tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/southern-baptist-convention-54144/articlesSouthern Baptist Convention – The Conversation2023-06-19T12:24:06Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2078822023-06-19T12:24:06Z2023-06-19T12:24:06ZSouthern Baptists uphold expulsion of churches with women pastors – but the debate’s not just about gender<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532452/original/file-20230616-27-y4dt8k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5632%2C3740&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Attendees, or 'messengers,' hold up their ballots during the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting in 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SouthernBaptists/07bdeed0c8b743169c3b622f9ba7f96f/photo?Query=%22southern%20baptist%20convention%22&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=507&currentItemNo=93">AP Photo/Jae C. Hong</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Southern Baptist Convention, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/06/07/7-facts-about-southern-baptists/">the largest Protestant group</a> in the United States, overwhelmingly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/14/us/southern-baptist-women-pastors-ouster.html">voted to uphold</a> <a href="https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/ec-removes-six-churches-from-cooperation-including-saddleback-church/">its Executive Committee’s expulsion of</a> two congregations with women pastors on June 14, 2023, during their annual convention.</p>
<p>SBC messengers, as convention delegates are called, also put forward an amendment to make churches’ membership within the denomination contingent upon prohibiting <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-women-in-the-southern-baptist-convention-have-fought-for-decades-to-be-ordained-161061">women pastors</a>, which will be voted on next year.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/13/us/southern-baptist-movement-women-pastors.html">Media coverage</a> of this debate has focused on gender. However, as <a href="https://religion.artsandsciences.baylor.edu/person/andrew-gardner-phd">a scholar of Baptists in the U.S.</a>, I believe an underlying conversation about sexuality has also shaped the church’s opposition to women preaching.</p>
<p>A denomination’s decisions about one social issue often influence its position on others, as I have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/rac.2022.7">written about</a> with <a href="https://www.davidson.edu/people/gerardo-marti">sociologist Gerardo Marti</a>. We argue that the SBC’s stance on issues of gender and sexuality have not always been just about fidelity to their interpretation of scripture. Rather, the SBC uses these issues to differentiate itself from other, more progressive denominations.</p>
<p>My recent book, “<a href="https://utpress.org/title/binkley/">Binkley: A Congregational History</a>,” examines the history of one of the first congregations to be expelled from the SBC over the issue of sexuality, in 1992.</p>
<h2>Gay and called</h2>
<p>In 1990, a Duke Divinity School student named John Blevins, who was openly gay, began attending the <a href="https://binkleychurch.org/discover/our-history/">Olin T. Binkley Memorial Baptist Church</a> in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. After his first year of Divinity School, he approached the church about the possibility of being ordained.</p>
<p>Blevins was drawn to <a href="https://binkleychurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Binkley-History-Sept-2008.pdf">Binkley</a> for its progressive theology. Founded in 1958, the church became an interracial congregation and supported the Civil Rights Movement at a time when many Southern Baptist churches prohibited Black worshippers from becoming members or even attending Sunday services. Later, the congregation called women to serve as associate pastors and, ultimately, senior pastor as well. </p>
<p>Blevins’ request for ordination raised questions among some of Binkley’s leaders and members. Between 1976 and 1991, the SBC had passed six resolutions on homosexuality. <a href="http://media2.sbhla.org.s3.amazonaws.com/annuals/SBC_Annual_1976.pdf">The first</a> encouraged congregations “not to afford the practice of homosexuality any degree of approval through ordination, employment, or other designations of normal life-style.” Subsequent resolutions grew increasing harsh. In 1988, the SBC <a href="http://media2.sbhla.org.s3.amazonaws.com/annuals/SBC_Annual_1988.pdf">passed a resolution</a> that declared homosexuality an “abomination in the sight of God.”</p>
<p>Convention resolutions are not binding on individual congregations, however, and many members of Binkley thought about sexuality differently. Senior pastor <a href="https://utpress.org/title/binkley/">Linda Jordan thought</a> that since Blevins was still completing his divinity degree, the church should <a href="https://archive.org/details/ordealtragedyofb00humb">license him to preach</a>, but wait to formally ordain – meaning he could not preside over communion or weddings, nor hold the title of Reverend. </p>
<p>The church went through a yearlong process of studying faith and sexuality as members wrestled with Blevins’ request. In April 1992, the congregation voted <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-04-11-me-216-story.html">to license Blevins</a> to preach the Gospel. </p>
<h2>Removal from the SBC</h2>
<p>That same year, in Raleigh, North Carolina, Pullen Memorial Baptist Church held a ceremony to honor a same-sex union. As Pullen’s pastor Mahan Siler <a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/30-years-later-north-carolina-baptist-church-recalls-its-journey-to-affirm-same-sex-unions/">reflected in 2022</a>, it was a first: “there wasn’t a congregation we knew out there who we could learn from.”</p>
<p>Both congregations’ decisions drew the ire of the North Carolina Baptist Convention, as well as the national convention of the SBC, where messengers voted to expel both churches. <a href="http://media2.sbhla.org.s3.amazonaws.com/annuals/SBC_Annual_1992.pdf">Minutes from the meeting</a> note that the crowd burst into the “appearance of elation” at the decision.</p>
<p>Messengers proceeded to propose an amendment that congregations “which act to affirm, approve or endorse homosexual behavior” would not be “in friendly cooperation with the Convention.” <a href="http://media2.sbhla.org.s3.amazonaws.com/annuals/SBC_Annual_1993.pdf">It was adopted the following year</a>.</p>
<p>Barring membership to the SBC over the issue of sexuality presented an opportunity for conservatives who also opposed women’s leadership. During the same meeting, in 1993, another proposed amendment sought to prohibit the membership of churches that ordained women.</p>
<p>The proposal failed before being put to a convention-wide vote. Yet it shows how issues of sexuality and gender were entwined for conservative members of the SBC, who sought similar constitutional amendments for both. One amendment created the opportunity for the other.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532451/original/file-20230616-4884-vs65ip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A female pastor leads the prayer in a church as the congregation stands behind her." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532451/original/file-20230616-4884-vs65ip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532451/original/file-20230616-4884-vs65ip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532451/original/file-20230616-4884-vs65ip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532451/original/file-20230616-4884-vs65ip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532451/original/file-20230616-4884-vs65ip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532451/original/file-20230616-4884-vs65ip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532451/original/file-20230616-4884-vs65ip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Congregation at the Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., which was one of five churches disfellowshipped from the Southern Baptist Convention because they have female pastors.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SBCFemalePastorsAppeal/076647bdef944a5ca17d9c2491a55c3e/photo?Query=southern%20baptists&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=824&currentItemNo=6">AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski</a></span>
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<h2>‘Logical consequence’</h2>
<p>The amendment the SBC is currently considering, which seeks to prohibit women pastors, acknowledges this history. </p>
<p>Mike Law, the Virginia pastor who proposed the amendment, does not seek to block women from ordination, as the proposal put forward in 1993 would have done. Rather, his amendment <a href="https://sbcamendment.org/">seeks to block women from holding the title of “pastor”</a>. This distinction would allow women to be ordained and serve as other types of church leaders, such as deacons or missionaries.</p>
