SBC Says Women Can't Preach! Or Did They?

Did you hear what came out of the Southern Baptist Convention?

They HATE women now!!!!

Oh wait...

No they don't.

They haven't even changed anything.

They just upheld a view that they've always had.

But of course, the news and social media cycle doesn't care about that, when they have a chance to be feminists and blur the lines between men and women.

In this episode, I discuss the real issue here that's NOT being talked about, and why it's so important that we actually stop to think about this before getting caught up in false media discourse.

In This Episode:

0:00 Intro

0:53 What I'm Reading

1:40 Reaction Video...Reaction?

3:18 SBC Announcement

5:29 What Actually Happened

10:15 2 Issues Feminism Has Created

12:39 My Question For You

14:41 The Deborah Issue

19:25 The Prayers of Men

20:28 Women Who Changed History

23:50 Reclaiming Feminine Dignity

Resources:

Feminist to Feminine by Justice Kuehl: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1957616512/

Follow Justice on IG: https://www.instagram.com/justicehopekuehl/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Let's move on to the topic of today's video, which is the Southern Baptist Convention's announcement. I think you know what I'm talking about, but if you don't get ready, that women are no longer valuable humans. They should be relegated to the kitchen only. They should only read the book of Titus. That's it. Nothing else in the Bible. And they should definitely not share the gospel. I'm just kidding. None of that happened. But you would think that that's what happened if you saw a lot of the posts that are going around. Hey guys, welcome back to It's All Her Mind. I am Justice and Liu Kiel, and I am yet again filming from a new location. It's just the nature of life right now. We have moved out of our home. We are closer to family. Well, we're very close to family right now. We're staying with my parents for about a month. And then we will be closer to them in our new home, which is actually an old home, but it will be new for us. And so we are in the chaos of moving right now. And you know what? I've remembered once again is that I really hate moving. But I'm gonna focus on gratitude for the fact that we are gonna be closer to family. Gratitude that the Lord has provided a buyer for our home in a very crazy market right now. Some of you who are selling your homes understand it's not a good time to be selling your house. And the Lord brought the perfect people once again. And so we're very grateful. Um, okay, what am I reading this week? Uh actually, I finished this a couple weeks ago, but Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. If you haven't read this, I cannot believe that I went 32 years without reading Mere Christianity. It is a phenomenal book. It's a great book to give to somebody who's been a Christian forever or to read if you've been a Christian forever. Um, but it's also a great book for somebody who is not a believer and is just trying to figure out like what is Christianity about. It gives a really good overview and in a way that is not like legalistic and cookie-cutter, but embraces the whole body of Christ in a really beautiful way. So um I definitely recommend Mary Christianity. I really I recommend pretty much anything from C.S. Lewis, but Mary Christianity was a great read. Before we get into today's episode, I wanted to highlight something from my last episode where I did a reaction uh to Pastor Landon Chase and his wife Ashley talking about stay-at-home wives. And the reason that I hate reaction videos is because people usually, first of all, don't watch the whole thing. And so they take things out of context and then kind of pile on. They either pile on you as the reactor or they pile on the person that you're reacting to in a way that really isn't loving, isn't charitable. Uh, and that is what happened. Okay. So I had a clip from last week's episode go kind of viral, uh, especially by my standards. And unfortunately, a lot of the people in the comments were like, this woman doesn't read the Bible. Stay-at-home moms are awesome. But she wasn't talking about stay-at-home moms, she was talking about stay-at-home wives. Okay, if you watched last week's episode, you know that I disagreed with her position. Her position was that there shouldn't be stay-at-home wives if you don't have children in the home. I disagree with her. But disagreeing with someone is not an excuse to like roast them or be unloving or attack them, um, especially when you don't have broader context to do that. So I just wanted to throw that out there. This is why I don't love reaction videos because I was feeling sad reading the comments. Like, oh, people, you didn't watch the whole video, you didn't listen to the context of what you're saying. I even still disagree with her, but at least if you're gonna disagree, let's do it respectfully, lovingly. All those things. Okay, now that we have taken care of that business, let's move on to the topic of today's video, which is the Southern Baptist Convention's announcement. I think you know what I'm talking about, but if you don't get ready, that women are no longer valuable humans. They should be relegated to the kitchen only, they should only read the book of Titus. That's it, nothing else in the Bible, and they should definitely not share the gospel. I'm just kidding. None of that happened. But you would think that that's what happened if you saw a lot of the posts that are going around online in regards to the Southern Baptist Convention's recent. I don't know, I should know what the actual term is, but I'm just gonna call it like statement. There's uh there's an actual like term that they have for their structure of their ministry. I I want to start, I am not Southern Baptist, okay? I don't have skin in the game as far as like this being my denomination. I grew up with a lot of Southern Baptist people. I went to vacation Bible school at Southern Baptist churches. I'm really grateful for a lot of what the Southern Baptist Church has done. But I'm not like, I don't have skin in the game. So I want to start with that. The second thing is that this video is not about if their position on women is right or wrong. I have an opinion, you have an opinion, we have opinions. Um, but I more want to use this as a conversation starter to talk about