Can Women Be Pastors? Why the Truth and Unity Amendment Matters

🚨 Join us on YouTube

🔔 Subscribe for weekly updates

📬 Send in your questions to courierconversations@gmail.com

What really happened at the Southern Baptist Convention in Orlando? In this episode of Courier Conversations, Jeff and Travis discuss female pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention, the meaning of complementarianism, the autonomy of local churches, and why Southern Baptists believe this issue is rooted in biblical conviction rather than politics or cultural influence. The conversation also addresses media portrayals of the SBC, the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, church autonomy, and key biblical passages such as 1 Timothy 2, 1 Timothy 3, and Titus 1.

------------------

WEBSITES:

baptistcourier.com

courierpublishing.com

INSTAGRAM:

instagram.com/thebaptistcourier

instagram.com/courierpublishing1821

FACEBOOK:

facebook.com/thebaptistcourier

facebook.com/p/Courier-Publishing

X:

x.com/BaptistCourier

x.com/Courier1821

x.com/CourierConvos

Transcript

Welcome And Amendment Snapshot

Jeff 0:07

Welcome to Courier Conversations. My name is Jeff Robinson, and with me is my co-host Travis Kerns, and we are today going to discuss uh an issue that uh pretty much dominated the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting uh two weeks ago. We're actually hard to believe we're two weeks past that, Travis. Uh you and I were both in Orlando for uh the consideration of many things, but among them the Muller uh of what I call the Muller Amendment, the Truth and Unity Amendment, uh, which would make very clear, uh render clear in our Constitution who is uh qualified to serve as uh senior pastor or elder or in in that role period in uh local churches. And of course it passed this year, 75 percent. Uh we're uh we're happy about that here at the Courier. We definitely support this, and we're thankful for Dr. Muller and his work there. He was very particular about the language, even uh using language that was in the second London Confession, the sixth of 1689, which uh I was uh I was glad to see. And uh and so now it awaits passage one more time next year. We must have uh a passage uh two-thirds vote next year uh for it to become uh a part of uh amendment that is officially passed. And so today uh we yesterday the uh Religion News Service, not known for its support for conservative causes, uh published an article written by Bob Smitana. I think that's how you pronounce his last name. That's what we're gonna say anyway. Uh and the title of it is uh Well, it's clear, I guess, how women pastors became public enemy number one in the SVC. Travis? How did that land on you when you first read it?

Travis 1:48

Uh not well. Um because it assumes, first of all, that there's a public enemy number two, which he says in the subheading, um at least he uh we would assume by the subhead, which is Southern Baptists have long believed that only men can be pastors, that is true because the Bible teaches that. But for decades, the author says, the denomination took no action to expel churches where women pastors serve. Then, in the middle of an abuse controversy, it became a denominational crisis. So I'm assuming that he's arguing, uh now this might be a big assumption, but he's arguing that public enemy number one was the abuse controversy, and then we somehow substituted the female pastor issue for the abuse crisis as the number one issue we need to concern ourselves with. So that's the first thing that hits me. The second thing is that uh female pastors aren't the enemy.

Jeff 2:39

No.

Travis 2:40

Um I there there may be some that disagree with me as soon as I say this, Jeff, you may be one of them. I don't think a woman who is a pastor just by that simple practice alone makes that person an unbeliever. No. Uh I agree. I think they're wrong biblically. Right. 1 Corinthians, uh, 1 Timothy 2, 1 Timothy 3, and Titus 1. However, that's not one of the issues that's gonna create a heaven or hell divide for me. It's very much gonna be a denominational divide, very much gonna be a church divide, but it's not a heaven or hell thing. So saying public enemy number one, um man, that makes it sound so incredibly negative. Uh also makes it sound like there's

A Headline Built To Provoke

Travis 3:20

this huge issue of female pastors in the SBC. Right. And there's just not. Uh there are women functioning in ministry roles, in support staff roles, and all these sorts of other roles. But I don't know of any SBC churches currently affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention nationally, uh, with any state conventions, to my knowledge, uh, that have a female as a senior pastor. Uh I know there are probably some with females in associate pastoral roles with that title, which we can talk about later and and discuss if as needed. But um yeah, the the title is just a it's almost like a bait and switch kind of title, and it's just it's a title to get clicks, is what it is.

Jeff 4:01

That's right. I I I think I would use the word hateful.

Travis 4:04

Yeah.

Jeff 4:04

It it strikes me as hateful. Uh and I I'm pretty sure that uh Religion News Service would accuse us of being hateful and hate filled and all those uh all those uh descriptors that we are conservatives are usually lobbed at us uh like grenades. Uh but public enemy number one, yeah, that it it it it uh it insinuates that we hate women pastors. Because public enemy number one, who loves them? Well, nobody loves public enemy number one. We're out we're act out to stamp them out. And it's just uh I have been uh I've I've worked in journalism for 40 years now. I've been a pastor, and I don't know if our readers are aware of this, or I worked in secular journalism for 21 years as a sports writer and a news reporter and covered uh things like this for a long time. I uh was trained uh uh uh by God's grace, and don't throw anything at me here, but one of the finest journalism schools in the United States at the University of Georgia, and always one of the top schools. So they taught me how to do journalism, and and uh I've I've written hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of news stories. So I all that to say, I don't know if I don't say that in any way to boast. That's just setting myself up. I don't know if our readers know that, know uh my background beyond ministry, uh, but uh have a long, long history in journalism, so I can I'm setting that up to say this. This is a terrible piece of journalism. Uh it's an opinion piece disguised as a news article, disguised as an opinion piece. I I don't know how to read this. I mean, because in the uh in the he he pits Adrian Rogers against uh one of our great men in history, one of the architects of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, he pits Adrian Rogers against Al Mohler.