<p>In a series of videos he released before the vote, Law described the issue of women pastors as <a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/allow-female-pastors-today-and-expect-gay-clergy-tomorrow-mike-lee-warns/">a “canary in the coal mine</a>.” “Once a denomination allows female pastors it’s usually just a matter of time until they affirm practicing homosexuals as pastors,” he said.</p>
<p>Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, offered a similar concern <a href="https://albertmohler.com/2018/02/12/ground-sinking-sand-portrait-theological-disaster">on his blog</a> in 2018. “The same negotiation and ‘reinterpretation’ of the biblical text that allows for the service of women pastors will logically lead to the acceptance of the LGBT revolution,” he argued. </p>
<p>Both men, in other words, believe one kind of acceptance leads inevitably to the other – the proverbial slippery slope. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/rac.2022.7">The SBC’s history</a> suggests that “slippery slope” could easily cut the other way, too: Once a denomination rejects gay pastors, it may only be a matter of time until it rejects women pastors, too.</p>
<p>Either way, when the SBC is wrestling with issues of gender, issues of sexuality are not too far away.</p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to correct information about the SBC’s June 2023 vote.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207882/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Gardner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In Southern Baptist history, rules on women and sexuality are often entwined. A scholar writes about the first congregation to be expelled from the SBC over LGBTQ+ issuesAndrew Gardner, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Baylor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2078812023-06-16T12:38:57Z2023-06-16T12:38:57ZSouthern Baptist Convention votes to expel two churches with female pastors – a religion scholar explains how far back these battles go<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532259/original/file-20230615-19-kqcxpa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=110%2C5%2C3748%2C2475&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">SBC pastor Rev. Linda Barnes Popham with the choir at Fern Creek Baptist Church in May 21, 2023, in Louisville, Kentucky.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/2872abf866a54a18b56c3f0d36d2af2c?ext=true">AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>During its two-day <a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/anti-egalitarian-forces-make-clean-sweep-at-sbc-annual-meeting/">annual meeting</a> that began on June 13, 2023, the Southern Baptist Convention reaffirmed the ouster of its largest congregation that ordained women and began a process to amend its constitution to ensure its church membership “does not affirm, appoint or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.” </p>
<p>Saddleback Church in Southern California was <a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/southern-baptist-convention-ousts-its-largest-church-saddleback-for-having-a-woman-pastor/">kicked out</a> of the SBC in February 2023 for ordaining three of its longtime female staff members as ministers in 2021. Saddleback founder and former pastor Rick Warren appealed the church’s ejection at the 2023 conference.</p>
<p><a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/saddleback-and-fern-creek-churches-face-off-against-al-mohler-at-sbc-meeting/">Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president</a> Al Mohler rebutted Warren’s appeal, arguing that the issue of women’s ordination is a matter of “biblical commitment” and “biblical authority” that allows no room for compromise within the SBC. About <a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/anti-egalitarian-forces-make-clean-sweep-at-sbc-annual-meeting/">88% of messengers</a> – Southern Baptists’ language for delegates – then voted to reaffirm the church’s expulsion. </p>
<p>The proposed amendment to exclude any church that hires a woman as a pastor must be voted on again at next year’s annual meeting. The SBC requires a majority vote at two consecutive annual meetings to amend its constitution.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532265/original/file-20230615-27-kx510b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a black T-shirt speaking in front of a microphone while holding a piece of paper, while several others stand behind him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532265/original/file-20230615-27-kx510b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532265/original/file-20230615-27-kx510b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532265/original/file-20230615-27-kx510b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532265/original/file-20230615-27-kx510b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532265/original/file-20230615-27-kx510b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532265/original/file-20230615-27-kx510b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532265/original/file-20230615-27-kx510b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rick Warren, founding pastor of Saddleback Church in Southern California, makes an appeal to the Southern Baptist Convention to let his church back into the denomination.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SouthernBaptists/aca80c48ba9042baa3f45a8eae4825ae/photo?Query=southern%20baptist&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=824&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo/Peter Smith</a></span>
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<p>These <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-women-in-the-southern-baptist-convention-have-fought-for-decades-to-be-ordained-161061">battles over women in ordained ministry</a> in the SBC are not new. </p>
<p>As someone who grew up and was ordained Southern Baptist while I was a religion professor at a Christian college, I am not surprised to see what has happened in the SBC annual meeting this week. I’ve <a href="https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/users/susan-shaw">researched Southern Baptists</a> for 25 years, and I’m aware that, since the SBC’s founding in 1845, Southern Baptists have had a complicated history with women, who have often been maligned and mistreated within the denomination.</p>
<h2>The ‘woman question’</h2>
<p>Historian <a href="https://addran.tcu.edu/faculty_staff/elizabeth-flowers/">Elizabeth Flowers</a> explains that matters of women’s roles as preachers, teachers and deacons were <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469618920/into-the-pulpit/">frequent subjects of disagreement among Baptists</a> from the denomination’s beginnings. </p>
<p>Women were not allowed to serve as <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Baptist_polity_as_I_see_it.html?id=MKJf-ovEqj4C">messengers</a> to the SBC until 1918. </p>
<p>When Southern Baptist women <a href="https://www.mupress.org/Southern-Baptist-Sisters-In-Search-of-Status-1845-2000-P482.aspx">formed a national organization</a> to support missionary work in 1888, they had to hold their first meeting in a Methodist church down the street from the Baptist church where the SBC was meeting. Until the 20th century, only men gave the missionary organization’s report to the SBC. </p>
<p>Indeed, women in the U.S. did not have the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/wori/learn/historyculture/womens-suffrage-history-timeline.htm">right to vote</a> at that time. The SBC’s practices certainly reflected larger social norms around gender, but its reasoning was also theological. Those beliefs formed a basis for gender hierarchy that ultimately triumphed over more moderate egalitarianism in the late 20th century.</p>
<h2>Southern Baptist controversy</h2>
<p>In the 1970s, greater numbers of women entered the six Southern Baptist seminaries, many professing a calling to the pastorate, even though most churches still refused to ordain them. </p>
<p>I was a student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in the 1980s. By that time, women were about a third of the student body, although very few women were professors.</p>
<p>That was also a time when fundamentalists <a href="http://www.centerforbaptiststudies.org/pamphlets/freedom/sbc.htm">launched their takeover</a> of the SBC. In addition to the seminaries, the convention owns numerous publishing and missionary agencies worth billions of dollars. </p>
<p>Fundamentalists used <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-biblical-inerrancy-a-new-testament-scholar-explains-163613">biblical inerrancy</a>, the idea that the Bible is without error in history, science or theology, as a test for theological faithfulness. </p>
<p>Beginning with the denomination’s annual conference in 1979, those fundamentalists were able to <a href="https://www.uapress.ua.edu/9780817308049/the-new-crusades-the-new-holy-land/">inspire messengers</a> to elect fundamentalist leaders. They claimed that moderate Baptists who did not accept inerrancy did not believe the Bible.</p>
<p>The new leaders <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/baptist-battles/9780813515571">purged the moderates</a> from SBC employment and leadership. </p>
