Earlier this 12 months, Southern Baptists expelled 5 church buildings from the nation’s largest Protestant denomination for having girls as pastors.
Now, the chief of a fellowship of African American Southern Baptist pastors wonders if their church buildings can be subsequent.
In a letter final week, the president of the Southern Baptist Conference’s Nationwide African American Fellowship requested to fulfill with the denomination’s president, saying the SBC’s latest selections to expel church buildings with girls pastors had induced “division inside the SBC and should disproportionately impression NAAF affiliated congregations.”
“A lot of our church buildings assign the title ‘pastor’ to girls who oversee ministries of the church below the authority of a male Senior Pastor, i.e., Youngsters’s Pastor, Worship Pastor, Discipleship Pastor, and so forth.,” wrote the Rev. Gregory Perkins, pastor of The View Church in Menifee, California, and president of the NAAF.
He additionally stated a proposed modification to the SBC’s structure to bar church buildings with girls pastors violated the autonomy of native church buildings—an important Baptist perception.
In the course of the latest SBC annual assembly, native church delegates, often called messengers, voted to affirm the choice to expel Saddleback Church in Southern California—one of many denomination’s largest church buildings—and Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville. These two church buildings had appealed an earlier determination made by the SBC’s Govt Committee that they had been not in “pleasant cooperation” with the conference.
Three different expelled church buildings—together with two predominantly Black church buildings the place girls had succeeded their late husbands as pastors—didn’t attraction.
Messengers additionally voted to vary the SBC’s structure to bar church buildings with girls pastors. That proposed change would solely enable church buildings to be a part of the conference that affirm, appoint or make use of “solely males as any form of pastor or elder as certified by Scripture.” The change should be ratified on the SBC’s 2024 annual assembly as a way to take impact.
“This will likely sign to church buildings within the SBC that don’t consider that ladies needs to be the Senior Pastor however enable girls the utilization of a pastoral title, or appoints a girl to a pastoral function, are not welcome within the SBC,” wrote Perkins.
Among the many church buildings that maintain the assumption that ladies can lead in non-senior pastor roles is the church Perkins pastors, which has one girl on employees with the title of pastor. He wrote that lots of the greater than 4,000 congregations within the NAAF maintain that view as effectively.
Perkins stated that leaders of the NAAF revered the SBC’s democratic course of and that messengers had the suitable to vote their conscience. Nevertheless, they requested for a time of “prayer and dialogue” to debate the implications of the votes on the SBC assembly.
The letter, despatched by e-mail, was additionally posted on the NAAF web site. That web site additionally features a hyperlink to a doc with extra particulars about how the selections made by the SBC may have an effect on church buildings. That doc urges pastors to take an energetic function within the dialogue over the difficulty of ladies pastors.
“You should be an energetic participant on this dialog and decision-making course of because it has long-term implications in your church and different NAAF affiliated congregations,” the doc advises.
Whereas SBC church buildings cooperate to fund missions, seminaries and different ministries, every native church is autonomous. They select their very own pastors, personal their very own buildings and management their very own funds.
Perkins stated that Christians who consider the Bible could come to completely different conclusions about the way to apply its teachings. He stated church buildings ought to interact in a “vigorous, but constructive dialogue.”
“To disfellowship like-minded church buildings who share our religion in Jesus Christ, our perception within the authority of Scripture, our mandate to hold out the Nice Fee, and our settlement to offer cooperatively based mostly upon a local-church governance determination dishonors the spirit of cooperation and the guiding tenets of our denomination,” he wrote.
The letter was addressed to SBC president and Texas pastor Bart Barber and copied to board members and officers of the NAAF, in addition to employees on the SBC’s Govt Committee.
Barber confirmed he had acquired the letter.
In recent times, the SBC has touted the expansion of Black, Hispanic and different various congregations within the conference. Nevertheless, various high-profile Black church buildings have left the SBC in recent times over problems with race and politics.