Travis 5:40

Yep. And I think also pits the 2000 Orlando Annual Meeting against the 2026 Orlando Annual Meeting. Exactly.

Jeff 5:46

And it it's it's it's shows a very limited understanding of the SPC and how it works and even evangelicalism, because this for us is a confessional issue. And when you when you are a Southern Baptist convention church, you agree to uh cooperate according to these terms. This is the theology we believe. It's a theological issue. Uh and not a hate issue, an issue that we want to just throw kick people to the curb, women to the curb as much as we can. I mean, that and this whole this whole article just it drips that kind of anger to me. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Travis 6:22

Yeah, I think it's interesting the first two paragraphs, first two sentences rather, in the first summer of this century, more than 11,000, I'm quoting directly, more than 11,000 Southern Baptists gathered in Florida to update their convention's statement of faith by limiting the office of pastor to men only, which is what the Baptist Faith in Message 2000 did.

Jeff 6:38

Right.

Travis 6:38

He goes on, he says, but that 2,000 limit was not binding on local churches. Instead, it applied only to the denominations, seminaries, and mission boards. So what he's arguing here is is that, and what he'll come to later is that in 2026, somehow the adoption of this amendment to our Constitution, the first step of it anyway, uh is somehow binding on local churches. But it's not at all binding on local churches. The convention has no authority to tell a church to put toilet paper in the bathroom.

Jeff 7:07

No.

Travis 7:08

Has no authority to do anything. Um I think the major misunderstanding here is that he believes that somehow when we pass this, not only are we telling local churches what to do, uh that's misunderstanding number one. Misunderstanding number two is that he he doesn't uh and he never says this, but I'm just reading between the lines, he he doesn't understand that the convention as a national uh uh existing entity is autonomous in its own sphere. So the convention can decide through the messengers' votes who it wants to partner with and who it doesn't want to partner with, in the same way state conventions do, in the same way local associations do, and the same way local churches do. So even though this amendment was passed uh this year and Lord willing the creek doesn't rise, it'll pass again next year. Um it still does not bind a local church. It doesn't tell local church what to do. It simply says here are our boundaries of cooperation, which the Baptist Faith in Message 2000 already does, has for 26 years.

Jeff 8:10

Yeah, I one of the things uh and we we'll get into the issue itself here in in momentarily. But one of the things in my years uh in working in secular journalism I found to be almost universally true, and I don't want to paint with too broad a brush, but it it's it it's this is an example of that, is that secular journalists don't understand uh evangelical Christianity. They don't understand uh biblical Christianity, they don't understand the Southern Baptist Convention, and they take account as their framework, the a loose understanding of the Roman Catholicism, a top-down, you know, because if you'll remember, uh years ago people would compare Al Al Mohler, they say he's our Pope. We don't have popes. Right. Uh we don't have anyone who can tell anyone else what to do, really. Uh and as you just said, we're independent. And they just don't seem to even try to understand that. And that so that makes this uh this just this article almost like a hit piece. I mean, because he talks about how he he almost insinuates that um for more than two decades Mohler's view was a status quo of uh no female pastors, while his seminary, he's the president of Southern Seminary, and other Baptist institutions taught that only men should be pastors. Some churches believe that the rule on on male-only clergy applied just to the senior pastors. They gave women and staff roles the title of pastor. Okay, that's fine. Then he's but then he says this. Then out then Mohler changed his mind and hadn't decided all women pastors had to go.

Travis 9:34

Yeah, which is not at all what he argues. In fact, in the has nothing to do with any of this. Uh in fact, what happens in the amendment when he's not only in the amendment language itself, but as he's arguing for it in Orlando just a few weeks ago as we're recording this, is he doesn't talk about the title and function outside of uh the office title function is tied specifically to in this amendment, specifically to teaching the gathered congregation.

Jeff 10:07

That's right.

Travis 10:08

So this is not a we're going after every female minister of youth or minister of children, or if you've got a female you have titled pastor of worship or something like that. Even though you and I would agree

Autonomy And The Limits Of SBC Power

Travis 10:20

wholeheartedly, we don't think that's a biblical way to use that title. Uh in fact, I would argue quite the opposite. Um I know you would as well. Um but saying that Mohler changed his mind is not the case. If you go back and look at the press conference in 2000, um during which Mohler and Richard Land uh and uh Chuck Kelly were the three speaking theolog uh theologians for the committee that that uh created the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, those three were asked about this particular issue. And Mohler says in the same way that Adrian Rogers says, we would not presume to tell a church what to do. Right. Well, that's the same thing he's arguing now. We're not telling churches what to do, we're simply saying that this is these are the boundaries, the bookends of churches with whom the convention will cooperate and consider cooperating church. Um so saying Mohler changed his mind, decided all women pastors had to go is not true in two parts. He didn't change his mind, and he's not arguing for this particular amendment that all women pastors have to go. It is arguing that all women all female senior pastors or that a female should not preach to the assembled congregation. Um but the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 it goes further than that. That's right. This amendment is simply narrowing uh or specifying rather a particular aspect of function.