<p>While fundamentalists claimed <a href="http://kentuckypress.com/live/title_detail.php?titleid=2105#.XGrr07iIaUk">that takeover</a> was about biblical inerrancy, <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/236180/pdf">in reality it was as much, if not more, about women</a>. As historian <a href="https://history.artsandsciences.baylor.edu/person/barry-g-hankins">Barry Hankins</a> also concludes, the “gender issue” eventually <a href="https://www.uapress.ua.edu/search-results/?keyword=uneasy+in+babylon">became a central issue</a> for Southern Baptist fundamentalists as their takeover of the SBC proceeded.</p>
<p>A number of Southern Baptist churches had ordained women, and some had called women as pastors. Many moderate churches espoused egalitarian marital relationships, and <a href="https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA165018129&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00055719&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=oregon_oweb&isGeoAuthType=true&aty=geo">SBC educational literature</a> often supported women’s equality in church and home.</p>
<p>Even as fundamentalist Baptist leaders claimed their movement was about the Bible, they <a href="http://utpress.org/title/southern-baptists-observed/">specifically targeted women</a> and <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/baptist-battles/9780813515571">worked to reverse</a> women’s progress. </p>
<h2>First in the Edenic fall</h2>
<p>In 1984, as fundamentalists gained greater control, the SBC passed a <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/resolution-on-ordination-and-the-role-of-women-in-ministry/">resolution against women’s ordination</a>. The resolution said that women were excluded from ordained ministry to “preserve a submission God requires because the man was first in creation and the woman was first in the Edenic fall.” </p>
<p>In other words, because Eve was the first to eat the fruit that led to the humans’ expulsion from Eden in the Book of Genesis, they argued, God compels all women to submit to men.</p>
<p>Furthermore, <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/resolution-on-ordination-and-the-role-of-women-in-ministry/">the resolution</a> argued for the preservation of “God’s delegated order of authority” – “God the head of Christ, Christ the head of man, man the head of woman.” </p>
<p>In Baptist polity, local churches are autonomous and free to ordain and call as pastor whom they will. The Southern Baptist Convention has no official control over local churches.</p>
<p>Some local churches did ordain and call women to the pastorate, and their local Baptist associations “disfellowshipped” those congregations, <a href="http://www.bpnews.net/45692/tenn-assoc-disfellowships-church-with-female-pastor">excluding them</a> from participating in the local association. </p>
<p>Fundamentalists appointed Al Mohler president of Southern Seminary in 1993, and he forced <a href="https://www.unitedseminary.edu/about-us/molly-t-marshall/">Molly Marshall</a>, the first woman to teach theology at a Southern Baptist seminary, <a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/mohler-presidency-marked-by-change/">to resign in 1994</a>, primarily over her support for women in ministry. </p>
<h2>‘Gracious submission’</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532262/original/file-20230615-23-et5jry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book lying open on a desk." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532262/original/file-20230615-23-et5jry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532262/original/file-20230615-23-et5jry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532262/original/file-20230615-23-et5jry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532262/original/file-20230615-23-et5jry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532262/original/file-20230615-23-et5jry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532262/original/file-20230615-23-et5jry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532262/original/file-20230615-23-et5jry.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The idea that the Bible is without error in history, science or theology was used as a test for theological faithfulness by Southern Baptist fundamentalist leaders.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/clairewhetton/2216445457/in/photolist-4nRS1R-4NB7sY-bnh5mb-8ShpRH-2Gah5n-8DAytv-bsJcvE-8RJqYu-2sqmC9-qsHMyJ-8QG6Uc-jvmx9b-8LwCCz-aqER91-p8YVh7-PGM6W1-gq5Mw-8MieGD-r2cE3d-9h2jYG-scAcbJ-qDCdGW-7w4yGQ-8LS8YG-5UmiCv-4oSuMn-dN3H2g-rCfnqc-doLuz9-9NwGNN-6mPsqo-dRTgg-46XMRA-8SkGgk-hdpTVm-4Duj2t-r4993-8TDYe8-5r9n3V-8RqkfM-btEjgF-4DhiWe-muB5SG-5LxEsH-XNqCp-kg77a-6bz3yX-e5Kh2G-6VYQZG-CvJDb">claire.whetton/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2000, the SBC changed its statement of faith, <a href="http://www.sbc.net/bfm2000/bfm2000.asp">noting that</a> women and men “are of equal worth before God” while insisting “A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband.” </p>
<p>In 2003, an administrator at Southern Seminary claimed that women have a desire to rule over men, and so <a href="https://www.ethicsdaily.com/seminary-magazine-describes-biblical-womanhood-cms-3663/">men must exercise their rightful “rulership</a>” over women. </p>
<p>For Southern Baptists, the statement of faith is not a creed but rather a set of largely agreed-upon beliefs. The statement is not binding on any individual or local church. Seminaries and denominational agencies, such as the International Mission Board, however, must work within the guidelines of the statement. </p>
<p>The 2000 statement of faith <a href="http://www.sbc.net/bfm2000/bfm2000.asp">also asserts</a>, “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” In response, in 2004, Southern Baptists’ North American Mission Board <a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/namb-stops-endorsing-female-military-chaplains/#.XGrWnMR7nic">stopped endorsing</a> women as chaplains. </p>
<p>Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary then <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/16828466/ns/us_news-education/t/professor-seminary-ousted-her-over-gender/#.XHGBPcR7nic">used that statement</a> in 2007 to remove Hebrew professor Sheri Klouda from its faculty, <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/I-Suffer-Not-a-Woman-to/33121">simply because she was a woman</a>. Klouda was not ordained and did not support the ordination of women. In seminary leaders’ thinking, however, she was teaching men the Bible, which they forbid women to do. </p>
<p>They were able to remove her on the basis of gender because religious institutions are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/business/09religious.html">exempt from gender-based nondiscrimination laws</a> for positions that have an explicit religious function, such as pastor or seminary professor, if their beliefs sanction such discrimination. </p>
<h2>Future purge</h2>
<p>If the proposed constitutional amendment passes next year, it will likely lead to a purge of many other Southern Baptist congregations. Already, the pastor who proposed the amendment has <a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/advocates-for-constitutional-ban-on-female-pastors-in-sbc-publish-a-list-of-170-churches-they-deem-in-violation/">compiled a list of 170 churches</a> that he claims are in violation of the ban. </p>
<p>However, immediately after the SBC vote, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a network of Baptist churches that formed 30 years ago when moderates left the SBC following the fundamentalist takeover, <a href="https://cbfblog.com/2023/06/14/on-women-in-ministry-and-congregational-autonomy/">issued a statement</a> reaffirming its support for women in ministry and congregational autonomy to ordain and call both women and men to pastoral leadership.</p>
<p>Given Southern Baptists’ history, I doubt the issue will be resolved no matter the vote next summer. Women in the SBC will likely continue to feel a call to ministry despite the Convention’s actions, and there will be resistance. </p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of a piece <a href="https://theconversation.com/sexism-has-long-been-part-of-the-culture-of-southern-baptists-112209">first published on March 6, 2019</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207881/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan M. Shaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Women have often been maligned and mistreated within the Southern Baptist denomination, writes a scholar who has researched the SBC for 25 years.Susan M. Shaw, Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1857552022-06-24T16:55:45Z2022-06-24T16:55:45ZAmerica’s religious communities are divided over the issue of abortion: 5 essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470802/original/file-20220624-14-o8opah.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=78%2C26%2C5638%2C3242&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Abortion rights advocates demonstrate in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2021, in Washington, D.C.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SupremeCourtAbortion/f9dd30d23ec6449588e1b043693f07f2/photo?Query=abortion&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=11307&currentItemNo=3">AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the first indications that the U.S. Supreme Court could overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, following a leaked draft opinion on May 2, 2022, religious leaders from many denominations have been <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health-news/meet-the-religious-groups-fighting-to-save-abortion-access">working to preserve access to abortion care</a>, even as others <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251143/us-bishops-urge-prayer-fasting-for-overturning-of-roe-v-wade-after-leak-of-abortion-draft-ruling">prayed for Roe to indeed be overruled</a>. A minister in Texas was among those working on coordinating abortion care, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/network-religious-leaders-abortions-roe-v-wade-clergy-consultation-service-2022-5">including flying women to New Mexico to get abortions</a>. </p>
