SBC opposes Baptist women pastors

By Cynthia Jardon

June 16, 2000 Web posted at: 11:37 AM EDT (1537 GMT)

ALEXANDRIA, Louisiana (The Town Talk) -- The Southern Baptist Convention's approval Wednesday of a revised statement of faith that says women should not serve as pastors won't have a big impact on central Louisiana.

There are no women pastors affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention in the area, according to the Louisiana Baptist Convention.

The statement, in part, reads:

"While men and women are gifted ... the office of pastor is limited to men by Scripture."

Scriptures of reference may include I Timothy 2:11-12: "Let a woman learn in silence with all submission. And "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence." (King James version)

Dr. Sarah Frances Anders, former Louisiana College professor and one who was instrumental in the formation of the Baptist Women in Ministry, doesn't believe the statement will have much effect in general.

"I don't think it will have any effect on churches that have already been doing it. And it probably won't have any effect on churches that are inclined to have women pastors," Anders said. "Churches are independent beings in the Southern Baptist Convention," she pointed out.

Anders is also moderator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. The national CBF organized in 1991 after it became clear to moderates in the Southern Baptist Convention that the fundamentalists were in control and moderates would be excluded from leadership.

"I personally feel, well, I'm not going to sit in judgment on what the Southern Baptist Convention does. But I will say this issue is between the individual and God and the individual church," Anders said. "In years past when they passed negative statements about women in the church, it didn't slow things down, and I have no reason to believe it will this time."

Anders continues to maintain a file of the Baptist women - now totaling more than 1,600 - who have been ordained to the gospel ministry.

"I'm very sad," said the Rev. Martha Phillips, interim pastor at Mount Vernon Baptist Church in Arlington, Va., where Vice President Al Gore is a member.

"Women ministers are not going to have a place in Southern Baptist life anymore," she said in an telephone interview with the Associated Press from Arlington. "I think more churches will leave the convention."

The Faith and Message statement does not address whether women should be ordained; it addresses only their role as pastors who lead congregations.

About 100 of the 1,600 or so Southern Baptist clergywomen are leading congregations.

The denomination has 15.9 million members and 41,000 local congregations.

As Anders said, the statement is not binding on individual Southern Baptists, and local congregations remain free to ordain women and hire them as pastors.

Episcopal, Presbyterian USA, Assemblies of God, United Pentecostal and Methodist denominations are among those who ordain women ministers.

The Catholic Church and Church of Christ do not ordain women ministers.

The female pastor issue comes on top of a hotly disputed 1998 Southern Baptist amendment to the 1963 version of the document, stating that "a wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband." That was the last straw for an estimated dozen congregations that quit the denomination.

Approval of the men-only pastor clause will probably drive out other congregations, said the Rev. Daniel Vestal of Atlanta, coordinator for a group of 2,000 theologically moderate congregations.

Convention officials strongly disagree.

Yet membership in the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant faith, slipped 1 percent in 1998, the first loss in 72 years.

Convention observers cited several possible factors contributing to the decline: some individuals' decision to drop their affiliation with any particular denomination, the growth of the "megachurch" and the advent of alternative churches as the convention's leadership became more conservative.

Nancy Ammerman, professor of sociology and religion at Hartford (Conn.) Seminary, said the most visible change was 1998's amendment to convention beliefs that women should "submit graciously" to their husbands.

Even the Rev. Billy Graham's second daughter, Anne Graham Lotz, who launched into her first big-time crusade this spring, has met with this resistance.

She was bumped from an evangelism conference sponsored by the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma in 1993 because some ministers opposed the idea of women preaching to men.

"That was fine with me," Lotz said in an Associated Press article, "because I didn't want to be that kind of problem for them (the organizers). I go where I am invited and the audience is voluntary."

Other changes in the church statement underscore that the Bible is "totally true" and God is "all-powerful and all-knowing," and insist that "there is no salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord." It also urges Christians to oppose racism and reject abortion and homosexuality.

AR, Jonesboro, KAIT AR, Little Rock, KATV LA, Lafayette, KATC LA, Monroe, KNOE LA, Shreveport, KSLA OK, Oklahoma City, KOCO OK, Oklahoma City, KOKH OK, Tulsa, KOTV   TX, Abilene, KTXS TX, Amarillo, KFDA TX, Austin, KEYE TX, Austin, KXAN TX, Dallas KTVT TX, Dallas, WFAA TX, Harlingen-Weslaco, KRGV TX, Houston, KHOU TX, Houston, KPRC   TX, Lubbock, KAMC TX, San Antonio, KABB TX, San Antonio, KMOL TX, Tyler, KLTV TX, Waco, KWTX TX, Wichita Falls, KAUZ TX, Wichita Falls, KSWO