Jeff 11:45

The function of the office.

Travis 11:55

Right. Because he says conservative evangelicals and MAGA advocates. Like we're that just comes out of nowhere. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right. Yeah.

Jeff 12:02

I mean Trump is always the bugbear for uh liberals, isn't he?

Travis 12:06

I mean it's if you're going to talk about a guy who wouldn't have a problem at all with female pastors, it's and we obviously don't know this, but it's probably Donald Trump. Because he doesn't know Scripture. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right. Right. At least in public appearances that we've seen, he doesn't seem to know it, and he doesn't act according to it, um, with his however many wives he's had and all the women he's slept with and all those sorts of things. That these two things have nothing to do with each other.

unknown 12:29

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Jeff 12:29

Well, and ironically, Donald Trump's spiritual advisor is what?

Travis 12:32

Is a female pastor.

Jeff 12:34

A female pastor. That's not Paul's.

Travis 12:35

Who is to use an academic term who is a wack-a-doodle. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Jeff 12:38

Right. Shared theology and her doctrine. The best thing about her is she's married to Jonathan Cain of Journey. We've loved that, and we'd like to have a word with Jonathan about theology. Right. But no, no, really yeah, it again, there's no un no attempt to understand any of that here. And uh and and and but this but at and the reason we're spotlighting this article, because it's typical. This is not uh the this is not the only writer. We're not picking on this writer. This is just how uh this is often framed. And uh it's it's it's uh it's it's bewildering because this is a theological issue for us. Uh for you and me, and for conservative Southern Baptists, this is a convictional issue. We believe the Bible teaches that the office of pastor elder, the the one, the man responsible for the person responsible for preaching on Sunday morning and Sunday night and in the worship service, Scripture limits it to men only, and clearly so in places like 1 Timothy 3, 1 to 7, the qualifications for elders, uh Titus 1, 1 Timothy 2, and and other places. So that's what this is. This is a theological conviction. And churches for 2,000 years have written confessions of faith that put up the guardrails. Here, here's what we believe. So it's almost like the uh the the legacy media sp and and media members like this uh this man here are surprised at this. It's like where did this come from? Well, if you if you would look uh at uh Wikipedia, even Wikipedia at a little bit of church history for five minutes before you wrote your article, you would learn that this has been the unquestioned orthodoxy for what, 80 percent of the churches throughout the history of the church? Yep. Uh and it's not really been a dogfight until the rise of the feminist movement in the 1960s. Right. And it's not been much of a fight within the SBC. We're just clarifying something. Right. Uh this article and and the others like it let on as if it ties the abuse controversy as if this is somehow tacit to the abuse of women.

Travis 14:36

Yeah. Or it's it's nothing more than a way to stop talking about the abuse controversy. Let's talk about female pastors because we don't want to talk about this supposed abuse controversy, which I think Willie Rice is right about this. You and I talked about this before we started recording. There there was no abuse controversy. Now, let we can caveat that, nuance that, and say very quickly that one person abused in any church is one too many.

Jeff 14:59

Right, exactly. We're getting fit in every every iteration demonic.

Travis 15:03

But there was no executive committee cover-up in the SBC, there was no massive conspiracy theory, anything like that. Uh so for him to to pit the two against each other or somehow tie them together, right, is uh as you called it before we started, yellow journalism. It's just bad.

Jeff 15:20

That is it is yellow journalism. And and and I I'm sick and tired of yellow journalism, whether conservatives do it and they do it uh with great fervor as well. I'm tired of it getting a pass because I was trained to do real journalism. Uh Todd Deaton, our uh our our managing editor here, uh we talk about this all the time. We were trained to do real journalism, present the facts, and let the people decide, the readers decide what's true. Uh and we write uh, you know, when you write something like this, if this are on page four as your opinion, that's one thing. But even this even opinion should be uh should be buttressed by facts. Uh he says here, the MAGA, how and why that happened. So the Muller changes his mind, decide on women pastors had to go, which is very inflammatory. Yep. Uh how and why that happened reveals a larger trend among conservative evangelicals and MAGA advocates. There's there's Trump, in which women are seen as threats to both the church and the country. And I'll point something else out. How many how many females are on President Trump's inner circle and his cabinet inner circle? Right. She talks to the media every single day, and he loves her because she's competent, she's well trained. Yep. Uh this is just ridiculous.

Travis 16:29

And it's it's equally ridiculous to say that about the church. Right. So I was talking about uh this with Mary Margaret Fluke, one of the writers here earlier. As you look at First Timothy, what's fascinating to me about First Timothy is that Paul commends in First Timothy one Timothy's grandmother and his mother. He commends Lois and Eunice, or does that in 2 Timothy, I'm sorry. Um, but he commends these women who instilled this faith in him, so that when Paul's talking about him training other pastors or being a young pastor, getting into the pulpit, he's getting into the pulpit basically on the shoulders of his grandmother and his mother. That there is this significant push for women not only to share their faith, but to train their children and other women in the faith. That's right. So what's happening here is he's taking nothing more than the negative side of it, tying it to Donald Trump, and screaming this is bad.

Jeff 17:24

Right.