<p>Religious communities in the U.S. have long been divided over the issue of abortion. A 2017 Pew Research Center survey found that <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/22/american-religious-groups-vary-widely-in-their-views-of-abortion/">57% of Americans were supportive</a> of legal abortion. A majority of those who identified as evangelical were opposed to abortion.</p>
<p>Before June 24, 2022, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, The Conversation asked several scholars to explain the multiple views across faith groups and also the differences within denominations. Here are five articles from our archives:</p>
<h2>1. Abortion rights as religious freedom</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/steven-k-green-346301">Steven K. Green</a>, director of the Center for Religion, Law and Democracy at Willamette University, <a href="https://theconversation.com/religious-beliefs-give-strength-to-the-anti-abortion-movement-but-not-all-religions-agree-182500">explained why restricting abortion interferes with religious freedom</a>.</p>
<p>The strong opposition of some Christian churches, such as the Catholic Church or the Southern Baptist Convention, is based on their views about the time of “ensoulment,” the moment at which the soul is believed to enter the fetus. Conservative Christians believe this happens at the moment of conception.</p>
<p>Not all Christian denominations agree. As Green wrote, the United Church of Christ, for example, passed a resolution in 1981 that said “every woman must have the freedom of choice to follow her personal and religious convictions concerning the completion or termination of a pregnancy.” </p>
<p>Additionally, other faith groups such as Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism have differing beliefs about ensoulment.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/religious-beliefs-give-strength-to-the-anti-abortion-movement-but-not-all-religions-agree-182500">Religious beliefs give strength to the anti-abortion movement – but not all religions agree</a>
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</p>
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<h2>2. What Jewish texts say</h2>
<p>Judaism allows for abortion and even requires it when a woman’s health is endangered, according to <a href="https://www.ctschicago.edu/people/rachel-s-mikva/">Rachel Mikva</a>, professor of Jewish studies at Chicago Theological Seminary. The majority of foundational Jewish texts <a href="https://theconversation.com/there-is-more-than-one-religious-view-on-abortion-heres-what-jewish-texts-say-116941">assert that a fetus does not attain the status of personhood until birth</a>. </p>
<p>There is some difference of opinion among Orthodox rabbis, but there is room to consider diverse perspectives.</p>
<p>Overall, according to a 2017 Pew survey, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/22/american-religious-groups-vary-widely-in-their-views-of-abortion/">83% of American Jews</a> believed that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Even ultra-Orthodox leaders, as Mikva found, have resisted anti-abortion measures that do not allow religious exceptions. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/there-is-more-than-one-religious-view-on-abortion-heres-what-jewish-texts-say-116941">There is more than one religious view on abortion - here's what Jewish texts say</a>
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<h2>3. Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist views</h2>
<p>Beliefs from other faith traditions such as Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam also show that religions place ensoulment at different moments and <a href="https://theconversation.com/there-is-no-one-religious-view-on-abortion-a-scholar-of-religion-gender-and-sexuality-explains-184532">give it varying degrees of importance</a>, according to <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/samira-mehta-1109963">Samira Mehta</a>, assistant professor of women and gender studies and Jewish studies at University of Colorado, Boulder. </p>
<p>Muslim scholars and clerics, for example, have a range of positions on abortion. “Some believe abortion is never permitted, and many allow it until ensoulment, which is often placed at 120 days’ gestation, just shy of 18 weeks,” according to Mehta. In general, classical Islamic law sees legal personhood as beginning at birth, and many Muslim religious leaders therefore permit abortion to save the life of the mother. </p>
<p>Views in Hinduism and Buddhism are diverse. “Most Hindus believe in reincarnation, which means that while one may enter bodies with birth and leave with death, life itself does not, precisely, begin or end. Rather, any given moment in a human body is seen as part of an unending cycle of life – making the question of when life begins quite different than in Abrahamic religions,” wrote Mehta. For Buddhists, a decision about abortion is treated with compassion and considered to be a “moral choice,” depending on the circumstances. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/there-is-no-one-religious-view-on-abortion-a-scholar-of-religion-gender-and-sexuality-explains-184532">There is no one 'religious view' on abortion: A scholar of religion, gender and sexuality explains</a>
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<h2>4. Shift in views of Southern Baptists</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470800/original/file-20220624-20-hw0f9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man with a jacket that says SBC on its back stands during a meeting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470800/original/file-20220624-20-hw0f9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470800/original/file-20220624-20-hw0f9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470800/original/file-20220624-20-hw0f9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470800/original/file-20220624-20-hw0f9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470800/original/file-20220624-20-hw0f9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470800/original/file-20220624-20-hw0f9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470800/original/file-20220624-20-hw0f9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">People gathered for the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif., in June 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SouthernBaptists/9f7873e84aa34beea7843e277b147337/photo?Query=southern%20baptist&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=710&currentItemNo=15">AP Photo/Jae C. Hong</a></span>
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<p>Scholars have also pointed out how in conservative faith groups, beliefs have shifted over time. Scholar <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/susan-m-shaw-690928">Susan M. Shaw</a>, who has long studied the Southern Baptists, explained that they <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-history-of-southern-baptists-shows-they-have-not-always-opposed-abortion-183712">have not always been opposed to abortion</a>. </p>
<p>According to Shaw, the change in Southern Baptist views started in the 1980s, when a more conservative group took charge of the denomination. At that time a “resolution on abortion” was drafted that declared that “abortion ends the life of a developing human being” and called for legal measures “prohibiting abortion except to save the life of the mother.”</p>
<p>Additionally, as Shaw found, another “interesting shift” happened in that resolution – instead of referring to fetal life, as earlier resolutions did, the 1980 resolution called fetuses “unborn” or “pre-born” human life or “persons.” The fetus, as she wrote, “was no longer a developing organism dependent on a woman’s body, but rather it was a full human being with the same status and human rights as the women.” </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-history-of-southern-baptists-shows-they-have-not-always-opposed-abortion-183712">The history of Southern Baptists shows they have not always opposed abortion</a>