culturally, we don't like conversations, especially in the church, especially in the non-denominational world. Um, we don't like conversations about differences between men and women. It's not something that people really particularly love, especially culturally right now. And I would say, especially the Protestant church, I don't want to, I'm not trying to go hard on us unnecessarily, but we haven't done a great job of talking about how women can be valuable but different to men. Okay, so that's kind of what we're gonna jump into today. If you have no clue what I'm talking about right now, what happened is that this last week, the Southern Baptist Convention announced that they're gonna continue to uphold their position that the office of senior pastor and the office of elder in the church can only be filled by a man. Okay, I'm not we're not going into our opinions right now. Okay, we're not going there. We might go there in a minute, but we're not going there right now. Okay. So this is definitely not the first time that the Southern Baptist Convention has come under fire in recent years. In 2022, they got a new president, and he exposed that there was actually a big cover-up of sexual abuse that had been happening in clergy and the Southern Baptist Convention. Now, the way that this news was shared was like Southern Baptist Convention is covering up sexual abuse. What actually that was true, but what was really good is that their new president said, this is no longer going to be happening under my watch. So it's really horrible that that was happening and that the um structure of the Southern Baptist Convention was actually systemically covering up sexual abuse that was happening in the church. And it's really great now that the president has said, we're not doing that anymore, we're not going there anymore. Because this is one of the things that people have brought up when they're talking about this decision, is they're like, oh, the Southern Baptist Convention is more interested in um silencing women than they are in exposing sexual abuse within their own church. I just think you can't conflate those two things because they're happening separately and sexual abuse happening anywhere is always a huge problem. It's always something that the Lord is against, obviously. It's always something that should be exposed and have justice in the situation. Um, and they're just like separate things. Like the choice is not women preach and expose sexual abuse in the church, or women don't preach and don't expose sexual abuse in the church. Those are not um mutually exclusive things. Like you can say women are not going to be senior pastors, and also say we're gonna expose sexual abuse in the church. So that was something that some people were saying online. Something else interesting is that if you actually go to the Southern Baptists Convention, their website, and you look at their recent statement about their position on women serving as senior pastors and women serving as elders, you will see that they put out a statement in 2018 about the value and dignity and worth of women. And it's a really beautiful statement, actually. I didn't even know that any Protestant church had ever put out anything like this about women. And reading it, I was like, this is amazing. This sounds like something that the Catholics would put out about the value of women because they've been a little bit more intentional with talking about these things. I think the reason is because the Catholic Church has such a high value for Mary, and they have so many female saints. So there is naturally a high value of women that's been happening in the Catholic Church because of those reasons. And so it was really beautiful to see the Southern Baptist Convention had this statement that they had already put out in 2018, affirming the value and dignity of women. Just because they're saying women cannot serve as a senior pastor or as an elder, they weren't at all saying that women don't participate in the Great Commission or that women aren't called to make disciples, which I'm part of the Great Commission, but women are still called to preach the gospel, are still called to make disciples of the nations. And some Southern Baptist churches will even have women preaching, just not filling the role of a senior pastor. So again, regardless of your personal belief about this, it's just not as extreme of a position as it has been made out to be by the internet, which I think again highlights the fact that this is still a hot button issue. Talking about differences between men and women and the way that we function in the world, in the family, and in the church, still a really, really hot issue that we need to be talking about as believers. Something that I noticed is that different media networks that were putting out this news about the Southern Baptist Convention's position were intentionally phrasing it in a way that was dramatic. The Southern Baptist Convention has always had this position, and they just were voting on whether they were going to continue having this position. So, Christianity Today, for example, they put out a statement that said SBC upholds ban on female pastors. There was never a ban on female pastors. The SBC defined that the role of a senior pastor and the role of an elder can be filled only by a man, but it wasn't the the way, do you see what I mean? That the phrasing of things? The phrasing of things is like this is an attack on women instead of this is like a traditional position that they've held and they're continuing to hold. And this highlights two very important issues. One, what we've already been talking about, the fact that feminism has trained our minds, as men and women, but especially as women, to look and see disparity where there might not be a disparity, and inequality where there might not be inequality. It also highlights the fact that we have elevated the role of senior pastor in the church so high that we think if if you can't fill this role, um, somehow this says something about like your dignity and your worth, or your ability to think, or your ability to communicate intelligently, or your any any ability. There are certain roles that I am not able to fill. Okay, because I don't have the qualifications. And sometimes those qualifications involve being a man. And there are certain roles that men cannot fill because they don't have