Travis 17:24

That's basically the argument in the article. Um it's also interesting. Um he says later on um uh at this press conference after the convention, Mohler was talking about this amendment, and he brings up social media and the digital revolution. Uh so social media and the internet um, you know, creates this uh capacity where people can look at other churches and see what's going on. And he quotes a professor at Texas A&M and this A&M professor says it, social media and the digital revolution, makes something that would have been just behind closed doors into a huge media event. Well, that's not necessarily true either. It is true that social media and the internet give us the ability to see what's going on in other churches, yes. But before social media and the internet were doing that, it was local associations who were taking this up. I can look at the minutes of my own association, the Three Rivers Association here in Greenville, and see plenty of places where churches were disciplined because they're teaching false doctrine, they had false practices, or they had unhealthy practices. And it wasn't that the association and its messengers were saying, you can't do this. They were saying you can't do this and be part of us. You go do it all you want to. That's right. But if you continue in this way, you can't be part of us and do this, because this is not what we believe. That's all this amendment is doing. It's you can do this if you want to. That's your right as a local church to do whatever you want. But this is what we believe, and if you're going to do that, it's out of step with what we believe, so therefore you can't be part of us. Um, it's even a little bit further down, uh, he says the debate over whether any woman could hold the title of pastor, no matter what her responsibilities, came at a time when the SBC was trying to gain more control over local congregations. The SBC has no control over local congregations. Never has. Period. End of story. The Southern Baptist Convention doesn't have control over the South Carolina State Convention or the Interstate Convention. If if Jeff Orge, the president of the Executive Committee, called me today as the leader of the Three Rivers Baptist Association and said, Travis, you need to do X, I could tell him that's

What The Amendment Actually Specifies

Travis 19:40

a great idea, or I could tell him to take it and you know, put it in file 13 and throw it away. I I do not have to do anything that he Tony Wolf at our State Convention, the uh the State Executive Director, Treasurer of our State Convention could call me and say, Hey, as the association, you need to do X. And I could tell him, okay, that's a great idea, or I could tell him, no, we're not. Right. Or I could say, we're gonna do 10 percent of that and 90 percent of it, we're gonna throw out. Each level, so to speak, the church, the association, the state, the national are autonomous in their own right, in their own sphere. The SBC is not trying to take over churches. The SBC can't control local churches, nor does it have the capacity to do it. Um and he brings up the 2019 Credentials Committee, uh, that that is somehow us trying to gain the SBC trying to take more control over local churches, but that's not what's going on at all. It's trying to take control of what's happening in the SBC and who's partnering, who is an affiliated official church, so to speak, of the convention. Um, this is this is a theological issue, it's a biblical issue. Um nobody's changed their minds on this. No. This is I believe this when I was growing up, before I knew anything about the SBC, it under the 63 Baptist Faith and Message, which didn't have the statement in it about the office title and function of pastor, uh, this is what our church taught. This is what the overwhelming majority of Baptists have taught from time immemorial. Uh since John the Baptist was the pastor of first Baptist in Jerusalem, um, which is a joke. I'm not a landmarker. Um But this this is not a change of mind, this is not a taking control, this is a specifying and defining who we are more. The Baptist Faith and Message has said it since 2000. We've believed it since long before that. It's just simply uh saying the same thing in a different spot.

Jeff 21:29

Yeah, it's nothing new.

Travis 21:30

Yeah.

Jeff 21:31

Uh and again, this is where I feel like the media, uh, secular media, has uh uh failed its readers in not doing the homework because the framework always seems to be either some com combination of Roman Catholicism or the mainline churches, which are not autonomous at all. And uh denomination owns the property, and they're right, and they control top down, and so that's uh but but we're we're not that. We've never been that, we'll never be that. I'm a Southern Baptist in Part because I don't want to be that. Right. Because I am free. And if if at Advent Creek Baptist Church they ask us to do something and we don't like it, we can tell them to go jump in the lake and not do it.

Travis 22:12

One of the things I love talking about is there is technically no such thing as a Southern Baptist Church. Right. In the same way there's no such thing as a South Carolina Baptist Church, unless it's a Baptist church inside the State of South Carolina. I'm referring to the State Convention. There is no such thing as a Three Rivers Baptist Association Baptist Church. There are just Baptist churches. Every single Baptist church is independent and autonomous in and of itself. It controls itself. Abner Creek controls itself, Taylors First controls itself, Greer First controls itself, on and on it goes. The convention is the partnering together of those churches in an autonomous way for each church, voluntarily for the sake initially of missions, and then education is added, then we add uh various other entities and agencies to do different aspects of of work. But there is no SBC church. So when you see, you know, this is when the SBC is trying to control its churches. Well, there's no such thing as an SBC church. There's churches that are affiliated voluntarily with the Southern Baptist Convention, which is not even a thing except for two days a year. Um that they partner together for the sake of missions and education.

Jeff 23:27

Well, that's why I say the frame of reference always seems to be St. United Methodist Church, which you you can speak of the church, right? Or the Roman Catholic Church certainly can speak of the the church. Right. But I think it's incumbent upon journalists to learn something about church history and something about theology if they're going to write about this. There was um when I was uh years ago when I worked at the uh daily newspaper in Gainesville, Georgia, before I uh surrendered to ministry, uh the Atlanta Journal of Constitution had a very fine uh religion writer. And she told me one time, she we were on a story together, and she said, I've had to do I've had to do a lot of uh I've had to go uh educate myself on the SBC and how it works. She covered the convention one year is what it was, and how uh something about church history to show to learn how the uh she grown up a Catholic, learn how these denominations are all different than each other, evangelicals, and they're different than the Roman Catholic Church. And her writing always reflected that. And uh there needs to be more of that. Again, that's an advertisement for good journalism or a call for good journalism. Sure. Uh and by the way, congratulations in order. We take us time out here. Travis is the new uh recording secretary for the Southern Baptist Convention. Oh, yeah. His election was elected at the past convention. So we're we're proud of you and glad to have you in that position. So congratulations. I meant to say that earlier, but there we go. Uh and so uh so you you you I know you will serve us well in that position.