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</p>
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<h2>5. Reproductive options in premodern Christianity</h2>
<p>Scholars have pointed out that among premodern Christians, too, views on abortion were more complex. <a href="https://theconversation.com/christian-attitudes-surrounding-abortion-have-a-more-nuanced-history-than-current-events-suggest-162560">According to religion scholar</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/luis-josue-sales-1240033">Luis Josué Salés</a>, pregnancy prevention and termination methods thrived in premodern Christian societies, especially in the medieval Roman Empire. </p>
<p>Indeed, premodern Christians may have actively developed reproductive options for women, Salés found. Sixth-century Christian physician Aetios of Amida and Paulos of Aigina, who came a century later, were said to have provided instructions for performing abortions and making contraceptives. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/christian-attitudes-surrounding-abortion-have-a-more-nuanced-history-than-current-events-suggest-162560">Christian attitudes surrounding abortion have a more nuanced history than current events suggest</a>
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<p>In the U.S., the first abortion restrictions <a href="https://theconversation.com/religious-beliefs-give-strength-to-the-anti-abortion-movement-but-not-all-religions-agree-182500">were enacted only in the 1820s</a>. As Mehta aptly put it, “We tend to think of the religious response to abortion as one of opposition, but the reality is much more complicated.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185755/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Scholars explain why many see abortion access as a religious freedom issue and what the views of different faiths are on ‘ensoulment,’ the point at which the soul is believed to enter the fetus.Kalpana Jain, Senior Religion + Ethics Editor/ Director of the Global Religion Journalism InitiativeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1837122022-06-17T14:20:16Z2022-06-17T14:20:16ZThe history of Southern Baptists shows they have not always opposed abortion<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469029/original/file-20220615-23-w8236r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=119%2C25%2C5561%2C3742&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Attendees pray during a worship service at the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting in Anaheim, California, on June 14, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SouthernBaptists/be5739958c124002a67604c14f29ec0b/photo?Query=southern%20baptist%20convention&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=425&currentItemNo=13">AP Photo/Jae C. Hong</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With an abortion case now before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Southern Baptist Convention of June 2022 encouraged its members <a href="https://sbcannualmeeting.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/2022-SBC-Resolutions.pdf">to pray for the overturning</a> of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that made abortion legal in the U.S. </p>
<p>The resolution, “On Anticipation of a Historic Moment in the Pro-Life Movement,” was not without controversy, however. A faction of Southern Baptists who consider themselves “abortion <a href="https://www.christianpost.com/news/southern-baptists-debate-how-to-best-be-pro-life.html">abolitionists</a>” argued the Convention should also call for the <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/live-updates-effort-to-abolish-southern-baptist-public-policy-arm-over-abortion-debate-fails/ar-AAYugOA">criminalizing</a> of people who have abortions as murderers. Instead, the resolution calls on Southern Baptists to stand with and pray for “abortion-vulnerable women.”</p>
<p>The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., and often referred to as the “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/14/us/southern-baptists-convention.html">bellwether for conservative Christianity</a>,” has long voiced opposition to abortion. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/religious-denomination/southern-baptist-convention/views-about-abortion/#beliefs-and-practices">A Pew survey</a> in 2014 found that two-thirds of Southern Baptists believed abortion should be illegal in most or all cases. In 2021, the Convention passed a <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/on-abolishing-abortion/">resolution</a> stating “unequivocally that abortion is murder” and calling for “abolishing abortion immediately, without exception or compromise.” </p>
<p>But Southern Baptists have not always been opposed to abortion.</p>
<p>The Convention expressed support for abortion in certain cases throughout the 1970s, until a more conservative wing seized control in the 1980s. I was a Southern Baptist at the time, and <a href="https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/users/susan-shaw">I now study the denomination</a>. I understand the Convention’s stance against abortion as a reflection of leaders’ conservative beliefs about women, gender and sexuality. </p>
<h2>Support for abortion</h2>
<p>Early on, many evangelicals, including Southern Baptists, saw opposition to legal abortion as a “<a href="https://religiondispatches.org/the-evangelical-abortion-myth-an-excerpt-from-bad-faith/">Catholic issue</a>.” </p>
<p><a href="https://www.brnow.org/news/How-Southern-Baptists-became-pro-life/">A 1970 poll</a> by the Baptist Sunday School board found that a majority of Southern Baptist pastors supported abortion in a number of instances, including when the woman’s mental or physical health was at risk or in the case of rape or fetal deformity. </p>
<p>The SBC passed its <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/resolution-on-abortion-2/">first resolution on abortion</a> two years before the Roe decision. While the Convention never supported the right of a woman to have an abortion at her request for any reason, the resolution did acknowledge the need for legislation that would allow for some exceptions. </p>
<p>In fact, many Southern Baptists saw the Roe decision as drawing <a href="https://religiondispatches.org/the-evangelical-abortion-myth-an-excerpt-from-bad-faith/">a needed line between church and state</a> on matters of morality and state regulation. A Baptist Press article just days after the decision called it an advancement of religious liberty, human equality and justice.</p>
<p>The Convention <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/resolution-on-abortion-and-sanctity-of-human-life/">affirmed this resolution</a> in 1974 after Roe was decided. A 1976 resolution condemned abortion as “a means of birth control” but still insisted the decision ultimately remained between a woman and her doctor.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/resolution-on-abortion-4/">A 1977 resolution</a> clarified the Convention’s position, reaffirming its “strong opposition to abortion on demand.” However, it also reaffirmed the Convention’s views about the limited role of government and the right of pregnant women to medical services and counseling. This resolution was <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/resolution-on-abortion/">affirmed again</a> in 1979.</p>
<h2>Fetus as a person</h2>
<p>Later that year, however, as an ultra-conservative faction within the denomination acquired power from more moderate leaders, things began to change.</p>
<p>Starting in 1980, Convention resolutions took a hard turn against abortion access. A “<a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/resolution-on-abortion-6/">Resolution on Abortion</a>” declared “that abortion ends the life of a developing human being” and called for legal measures “prohibiting abortion except to save the life of the mother.” </p>
<p>Another interesting shift happened in that resolution. Instead of referring to “fetal life,” as did earlier resolutions, the 1980 resolution called fetuses “unborn” or “pre-born” human life or “persons.” This shift in language made a significant change to the status of the fetus. It was no longer a developing organism dependent on a woman’s body, but rather it was a full human being with the same status and human rights as the women. A <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/resolution-on-abortion-7/">1984 resolution</a> named a fetus “a living individual human being.”</p>
<p>Since then, the Convention has passed 16 more resolutions against abortion, including opposition to abortion pills, “partial-birth abortion” – an anti-choice political phrase rather than a medical term for a later term abortion that involves extraction of the fetus through the birth canal – the inclusion of abortion in federally funded health care and the use of aborted fetal tissue in research.</p>
<h2>Controlling women’s bodies</h2>