the correct qualifications. And sometimes one of those qualifications is being a woman. If you're familiar with my parents' work at all, their whole passion is talking about Christians engaging culture and engaging society, bringing the salt and light that Jesus called us to be, bringing that into every area of culture and recognizing that the holiest role for you to fill may or may not be in traditional ministry. If you're called to be a doctor, that is the holiest role for you, not being a pastor. If you are called to be a business owner, or you're called to be a full-time mother, or you're called to be a teacher, whatever role you're called into is the highest, holiest calling for you because it's it's the place where you're obeying the Lord, it's the place where you're walking in obedience. So if you're not called to be a pastor by the Lord, that is not the holiest, highest place for you to be. And it's really important that we recognize this. And instead of saying, this is a limitation, it's just recognizing that the role of senior pastor, the role of elder, is not like the highest calling that you can have unless that is the calling that the Lord has for you. The highest calling is wherever the Lord's calling you. And so this is my question for you. Why do women have to do what men do in order for us to find what we do valuable? Because we do a lot of things that men can't do or that men don't do as well as us. And we don't see them as less valuable because of that. We recognize it's just because they're men. They're not as good at the things that we are good at as women, and vice versa. And obviously, I'm panning with broad strokes here, and there's always exceptions to all these roles. So I'm not talking about like a really strict binary example of this. But generally speaking, there are roles and there are skills, and there's emotional intelligence that women possess that men do not, and vice versa. There are roles, there's a certain type of strength that is masculine strength that generally speaking, women do not possess. And there's a feminine strength that men do not possess. That makes people upset sometimes. And I think because feminism has so programmed our minds that any difference is an equality. The problem is that difference doesn't equate inequality. Difference doesn't mean less valuable. Men being different to women doesn't make them less valuable, and women being different to men doesn't make us less valuable. And I think that conversations like the Southern Baptist Convention's position on women being senior pastors is a great time to have this conversation. Are we reacting to this news out of a feminist worldview that we might not even understand, like recognize that we have, or are we responding to it reasonably? And I have seen some reasonable responses from people for sure, but there's also been a lot of like outrage and like women can still share the gospel. And actually, the Southern Baptist Convention would agree with that based on the statements that I read from their own website. Okay, I don't again, I don't want to go too hard on people in the church and people who are genuinely just trying to create ministries that are a blessing to other people's lives and a blessing to women. And so I want to preface what I'm about to say with that because I'm very grateful even for ministries that do this. But if you notice, most women's ministries are themed off of a certain woman from the Bible. And it tends to be, not all the time, but tends to be Deborah. And what is interesting is that Deborah was the exception to the rule and the Bible. Deborah was kind of like, I'm oversimplifying this, but an example of what happens when men do not step into the role that they're supposed to. A woman had to take on the responsibility of a man who did not fulfill the calling, the righteous calling from God on him. So Deborah is not like a great example of like this is feminine strength. She had to step into masculine strength in order to do the thing that needed to be done. And so when everything in women's ministry is themed off of Deborah and Warring and these ideas that are innately masculine ideas, I don't think this is like a great baseline. I think it's good that she's thrown into the mix because, like we've said already, there are always exceptions to the rule. There are always women who are not going to fall exactly into a more traditional expression of femininity. But I still think that women's ministries should be geared towards what does a feminine expression of strength look like? And the thing is that we have a lot of examples of this throughout scripture outside of Deborah. So if anybody's looking for a women's conference uh inspiration, let me give you a couple ideas of people that we could theme conferences around. How about Mary Magdalene? You know, she's a great one. How about Mary, the mother of Jesus? Um, Esther, okay, you do see this one more often. Esther's a good one. However, they tend to focus on something different with Esther than what I would focus on, but we'll we'll come back to this in just a second. There are a lot of other women in scripture, Hannah, that we could have conferences themed after or women's ministries themed after. What is so special about being a woman is that we are everything men can't be. And what's special about being a man is that they're everything we can't be. And that's part of what makes our partnership with men dynamic and beautiful and expresses the mystery of the bride and Christ. This is good. This is beautiful. Differences aren't good. They highlight the strengths in each other. Now, in dysfunctional relationships, yes, differences are used as a means of exploitation. And so in dysfunctional relationships, men might use uh feminine weakness as a means of oppressing her, as a means of um diminishing her, diminishing her value. And same thing with dysfunctional women towards men, we might use the fact that they're not typically as emotionally intelligent, they can't express their emotions as much, and use that against them and tear them down. But in a healthy relationship, we are highlighting our differences in a positive sense, affirming the value of the other because of our differences, not in spite of our differences. Something that's happened because of feminism, because uh especially you see this particularly after the second wave of feminism, but