Travis 24:47

Yeah. Um You know, later in the article, it's also interesting. He um he quotes Meredith Stone, who is the executive director of Baptist Women in Ministry. Uh this is not an SBC affiliated group in any way, shape, or form. Uh in fact, very much not the case. Um and she says um uh it is this is a direct quote from her in the article, it is unfathomable to think that women who are simply sharing the love and grace of Jesus Christ are an equal kind of threat to the ministry of the Southern Baptist Convention as racism and the perpetuation of sexual abuse. So you know what? She's wrong. It is fathomable because according to Scripture, racism is sin because it's unbiblical. According to Scripture, any type of sexual abuse is sin because it's unbiblical. And guess what? A female serving in the office title or holding the function of pastor is sin because it's unbiblical. There's no ranking of sin here. There's no ranking of what's more or less biblical. It's racism is un is unbiblical in sin in any way, shape, or form. That's right. Sexual abuse is sin because it's unbiblical in any way, shape, or form, and female's functioning as a pastor is unbiblical in sin because it's against what the text says. So she's making this bifurcated leveling system, so to speak. Racism and sex abuse are way up here, but then what Paul says in 1 Corinthians, 1 Timothy 2, 1 Timothy 3, and Titus 1 is way down here. Uh it's just a ridiculous argument. And then she said, uh, this is being used as a tool to harass women. No, it's really not. In fact, my hope would be is this this would bring more awareness to what women can be doing in church. Right. Because there's there's this one thing over here on the side. Right. You can't serve as a pastor. But you can do these 2,000 things over here. So as a former pastor of mine used to say, let me tell you what I'm for, not what I'm against. But what you talk about when you talk about what you're against, it sells clicks and sells newspaper articles. That's right. Uh when I tell you what I'm for, it doesn't sell that much. That's why the evening news spends 29 and a half minutes on all the negative stuff and the last 30 seconds on Joe's Pet Swirl came back after being gone for a week. Right. And everybody feels

The Biblical Case From 1 Timothy

Travis 27:10

good when the news turns off. Yeah. So it's it's just ridiculous to think um that this is any sort of objective journalism that the SBC is trying to take over churches, trying to control churches, uh, that it's it's harassment for us to say women can't be pastors, that means Paul's harassing them in 1 Timothy 3. Um, I think first for me, and we can talk about this now, we can do it later, that's up to you. I think for for me, 1 Timothy 3 1 is the only text I need. It settles the entire argument. That's from my Bible's turn when we Yeah, so 1 Timothy 3.1, the saying is trustworthy. If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. So if anyone, or New American Standard says any man, aspires to the office, all right, there's office of overseer. So there's title. He, there's the gender attached to it, desires a noble task, or some say it's a fine work he desires to do. So there's office, title, and task is function. Yep. And then there's a particular gender, it's he. And then verse through the qualifications. And all the way through the end of verse seven. He, he, he, he, he, he, he. Yep. There's no question here as to what the Bible teaches. The question is whether or not you're going to believe it. And are you going to put it into practice? Um so an overseer must be the husband of one wife. You can't have a female who's the husband of one wife. Oh, that's right. Regardless of what Associate Supreme Court Justice Katanji Jacob Brown Jackson or Jackson Brown, whichever one it is, uh, thinks, you know, we can define what a woman is.

Jeff 28:37

We can. Absolutely.

Travis 28:38

It's not a new or millennia. Yeah. Um and she is not included in 1 Timothy 3 1 to 7. But again, uh I think it might be helpful for us maybe do a podcast later on what is it women should be doing in church. Um where can they put their gifts? Because women are called to teach. And there is a massive difference in between a woman sharing a testimony or doing evangelism or being a missionary than being the pastor of a church and preaching to the assembled congregation. Those are not night and day, that's baseballs and washing machines. It's two categories of a completely different type. Um so yeah, uh for me, 1 Timothy 3 settles it. Um and the SBC is just not doing what he says. Just not.

Jeff 29:21

Well, and and I think there's almost an insinuation that the one who occupies the office of pastor is superior to women, that that's the most superior uh position that can be held, and that makes him superior to all the other positions. Well, uh last week I served in my church's vacation Bible school. There were a bunch of kids there, a lot of children. Uh, and they were hearing the gospel. You know who they're hearing the gospel mainly from?

Travis 29:47

Women.

Jeff 29:48

Female teachers. Yep. Uh female teachers. My wife uh was one of them. And so female teachers, they were shaping the lives of those children in ways that honestly, do you think how many of those kids are going to really hear a message on Sunday from the pulpit? Probably not many.

Travis 30:03

They're gonna hear it, they're not gonna listen to it or maybe they'll understand it because they're young.