<p>The resolutions by the SBC focus on the fetus, but they also illustrate the Convention’s beliefs about gender, particularly how women and their bodies should be subordinate to men.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469034/original/file-20220615-18-55n831.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A brick building that says Southern Baptist Convention." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469034/original/file-20220615-18-55n831.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469034/original/file-20220615-18-55n831.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469034/original/file-20220615-18-55n831.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469034/original/file-20220615-18-55n831.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469034/original/file-20220615-18-55n831.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469034/original/file-20220615-18-55n831.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469034/original/file-20220615-18-55n831.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The headquarters of the Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville, Tennesse.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SouthernBaptistNameChange/3bb00b2e6d994a71940c29d7d3b9d95f/photo?Query=southern%20baptist%20convention&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=425&currentItemNo=9">AP Photo/Mark Humphrey</a></span>
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<p>Starting in 1980, resolutions dropped exceptions for rape, incest or mental trauma for abortion. The only acceptable instance for abortion for Southern Baptists became “<a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/resolution-on-encouraging-laws-regulating-abortion/">the imminent death of the mother</a>.” A <a href="http://christianbiowiki.org/wiki/index.php/Southern_Baptist_Convention">2005 position statement</a> made this clear: “At the moment of conception, a new being enters the universe, a human being, created in God’s image. This human being deserves our protection, whatever the circumstances of conception.”</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/resolution-on-sex-education-and-adolescent-pregnancy/">1986 resolution</a> linked abortion with sinful sexuality. Calling for parents to educate their children about a “Christian understanding” of sexuality as a way to avoid unplanned pregnancies, the resolution also opposed abortion as “unscriptural” and harmful to the mother. A <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/resolution-on-sex-education/">1987 resolution</a> called for teaching abstinence in schools as the “best and only sure way crisis pregnancies” can be prevented.</p>
<p>In 2003, <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/on-thirty-years-of-roe-v-wade/">a resolution on abortion</a> co-opted the language of the women’s movement to call the Roe v. Wade decision “an act of injustice against innocent unborn children as well as against vulnerable women in crisis pregnancy situations.” The resolution went on to blame the “sexual revolution” and a “lucrative abortion industry” for victimizing women. Instead, it promoted anti-choice legislation as a means “to protect women and children from abortion,” and it offered prayers, love and advocacy for “women and men who have been abused by abortion.” </p>
<p>Resolutions also called for women to be given information about fetal development, and the Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission created “<a href="https://psalm139project.org/">The Psalm 139 Project</a>” to provide ultrasound machines to crisis pregnancy centers so they could show women images of their fetuses to discourage them from abortion.</p>
<p><a href="https://alliancestateadvocates.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/107/Alliance-CPC-Study-Designed-to-Deceive.pdf">Crisis pregnancy centers</a> are primarily evangelical organizations that offer counseling and assistance to convince pregnant people not to have abortions. They often provide <a href="https://msmagazine.com/2022/04/11/roe-v-wade-overturned-crisis-pregnancy-centers/">misleading and false information</a>, and often receive large sums of public money with little public oversight. </p>
<p>The 2003 resolution also called on the government to “take action to protect the lives of women and children.” </p>
<p>Fifty years ago, the Convention’s views of abortion were guided by concerns about government intrusion into a private matter between a woman and her health care provider. Today, the Convention has fully embraced governmental control of a woman’s decisions about reproduction.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183712/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan M. Shaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar writes about how the Southern Baptist Convention’s views on abortion changed during the 1980s, when a more conservative wing seized control of the denomination.Susan M. Shaw, Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1837992022-06-14T12:28:40Z2022-06-14T12:28:40ZPatriarchy and purity culture combine to silence women in the Southern Baptist Convention – and are blocking efforts to address the sexual abuse scandal<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467823/original/file-20220608-19-9jbheb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C9%2C2083%2C1290&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman describes being abused sexually by a Southern Baptist minister, outside the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting in June 2019, in Birmingham, Ala. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SouthernBaptist/2934709861314dabb90ae691b24a5d09/photo?Query=southern%20baptists&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=658&currentItemNo=25">AP Photo/Julie Bennett</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Southern Baptist Convention 2022 annual meeting <a href="https://religionnews.com/2022/06/14/southern-baptists-overwhelmingly-approve-abuse-reforms-amid-contentious-first-day-of-meetings/">overwhelmingly voted</a> to approve reforms to address sexual abuse in the denomination. A devastating yearlong investigation had <a href="https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/takeaway/segments/yet-another-reckoning-southern-baptist-convention">recently documented widespread claims</a> of sex abuse including accusations of rape, cover-ups and gross mistreatment of women seeking justice.</p>
<p>In 2019 the <a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/abuse-of-faith/">Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News</a> partnered on a series of investigative reports on sexual misconduct by Southern Baptists with formal church roles. Subsequently, the annual meeting of the SBC held in June 2021 voted to authorize an investigations firm, Guidepost Solutions, to conduct an independent probe of its executive committee and its handling of sex abuse. The <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22031737-final-guidepost-solutions-independent-investigation-report?responsive=1&title=1">report</a> and the <a href="https://www.sbc.net/on-the-release-of-a-list-of-alleged-abusers%EF%BF%BC/">list</a> of alleged offenders has recently been made public. </p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://www.unf.edu/coas/religious-studies/Faculty_and_Staff/Julie_Ingersoll.aspx">scholar of evangelicalism, gender and American culture</a>, and over several years of my research I have seen how <a href="https://religiondispatches.org/its-the-theology-stupid-why-the-shocking-sbc-report-is-anything-but-surprising/">deeply ingrained aspects</a> of conservative white evangelicalism force women to stay silent. In researching my two books, “<a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814737705/evangelical-christian-women/">Evangelical Christian Women</a>” and “<a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199913787.001.0001/acprof-9780199913787">Building God’s Kingdom</a>,” I found how structures of patriarchy force women to stay silent. </p>
<p>These deeply ingrained aspects of conservative white evangelicalism include “<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-complementarianism-the-belief-that-god-assigned-specific-gender-roles-became-part-of-evangelical-doctrine-158758">complementarianism</a>,” or the patriarchal view that God gives authority to men and requires submission from women, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-extreme-abstinence-of-the-purity-movement-created-a-sense-of-shame-in-evangelical-women-127589">purity culture</a>, an extreme version of sexual abstinence. </p>
<h2>Purity culture</h2>
<p>The SBC’s “<a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1994/july18/4t8058.html">True Love Waits</a>,” a premarital abstinence campaign for teens launched in 1992, was an important component of the rise of purity culture. It was best known for the purity rings that girls wore as part of a pledge to their virginity to God and family. </p>
<p>More than merely the value of forgoing sex until marriage, purity culture centers sexual purity as a primary measure of the value of young women, who need to remain “pure” to attract a godly man in marriage. Sex education is virtually nonexistent, and dating is traded for “courtship” leading to marriage, under the authority of the girl’s father. </p>
