mind the Trump worship). Litton was later discredited for plagiarizing another pastor’s sermons (“Sermongate”), while Stone filed a lawsuit—then dropped it—against Dr. Moore.
Now it’s not Litton who has been restored; it’s Stone again versus Bart Barber, a conventional Texas SBC pastor who replaced Litton. Barber also holds to the men-only restriction in the pulpit. Stone said he didn’t expect to run in 2023, but that his supporters convinced him. This is in contravention of the tradition of SBC to allow serving presidents to run unopposed for a second term.
Stone represents the rural types deeply ingrained in Baptist roots, typified by his Blackshear, Georgia congregation. They are the ones caught in a fear and tradition trap, tending to agree that a liberal cabal has railroaded Trump, stole the 2020 election, and seeks to put Trump away by any means necessary. Many of these congregants excuse Trump’s willful failure to obey the law regarding handling of classified materials, believe that those who stormed the Capitol on January 6th, 2021 were patriots, and overall think the fate of the country is lost if a strong man who fights for their values isn’t put in power.
Opposing their own congregants, pastors like Mike Stone (and Bart Barber) know, is a recipe for revolt. They fear the SBC will break up over political discord, if it appears that ministry changes are being made solely due to pressure from outside. But they don’t see that the people who are outside used to be inside. They resist change for the sake of resistance and fear in many cases: or just for the sake of tradition.
It is possible to accept Biblical correction on the role of women in ministry, which for centuries, as noted by Warren, has been deemed a commandment in accordance with the gifts of the Holy Spirit by scholars steeped in a belief in the inerrancy of Scripture. It is also possible to do that by attributing the abandonment of long-held tradition to enlightenment through study and a return to early Church Biblical orthodoxy, instead of the zeitgeist of the world.
When Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517, he did so out of obedience to God in truth revealed from study of Scripture. The traditions of the Church at that time involved un-Biblical practices such as indulgences and inerrant Papal authority. Luther didn’t reject these out of some enlightenment of pure reason, or a rejection of religion. He did so as a faithful Catholic, from within the Church, seeking reform. Similarly, Baptists such as Beth Moore, Dr. Russell Moore, and Rick Warren have, through study and prayer, determined that many of the traditions, “distinctives,” and governance practices of the SBC are rife with injustice, sexism, deception, and un-Biblical interpretation of Scripture.
It is not through a rejection of God, or of Baptists, that these have arrived at their positions. Yet, like the Church in 1517, the SBC’s reaction has been to defenestrate critics as heretics and troublemakers, attributing inconsistent motives to them like power-seeking, favor-seeking with the world, and weakness in the face of the enemies of the Gospel (it can’t be both). They’ve sought to damage the reputations of the critics as enemies, like the Church did in 16th century Europe to Luther.
In New Orleans, few expect the SBC meeting to yield a change in the role of women in ministry within their congregations, nor do they expect the five churches that were expelled to be readmitted. Worse, to me, is the fact that the one thing that could bring Biblical truth back to American evangelicals would be a firm, unequivocal statement opposing Donald Trump, and placing the responsibility for whatever crimes he faces squarely on his own shoulders. This is nearly certain not to happen, and not even be discussed in any public or meaningful way.
While it’s good to see some progress within the SBC on actual crimes committed against women, and the coverup of these abuses, the problem of whether women should serve in leadership is just a distraction from the main issue, just like the “problem” of CRT was two years ago.
Adherence to the Gospel demands a better standard, in fact a singular standard. Addressing the jots and tittles of doctrine while the giant sin of idolatry sits in the room is not pleasing to God, nor will it stop the decline of the biggest body of believers in Christ in America.
Follow Steve on Twitter @stevengberman.
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