Jeff 30:06

But one-on-one with these these sweet women, these gifted women in our church, they're they're spending two and a half hours, five nights uh last week, talking to them about Jesus. Yeah. Talking to them about the gospel, about theology, about the things of God, about about sin, about Christ, about death, about all these things. Uh so is that inferior to a preached message on Sunday morning? I don't think so. No. I that that's what I I've never understood about. There's the Bible doesn't present a hierarchy of offices in terms of one being superior to the other. These are just complementary roles, and that's one of the key the key term for us as conservative evangelicals is complementarian. It's complementary. It's like a hammer and a nail, a hand and a glove. You got you have to have both, right? I mean, God made the male and female. God uh in in marriage. I just I've been teaching a class on this at my church uh the past uh five weeks uh uh uh on on Sunday morning. Uh male and female, he made them. One was not superior to the other, equal, but they're called the different things equipped for different things. And they need each other. We need all these office, we need we need pastors, we need female teachers, we need female counselors, we need females in the dozens of roles that they are biblically uh biblically um called to teach and and carry out in the church. Again, we complement each other. One is not superior to the other. So I don't understand why women uh the the more moderate or liberal women think that they're inferior because they can't get up on Sunday morning. The Bible doesn't allow them to get up on Sunday morning and preach in front of the gathered congregation on Sunday night. Or that that's not a mark of inferiority by any means. I mean, my own wife, uh, we homeschooled our kids for years. You did the same thing. Uh she taught them to read and write, and every day, every single day in my home, they were taught the Bible and theology. And of course I taught that too, but mainly she did. And look at how she impacted the my four children's lives uh in amazing ways, in ways that that I never did as their pastor. I mean, I guess I did as their father, but uh no no pastor could. And so I that that's there's always an insinuation, and this Meredith Stone kind of who's quoted in this article, almost almost insinuates that, well, we're not allowed to do the greatest thing, the greatest, the highest calling, and that's by no means the case in scripture. Right.

Travis 32:23

Yeah, he goes on at the end and he quotes from a university professor at Calvin University, Kristen Cobbs or Cobb's Dumes. Oh my goodness, yeah. She wrote a very famous book on the uh Louis and John Laugh Love, a forthcoming book about Christian women. Uh he quotes uh historian at Baylor named Beth Allison Barr, an author uh who wrote The Making of Biblical Womanhood, and basically argues from the two of them uh that uh Mohler and Willie Rice, who's the new president of the SBC, and others are concerned about losing power. And that that's why they're bringing up um uh this issue of female pastors. Uh uh Beth Allison Barr has a quote here: the whole Southern Baptist world has staked its entire identity on this issue of male-only leadership with the conservative resurgence. The conservative resurgence had nothing to do with male-only leadership. The conservative resurgence began in 1978 over the issue of inerrancy of scripture. And if you ask anybody from the late 70s what the conservative resurgence was about, including two of the leading voices who were out there, uh, what was the resurgence about? It would be it was a battle for the Bible. That's right. That is all I heard through college studying Christian studies, studying religion in college in the mid-90s, is this was a battle for the Bible. It's a battle for the Bible, it's a battle for the Bible. Now we're battling to make sure we understand what the Bible actually says. This was not a male-only leadership issue in 1978 when Rogers was elected. This was the battle for the text of Scripture. That's right. Which is why we're not there. That's the place to start. Which is why Mohler says what he does in the argument that's quoted very early in this article, um, that you can see the difference in between conservative and liberal denominations. Conservative ones follow scripture, liberal ones don't, and liberal ones die every time. The United Methodist Church, a mainline church, is dying. That's right. Episcopalian, mainline Episcopalianism is dying. Mainline Anglicanism is dying. Conservative Anglicanism is booming. Conservative evangelicalism is booming. Uh but these mainline churches that are liberal are just all dying out.

Jeff 34:37

That's right, that's right. And and and what's interesting, again, another another uh critique of the journalism here. Every historian, every opponent quoted is a far left uh a member of the far left. You quote you quote our people, our conservatives, from what they said in the meeting, and then you proof texting what you do is you set up a straw man and you beat up, you shoot it down with these liberal uh pundits. Like uh and and uh uh Baylor historian Beth Allison Barr uh makes probably the most absurd claim in this entire article right at the end, uh said that she suspects that leaders in the SDC like Mohler fear that their hold on power is slipping away. Yep and so they're doubling down on their theology to preserve their legacy, which makes no sense at all. You and I listen, you and I worked for Al Mohler for years and years, and we know Al Mohler. And the last thing I can assure you Al Mohler is concerned about

Complementarianism Without Inferiority

Jeff 35:30

is doubling down on his so-called power and preserving his legacy. I mean, he wants Albert Mohler wants his legacy to be one of faithfulness, because that's what he taught us at Southern Seminary, what every professor there taught us was the legacy is faithfulness to the scriptures. And of course he's being attacked here for being faithful to the Bible. Right. And so that's his legacy. But it's not the he's not doubling down against women to protect some kind of legacy. That is absurd. Yeah. And uh there's not a shred of evidence to that. And it's just a claim made again by the by the left, a Baylor historian, very I mean, very typical here.