<p>As author Linda Kay Klein writes in her book “<a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Pure/Linda-Kay-Klein/9781501124822">Pure</a>,” women are taught that they are responsible not only for their own purity, but for the purity of the males around them. Women are also made to believe that they are responsible if men are led to sin by what women wear. Additionally, they can be blamed for being inadequately submissive and for speaking up when they should be quiet. Women raised with these teachings also report experiencing tremendous fear and shame around issues of gender, sex and marriage.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/166646/southern-baptist-convention-sex-scandal">rhetoric of purity culture can be traced</a> directly to the <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469661179/white-evangelical-racism/">racist origins of the Southern Baptist Convention</a>. The defense of slavery was the very foundation upon which the denomination was built, and the protection of the “purity of white womanhood” was a the justification for the perpetuation of white supremacy that outlived slavery. </p>
<h2>How survivors described the abuse</h2>
<p>Credibly accused men were protected by the SBC, while the women who dared to speak up <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22031737-final-guidepost-solutions-independent-investigation-report?responsive=1&title=1">were called</a> sluts, adulteresses, Jezebels and even agents of Satan. For example, the report details the story of one woman whose abuse was mischaracterized by the SBC’s Baptist Press as a consensual affair and she was harassed online and called an adulteress. She ultimately lost her job at a Southern Baptist organization. </p>
<p>The report, which the former SBC leader Russell Moore calls “<a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2022/may-web-only/southern-baptist-abuse-apocalypse-russell-moore.html">apocalyptic</a>,” details harassment, insults and attacks on social media, some of which came from Baptist leaders to whom the women had been taught God required them to revere and submit. For example, the executive staff member at the center of handling abuse accusations, Augie Boto, characterized the survivors seeking justice as <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22031737-final-guidepost-solutions-independent-investigation-report?responsive=1&title=1">doing the work of Satan</a>. </p>
<p>Survivor after survivor described their treatment at the hands of their own leaders as worse than their initial assaults. <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22031737-final-guidepost-solutions-independent-investigation-report?responsive=1&title=1">One survivor told investigators</a> that when she provided details of her sexual abuse as a child among other things, one Executive Committee (EC) member “turn(ed) his back to her while she was speaking … and another EC member chortl(ed).” </p>
<p>“I ask you to try to imagine what it’s like to speak about something so painful to a room in which men disrespect you in such a way. … to speak about this horrific trauma of having my pastor repeatedly rape me as a child, only to have religious leaders behave in this way,” she said.</p>
<h2>Shaming and silencing women</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467824/original/file-20220608-23-k660q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman wearing a blue shirt speaking at a microphone, with a poster by her side that says 'I can call it evil because I know what goodness is.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467824/original/file-20220608-23-k660q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467824/original/file-20220608-23-k660q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467824/original/file-20220608-23-k660q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467824/original/file-20220608-23-k660q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467824/original/file-20220608-23-k660q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467824/original/file-20220608-23-k660q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467824/original/file-20220608-23-k660q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rape survivor and abuse victim advocate Mary DeMuth speaks during a rally protesting the Southern Baptist Convention’s treatment of women outside the convention’s annual meeting in Dallas in June 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SouthernBaptists/023aac7ad75245e28f31b66b05d7cf0b/photo?Query=southern%20baptists%20abuse&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=64&currentItemNo=23">AP Photo/Jeffrey McWhorter</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When victims are permitted to tell their stories to people in authority, it is likely to be an all-male committee including perhaps friends of the accused. </p>
<p>In such a hearing women – who because of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-extreme-abstinence-of-the-purity-movement-created-a-sense-of-shame-in-evangelical-women-127589">purity culture practices</a> have often been taught to always be modest and quiet in mixed company and may have had little to no sex education – are asked to detail what they often say is the most painful experience of their lives. Purity culture creates in women a strong sense of shame surrounding their bodies, their own sexuality, and sex in general. When they exhibit evidence of that shame it is taken as an admission that they share responsibility for the abuse.</p>
<p>Like their forebears before them who mobilized the mythic purity of white womanhood to shore up their power, <a href="https://religionnews.com/2020/12/08/six-white-men-shouldnt-decide-the-southern-baptists-position-on-race/">today’s leaders</a> at the center of this report remain male and overwhelmingly white. They use the language of purity culture to shame and silence women seeking justice while, at the same time, leading the charge in the <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/166646/southern-baptist-convention-sex-scandal">fight against coming to terms with racism</a>. </p>
<h2>Can there be real reform?</h2>
<p>The chairman of the SBC executive committee, Rolland Slade, and interim President and CEO Willie McLaurin <a href="https://www.newschannel5.com/news/southern-baptist-church-responds-to-sexual-abuse-task-force-inquiry">said in a statement</a>, in response to the report: “We are grieved by the findings of this investigation. We are committed to doing all we can to prevent future instances of sexual abuse in churches, to improve our response and our care, to remove reporting roadblocks.” Other Baptists too have <a href="https://www.baptiststandard.com/opinion/editorials/the-guidepost-report-anger-and-what-comes-next/">expressed shock and anger</a> at the revelations.</p>
<p>The Guidepost Solutions report concludes with a series of strategies such as forming an independent committee to oversee reforms, including providing resources for prevention and reporting of abuse. As helpful as these strategies may be, they don’t address how the underlying culture of the SBC continues to maintain the structures of white patriarchy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183799/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julie Ingersoll does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Accused men were protected by the SBC while the women who dared to speak up were called sluts, adulteresses, Jezebels and even agents of Satan. A scholar of evangelicalism writes about this culture.Julie Ingersoll, Professor of Religious Studies, University of North FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1691292021-12-13T13:27:05Z2021-12-13T13:27:05ZHere’s how Southern Baptist women found ways to lead outside the denomination<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435890/original/file-20211206-21-15x5kbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C6%2C1116%2C952&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Theologian Molly Marshall preaching at the Southern Baptist Women in Ministry meeting, June 9, 1985.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Baptist Women in Ministry</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Southern Baptists have a <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-women-in-the-southern-baptist-convention-have-fought-for-decades-to-be-ordained-161061">long history</a> of conflict over women’s leadership in the denomination. But women <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469618920/into-the-pulpit/">have found ways to lead</a>, even as their roles have become <a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/sbc-says-church-planters-must-pledge-not-to-hire-women-as-pastors-just-like-they-pledge-not-to-drink-alcohol/#.YaTp7dDP3D4">ever more circumscribed</a>. </p>
<p>I have been researching Southern Baptist women since the mid-1990s. In 1997, with my co-researcher, Tisa Lewis, I <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/003463739809500307">interviewed 29 of the 36 women</a> who were enrolled in the Ph.D. programs from 1982 to 1992 at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where Tisa and I were both students during the 1980s. I returned to this group in 2016 with another researcher, Kryn Freehling-Burton, to <a href="https://utpress.org/title/a-marginal-majority/">re-interview 17 of these women</a>. </p>
