Real-Life Example of How SBC Churches Get Away with Having Female Pastors: Al Mohler Take Note
Back in August, the future president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Albert Mohler, said there are no female pastors within the SBC. He said this multiple times in fact, over and over, as if wishing could make it so, and demonstrating that he’s either lying or he’s just completely oblivious to the facts on the ground of the denomination he’s looking to lead.
He said during his show:
And if you just take the headline at face value, it tells us that the majority of Southern Baptist women, the word of the headline was, “most,” would welcome a woman as pastor of the church. That’s rather stunning when you consider the fact that out of the almost 40,000 churches associated with the Southern Baptist Convention, not one of them has a woman as pastor.
Over the course of this segment, he says the same thing over and over again.
The problem with that is not one of those churches has a woman as pastor…We’re talking about 40,000 churches. And at the moment, I don’t believe that a single one of them has a woman as pastor…Again, the math, 40,000 roughly, and the other column zero. That’s not a close call…Again, 40,000 in one column, zero in the other…If Southern Baptists want Southern Baptist churches to have pastors who are women, they can do it, but they don’t do it.
In that same article, we went through 500 of the biggest SBC churches in America, visited every website, and found that nearly 10% of them had women pastrixes on staff. That’s shocking, especially that was only women who had the title of “Pastor.” If you look at all the ones who had titles of “Minister” it would have been closer to 20%.
But we decided to pick just one of those churches to show how this happens. In this case, First Denton Church in Denton, Texas.
We reached out to this church and asked if they were associated with the SBC, and they affirmed that they were. Then we inquired:
“I ask because I saw your church mentioned as an SBC church, and yet while I was checking out your website and it said you had a woman pastor on staff, which is against the Baptist Faith and Message. So I’m a little confused by that. Is your church in good standing with the convention?
The response?
“We are in good standing with the SBC as the BFM 2000 states “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture”. Though our children’s minister serves under the title of Next Gen Pastor, the office of pastor in our church is reserved for our head pastor, Dr. Jeff Williams. Our children’s pastor, myself, and all of our staff are under his God-appointed leadership as our pastor. “
So it’s pretty simple to see how they and a lot of wily Southern Baptist Churches engage in these artful schemes, with the Credentialing Committee not caring even a bit.
Yes we have a woman pastor on staff.
Yes she has the the title of ‘pastor’.
Yes she functions in the role of pastor.
Yes she is recognized by our congregation as a pastor.
But she doesn’t hold the OFFICE of pastor, so therefore she’s good.
The other seven men who comprise the rest of the pastoral team, such as executive pastor, college pastor, worship pastor, young adult pastor, missions pastor, and adult life pastor? They’re in the same boat. They likewise have titles but are not functioning in the ‘office’ of pastor either, with only the head honcho senior pastor assuming that role, letting the womenfolk pastrixes have free reign to normalize their blasphemous existence within the life of the body.
And they’re hiding behind the BFM 2000 as they do it.
Mohler? Do you have a pen? Are you taking notes? I sure hope so.
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I don’t know…. the “Director of Children’s Ministry” or whatever title they give it, has almost always been a woman. For decades now. The same job title probably just means she’s in the same salary range. Changing the job title of the Children’s minister is just not a battle I can get into. I’ve been in Baptist churches with female Children’s Ministers, Choir Directors, Finance Ministers, Missions Directors, and never thought twice about it. (In fact I’ve long thought that if I ran a big church I’d have both a male AND a female ‘youth minister’ or whatever title, to cut down on even the appearance of impropriety in youth group.)
I wouldn’t conflate that with women like Beth Moore and others who may aspire to being the primary teaching pastor.
Absolute filth, all of them.
Let the Beast tear this Whore of Babylon apart.
I’d like to say I’d see you few brethren in prosperity…
yet my head won’t even be attached.
[Victorious and bleak sarcasm intended.]