Travis 36:02

So um, I think what's also interesting is, and this goes to a larger argument uh that the author doesn't necessarily uh discuss outright, but it's behind it, is that um the annual meeting in Orlando is being painted as discussing nothing but this amendment and female pastors. So let's say it's two days, the meeting is two days, it was a Tuesday and a Wednesday, and let's just say for the sake of the discussion that each day we spend twelve hours talking. It's probably more like eight to ten, but well, let's say ten hours, just to make it better. So over twenty hours of discussion, of meeting, as the Southern Message Convention Annual meeting with messengers, there might have been 10 or 12 minutes over 20 hours of discussion about this particular amendment. And it could not have gone longer unless messengers voted for it to last longer. But messengers voted, in fact, to shut down the debate and go on and vote on the particular amendment itself. So we don't see any stories, though, about commissioning 63 new international missionaries to go and take the gospel around the world. We don't see stories about six of the ten largest seminaries in the world giving reports at the subject that are all growing and flourishing. We don't hear reports about hundreds of new churches being planted, started in the U.S. and in Canada. We don't hear stories about uh our legacy in Washington, D.C. being pushed with national uh figures in the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate, and the White House. That's right. All we hear about is this 10 to 12 minute, very specific and very heated at sometimes debate uh about the female pastor issue that was a very, very small, not even one percent of time, uh percentage of time, um in the larger meeting of or in the larger grand scheme of the annual meeting. Um the annual meeting, were there people talking about it? Sure. They're talking about it in the hallways, talking about it in the exhibit hall, talking about it between sessions in the meeting room. But as a whole, we spent, I don't know the exact amount of time, I'll say 10 to 12 minutes. It could have been longer or shorter than that. But not not much, no more than 15 minutes as a whole, dealing with this. Now, I think the problem here is that he is basing his belief on all of this on social media. That's right. I can tell you as a leader of an association with more than a hundred churches, I could tell you the number of phone calls I've gotten this week or last week about this particular issue he's writing about is zero. That's right. The number of phone calls I'll get next week about this issue is zero. The number of phone calls I'll get about, hey, tell me about missionaries. In fact, I'm going uh in a few nights to speak to a women's missionary union group at a local church about missions. That's what they want to hear about. They want to talk about missions, they want to talk about education, they want to talk about what the SBC is doing. Does this issue come up on occasion? Sure it does, but so does a lot of other issues, or so do a lot of other issues. Um this is driven so like one of the things that uh one of these authors said in here that he quotes uh I won't be able to find it right now, um, is that some people in the SBC don't even want women to vote. Yeah, that's want to roll back the suffrage movement, which is absolute I It's absurd. You and I know a lot of people in SBC leadership at the local, state, and national levels. I don't know a single one. I know a ton of pastors, you do too. That's right. I I don't know a single one who says women shouldn't be voting. They would fight for the opposite. Yeah. They would fight for the opposite. Absolutely to a man. This is nothing more than reading social media and trying to explain the SBC through the lens of Twitter. Exactly. Or the the platform now known as X, formerly known as Twitter. We can almost take the prints route here. Uh the media social media outlet formerly known as. Um it you know, saying women don't we don't want women to vote is is just could not be more ridiculous. Um, is Dumez who says that, the professor. Yeah, she yeah. Uh at Calvin University. Um authority in the church, others say women shouldn't be allowed to vote. That's from Dumez, which is couldn't be further than the I don't either. Yeah. Um unless there's some crazy uncle on social media saying that, and that's one guy out of 17 million. Um, but every movement of any size has crazy uncles.

Jeff 40:28

Right, right. That's in you know, one a 20-ch-member church in Possum Holler, Georgia, or something like that.

Travis 40:33

So I'm glad you said Georgia, not South Carolina.

Jeff 40:34

I know, I know, I know. I got you off the hook there.

Travis 40:36

So uh I just think anyway, the the whole point of that was I think overall this is not an argument that can be made if you are in the meeting and listening to everything going on in the meeting. In fact, the vast majority of time we heard those reports from national uh mission boards, we heard it from seminaries, we heard the word proclaimed uh twice, the president's address, and then the convention sermon. Uh there were multiple minutes of singing, so of worship. Uh there was missionary commissioning, there were celebrations, uh, you know, the gospel went out. Yep. Uh so to say this whole meeting was all focused on female pastors is is an overstatement of the greatest degree.

Jeff 41:21

Well, is Kristen Dumez at the meeting? Did she cover the meeting?

Travis 41:23

I have no idea.

Jeff 41:24

Did Alison Barney think she was at Beth Alison Barney? I I doubt it.

Travis 41:27

Yeah, probably not.

Jeff 41:28

And I am a member of the United States.

Travis 41:29

But to be fair, we don't know.

Jeff 41:30

No, we don't know, but I'm just guessing, I mean, they're making these broad generalizations about something they don't seem to be a part of. Uh and we're there. We've been to the you know, I've been to twenty-five of the last twenty-six conventions. Yeah. Um and I attend a uh a decidedly conservative Southern Baptist Church. It's almost 200 years old here in the Greenville area. It's actually in fact in your in your uh association, the three years association. Uh I've been a member, I've been involved attending their church for three years, and a member about two and a half, and uh, Lord willing, I'll be soon to be an elder in this church uh in a couple of weeks. Uh and uh thrilled uh uh about that development. And I've heard every sermon virtually for the past three years. I've preached quite a few myself. And do you care to guess how many sermons I've heard addressing the issue of female pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention?

Travis 42:19

I'm gonna guess zero.