it's been there all along, is a homogenization of culture, a mixing where we no longer really have distinctions between masculine and feminine. And this is extended so far that we see culturally what's going on with trans people using the women's restroom, trans men using the women's restroom, um, or playing in women's sports to where like women's spaces are not protected anymore. And so now the things that do make us valuable, the things part of that is our vulnerability, our inherent vulnerability, the reason that we don't want men in our bathroom, the reason we don't want men, you know, punching us in the face in close contact sports, that vulnerability is something very good about us. And when we don't protect those spaces and we don't protect the idea, the differences of men and women, we don't protect and value the fact that we are different than men, we get this homogenization. And then we have competition where men and women are competing for the same resources in a world where we were meant to be complementing each other, where we were meant to be working together in teamwork, we are now competing against each other. And culturally, we see what this has done. It's been really bad for all of us. Something that my husband and I talk about regularly, that we think is really intense and highlights an example of a difference between men and women, even spiritually speaking, is that Paul says that the prayers of men who don't treat their wives correctly are blocked, that God will not hear them until they hear their wives. Okay. You don't hear the Lord say that in the rest of scripture about women. You hear it about men. There is a specific responsibility that is placed on men that is not placed on women, and vice versa. We have unique responsibilities and unique callings from the Lord. And that's that's like a high standard. And sometimes we look at these differences, and again, we're saying this is negative, this is not fair, this is not right that there are differences. That's pretty incredible that the Lord is looking at our vulnerability as women, and he's putting safeguards in place. And he's saying, You will listen to your wife, or you I will not listen to you. That's pretty intense. Okay, as we're wrapping up here, I want to highlight a few women in scripture who changed the course of history by doing something that only a woman could do. The first are the midwives in the story of Moses. So, for those of you who don't remember the story of Moses, Pharaoh made a decree that all of the young boys that were born to the Jewish people were to be killed. And the midwives were so horrified by this that they were fighting to help keep alive some of these babies. And they fought against the commands of the Pharaoh, which is a really scary thing to do. Um And they changed the course of history because we know that Moses survived. And because he survived, because the midwives did not kill him, his mother was able to place him in the basket, send him down the river, where he was adopted and rescued by the daughter of the Pharaoh. And so he ended up becoming like a royalty in Egypt because these midwives refused to follow the orders of the Pharaoh. Another woman who changed the course of history in scripture is Esther, of course. Esther's cousin, who kind of adopted her and became like her father, his name was Mordecai. And he worked for the king. He had like a high position in the kingdom. And yet he wasn't even able to do what Esther was able to do because Esther's ability to accomplish what she did came from her being a woman. So there was a plot to assassinate all of the Jews in the land. And Esther, because of her beauty and because of her husband's love for her, who her husband's the king, she had a position of influence in his life that was more significant than Mordecai, who was like a high-up government official. And so she was able to save the Jewish people. So part of the reason they still exist today is because Esther's beauty, something that a man can't do, and her role as a wife, being an influencer, being somebody who could speak to his heart. That's something a man couldn't have done. And we know that because Mordecai couldn't accomplish it. Another woman, Mary of Bethany, so she's the sister of Martha and Lazarus. And she comes to the feet of Jesus and breaks open this costly oil that's like a perfume on his feet and wipes his feet with her hair. If a man had done this, it would have been a little weird. But Jesus expresses that this act of worship is beautiful. She's preparing him for his burial. And it's a beautiful act of worship that only a woman could have brought. Okay, and then finally, of course, we got to talk about Mary, the mother of Jesus. Literally, Jesus couldn't have come through a man. Okay. Men don't have babies. It had to be a woman, and it had to be a woman through her submission to God that brought forth Jesus. And so she exemplifies beautifully what it looks like to be a woman of God because her whole message is, let it be to me according to your will, Father. That's her whole thing. And that's something that each of us as women should be saying to the Father constantly. But she changed history through that. She allowed salvation history to continue because of her, yes. And that's pretty amazing. A man could not have done that. We have to reclaim the dignity that is inherent in being a woman, the dignity that is inherent in being feminine, the feminine strength that we carry, it was given to us by God. We are 50% image-bearers. And when we're so busy trying to fight for equality of role and equality in expression, equality in how we show up in the church, I think we miss out on the quality, the way that we show up in the church, the way that we get to partner with God as women. And again, I'm not trying to say any theological position on if that's as a pastor or an elder or not. Okay, I have a more traditional perspective on this. But regardless, I hope that this conversation sparks a deeper conversation between you and the Lord, talking about what does it look like for me as a woman to receive the Lord into my life and to nurture the roles that He's given me in my life, that He's called me to, and to value those roles, to value the feminine strength that's in me. Thank you guys so much for watching. I'll see you again next time. Make sure that you comment, like, and subscribe down below.