Baptist missions group tells new churches to nix women preachers

Southern Baptists seeking to establish new congregations will be endorsed by the denomination’s missions arm only if they promise not to have women preach from the pulpit or be ordained as pastors, according to a new statement.

The prohibition is on the same level as the Baptists’ longstanding ban on the use of alcohol, said the church’s North American Missions Board (NAMB), which endorses and helps support new congregations.

In 2020, the NAMB reported 857 new congregations affiliating with the movement, a number that included 588 brand-new outposts known as “church plants.”

In 2020, 85% of 237 church-planting applicants were endorsed by the NAMB, according to the denomination’s annual report released in June.

There are currently 1,100 endorsed church planters, an NAMB representative said. The board has raised $65 million in a special offering that directly funds the establishment of new congregations, among other activities.

“NAMB also requires that endorsed planters align with the practice of the majority of Southern Baptist churches — that only qualified men will hold the office or title of ’pastor/elder/bishop/overseer’ and, as such, serve as the communicator for teaching and preaching in their main gatherings or worship services,” reads the Oct. 14 statement, titled “Pastoral Leadership Guidance for Our Planters.”

The board made its declaration partly in response to pressure from conservative factions among the denomination’s 14 million members and 47,592 congregations, according to a report by the independent Baptist News Global service.

The report indicated that “the male-only segment of the SBC went on high alert” after Saddleback Church in Southern California announced in May it had ordained three women as pastors and had Kay Warren, wife of founding pastor Rick Warren, deliver a Sunday morning sermon.

“Some called for Saddleback — the largest church in the SBC — to be kicked out of the fold,” Baptist News Global editor Mark Wingfield reported.

The Rev. Tom Buck, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Lindell, Texas, took to Twitter to express his approval of the NAMB statement and lauded the leadership of the board’s president, the Rev. Kevin Ezell.

“I’m thankful for @kevezell taking a stand on this,” Mr. Buck tweeted. “For the record, whether approved or not, multiple NAMB plants had women preaching and some with title of pastor. This policy on prohibition of women pastors/preaching in corporate worship of NAMB church plants is new & needed!”

Southern Baptists’ work is governed by a document called “The Baptist Faith and Message,” which states in Article 6: “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”

The Oct. 14 document concedes that the NAMB recognizes “there are differing views on how best to interpret and apply” that dictum. But it adds: “We believe it best, however, to reserve endorsement and funding for planters who are willing to reflect the practice of most Southern Baptists in this issue.”

“Over the years, NAMB has sometimes required church planters to adopt certain guidelines as a way of fostering a strong relationship with the majority of Southern Baptist churches in belief and practice. For this reason, planters endorsed by NAMB agree to abstain from alcohol in their personal practice as well as in church-sponsored events,” the board’s statement reads.

Once that endorsement period ends, however, pastors and congregations are released from such strictures.

Southern Baptists pride themselves on being a “cooperative” fellowship of independent churches without the top-down hierarchy found in other Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church.

This is not the first time this year the missions agency has had to deal with the question of female pastors in its church plants. In February, a review of what was then 1,200 “currently endorsed church planters” revealed “only six” had “a woman with a title of pastor in a staff role,” a statement at the time indicated.

“Those have been addressed,” the NAMB said. “If an occasion occurred in which a church planter insisted on maintaining a woman in a pastor role or title on staff, NAMB will remove its endorsement and funding. The use of such titles and roles can be confusing to the constituencies with whom we partner and who fund our work. But, rather than publicly shame pastors, we find it better to come alongside our brothers and sisters in Christ and lovingly work with them.”

The Baptist News Global report noted that two groups that split from the Southern Baptist Convention — the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Alliance of Baptists — allow women pastors, as do mainline Protestant churches, including the United Methodist Church, The Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church USA.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America also affirms women in ministry, and last month ordained a transgender woman, Bishop Megan Rohrer of its Sierra Pacific Synod, as the nation’s first transgender bishop.