What Orlando Mostly Focused On

Jeff 42:20

You guess right. You would get the big prize, ding, ding, ding, ding. Yep. Zero. Uh how many Wednesday night presentations? Zero. How many Sunday night? Zero. So for a denomination that's uh conservatives are obsessed with this issue, I guess my conservative uh uh Southern Baptist Church, which by the way is pastored by uh our pastor and coffee elders go every year to the SBC meeting and are involved in committees and and you're and and very involved. Uh somehow I guess they didn't get the memo that we're supposed to be obsessed with this issue. Yep. So yeah, I I think uh uh uh I I just I think this is uh overkill is being kind here uh for this. But and and this is typical. We don't this we realize this is just one news article from one reporter.

Travis 43:06

But this is typically how it's done in kind of a smear and this was interestingly, as a journalist, you'll get the the significance of this. It was released yesterday at 5 29 p.m. So it's a it's almost like a uh throw it out with the trash kind of story. Right. Let's throw it out there at a time when nobody's really going to be reading it. If it was important to RS, they would release it at 8 a.m. Eastern time or 10 a.m. or something like that, but not at 5 30 in the afternoon.

Jeff 43:32

Nope. And it's under news and not opinion.

Travis 43:35

Right.

Jeff 43:35

And yet this is nothing if it's not opinion. Right. And uh thinly veiled as with some skewed, very skewed facts and very uh electric language to say the least. So to wrap this all up, and we need to wrap up here, but this we we care about this issue because the Bible cares about this issue, because it's very clear in Scripture. And as my friend Ligan Duncan A Greenville native once said uh in a in a conference, if you don't get this out of the Bible, you won't get anything out of the Bible. Yep. Uh this is just ABC. And it's been this, this has been the vast majority uh doctrine for conservative evangelical churches for 2,000 years. And it's anachronistic, I realized to call early churches evangelical churches, but but you know what I mean. Churches that have these marks of evangelicalism, rough more or less. Uh so this is nothing new. And the media, it's like the LGBTQ that when we say that there are only two genders, like that's a brand new thing that we invented yesterday when it's been uh uh undisputed doctrine for really among ninety-five percent of the churches for two thousand years. Nothing new here. Yep. We're just defending that which is old and true and making it clear.

Travis 44:43

Yep.

Jeff 44:44

Well, we didn't solve the issue, but uh we hope uh that we continue this discussion. We know this is not uh the end of the discussion for sure. We'll vote again next year uh at the SBC meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana, and uh we pray that this passes. It's something I think that's good. Uh but until then the continu the uh discussion will continue. Well, we want to do something that's a little unorthodox uh for us here at Courier Conversations, but we had a news story that moved literally two minutes after we began finished recording uh this episode of Courier Conversations uh regarding women uh women preaching and the Roman Catholic Church. Travis, you want to give us the literally less than two minutes from uh we are signing off. Yeah, so this came across the water.

Travis 45:28

Uh this came across the wire. So on on June the 17th, so just a few days ago, a German Roman Catholic bishop named Heiner Wilmer uh composed a letter to the Vatican asking the Vatican to allow laypeople, including women, to preach the homily or the sermon during mass. Uh so this German bishop, uh who is the president of the German Bishop's Conference, asked the Vatican to give a determination as to whether or not any layperson, therefore including women, could preach the homily at Mass. And the Vatican yesterday uh released um their answer to this letter uh saying that they will not allow laypersons, including women, to preach at gathered mass. Uh so the uh the Vatican dicastery for divine worship and the discipline of the sacraments uh is the one who issued this letter, and it says that they oversee liturgy for the Catholic Church,

Vatican Says No To Lay Homilies

Travis 46:35

wrote, and I quote, it is not permissible to permit, in exceptional circumstances, a duly commissioned lay member of the faithful to preach in place of the homily during the celebration of the Eucharist. In other words, the Vatican said, We will, just like the Southern Baptist Convention said, even though the Vatican is top down and we are not, the Vatican said we will not allow anybody other than ordained male uh to preach at the Mass. So no women preaching the Mass and or preaching the homily in Roman Catholic churches.

Jeff 47:09

What does it say here? There was a hope that Pope Leo would be more open to things like this, but it has been their tradition, and we can only assume it's their interpretation of Scripture uh and their tradition, which is sort of the two uh two legs of the s of the stool uh of uh of uh authority in Roman Catholicism, that uh they can they will continue to hold the line there. So as you said earlier, I think they have their own uh the they they have uh like the SB, say their own uh little controversy over this issue.

Travis 47:40

And interestingly, uh a female um inside the Roman Catholic Church, uh head of the Catholic Women's Association of Germany, uh I'm sorry, this is a different group, I'm sorry. Um a U.S.-based advocacy group for women's ordination said that this decision is, quote, shameful and insulting, and then she said, quote, what this clarification really reveals is the extent to which the Vatican will go to try to stop the Holy Spirit. So, in the same way that the SBC has been maligned for our stand on Scripture, so now the Roman Catholic Church has made the same decision. I guess a broken clock can be right twice a day. Uh, and they have stood and said, No,

Final Takeaways And How To Respond

Travis 48:20

uh, women may not proclaim the homily during gathered worship.

Jeff 48:25

As it should be, according to the Word of God. Yep. So we want to add that, uh, let you chew on that, and we'll continue to chew on this and uh see what happens. Uh, we will be following that closely along with our own denomination. Thank you for listening to this podcast of the Baptist Courier and Courier Publishing. Be sure to follow us on all social media platforms, give us a five-star review, and send any question you want us to consider to Courier Conversations at gmail.com. If you prefer to watch our conversations, check us out on YouTube by clicking the link in the description.