<p>We found that many women had left the denomination for successful leadership roles in other churches, denominations, educational institutions and organizations.</p>
<h2>What we learned from interviews</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/003463739809500307">All the women we interviewed</a> had entered seminary on the heels of the second wave of the women’s movement during the 1970s and ’80s. That was also the time of the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention during the 1980s. </p>
<p>Fundamentalist Southern Baptists purport to read the Bible literally and believe it is without error in history and science as well as theology. Through a series of polarizing elections, fundamentalists wrested governing authority over the denomination from more moderate leaders and quickly <a href="https://theconversation.com/sexism-has-long-been-part-of-the-culture-of-southern-baptists-112209">curtailed the progress</a> women had been making as ministry professionals and equal partners within the family.</p>
<p>Twenty-one of the 29 women in the first study were Southern Baptist when they entered seminary. Only three were still Southern Baptist at the time of their interviews in 1997.</p>
<p>None of the 17 women we interviewed in 2016 still identified as Southern Baptist. About a third of our participants did participate in one of the two groups that splintered from the Southern Baptist Convention following the takeover. The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the larger of the two groups, is theologically moderate. The Alliance of Baptists is progressive and focused on social justice. Both groups support women in ministry, and the alliance is openly supportive of LGBTQ people.</p>
<p>What we found in both sets of interviews is that these women were determined to follow their deep sense of vocation, despite changes in the Southern Baptist Convention. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/003463739809500307">They were not dissuaded</a> by fundamentalist arguments that women should not be ordained or lead men. Even though almost all of them ended up leaving the convention, they had <a href="https://utpress.org/title/a-marginal-majority/">successful careers leading</a> in other places.</p>
<h2>Fundamentalists seize control</h2>
<p>While women served in many capacities in Southern Baptist churches from the denomination’s beginnings, the question of ordination arose much later. </p>
<p>When the Watts Street Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina, <a href="https://bwim.info/remembering-addie-on-the-fifty-fifth-anniversary-of-her-ordination-part-1-by-pam-durso/">ordained the first Southern Baptist woman</a> in 1964, few Southern Baptists took note, and little protest ensued. </p>
<p>This changed by the late 1970s as the denomination felt the impact of the second wave of the women’s movement, and more women entered Southern Baptist seminaries, many with the intention of seeking ordination and serving as pastors. Only <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/003463738308000311">10.6% of Southern Baptist seminary students</a> were women in 1970. Enrollment records show that by the 1981-1982 academic year, women accounted for nearly 30% of the entering class. </p>
<p>At that moment, the convention seemed poised to embrace women’s leadership, with a number of denominational agencies, such as mission boards and publishing houses, <a href="https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Of+words+and+women%3a+Southern+Baptist+publications+and+the+progress+of...-a0165018129">issuing positive accounts</a> of the women’s movement and encouraging women in ministry. Several prominent male leaders had started to speak out in support of women’s leadership, and the seminaries had begun to hire women to teach biblical studies and theology. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40071252">my research shows</a>, this trend played a significant role in fundamentalists’ motivation to take over the denomination. They targeted women, passing resolutions denouncing women in pastoral leadership, changing the denomination’s theological statement to stipulate women’s “<a href="https://bfm.sbc.net/bfm2000/#xviii-the-family">gracious submission</a>” to men and removing denominational leaders who voiced support for women in ministry. The lone woman ever to teach theology on the faculty of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary <a href="https://goodfaithmedia.org/molly-marshall-to-receive-whitsitt-societys-courage-award-cms-4343/">was removed as well</a>. </p>
<p>The controversy had a chilling effect on Southern Baptist women in ministry. Women in my studies found most doors in the denomination closed to them as fundamentalists seized control. They also found themselves less able to identify with who Southern Baptists had become under fundamentalists. </p>
<p>Back in 1997, one woman told us the story of how she had been invited to a campus interview for a position in the religion department of a Baptist university. Suddenly, all communication ceased. When she finally talked to a faculty member she knew at the university, he explained to her that the faculty had gotten “cold feet” because she was an ordained woman. </p>
<h2>Women as threat</h2>
<p>Fundamentalists in the Southern Baptist Convention, including fundamentalist women, saw the takeover as a “<a href="https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/25-years-ago-conservative-resurgence-got-its-start/">conservative resurgence</a>,” a return to faithfulness to their literal interpretations of the Bible, including the limitation of women’s leadership.</p>
<p>Citing Eve’s responsibility for the fall of humankind in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+3&version=NRSV">Genesis 3</a> and the Apostle Paul’s admonition for women to keep silence in the churches in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+14.34&version=NRSV">1 Corinthians 14.34</a>, fundamentalists opposed women’s ordination, preaching, pastoral leadership and even teaching of teenage and adult men in Bible studies.</p>
<p>Instead, fundamentalists promoted women’s ministries, wherein women taught and led other women. In Southern Baptist seminaries, anti-feminist “<a href="https://religionnews.com/1999/01/01/news-feature-womens-studies-southern-baptist-style/">women’s studies</a>” curriculum reinforced women’s subordinate status while lauding all the ways women contributed as wives, mothers and leaders of other women. </p>
<p>Women leading women was nothing new in the Southern Baptist Convention, however. Since the 1888 formation of the Woman’s Missionary Union, as a way for women to support missions, women have led women. In fact, many men in 1888 found the union to be a threat. <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/baptists-in-america/9780231127035">One Baptist leader opined</a>, “We … fear that such an independent organization of women naturally tends toward a violation of the divine interdict against woman’s becoming a public religious teacher and leader – a speaker before mixed assemblies, a platform declaimer, a pulpit proclaimer, street preacher, lyceum lecturer, stump orator.” </p>
<p>Indeed, when I talked to women in ministry in the early 2000s for my book “<a href="https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813124766/god-speaks-to-us-too/">God Speaks to Us, Too: Southern Baptist Women on Church, Home, and Society</a>,” many of them told me that what made them believe they could be pastors, professors and denominational leaders was their experience in the Woman’s Missionary Union’s program for girls, which told them, “You can be anything God calls you to be.”</p>
<h2>Women’s leadership outside the SBC</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435120/original/file-20211201-21-1mjazjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman holding the microphone as she delivers an address to an audience." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435120/original/file-20211201-21-1mjazjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/435120/original/file-20211201-21-1mjazjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=250&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435120/original/file-20211201-21-1mjazjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=250&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435120/original/file-20211201-21-1mjazjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=250&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435120/original/file-20211201-21-1mjazjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435120/original/file-20211201-21-1mjazjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/435120/original/file-20211201-21-1mjazjf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Linda McKinnish Bridges, the former president and a founding faculty member of the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond in Virginia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Baptist News Network</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While women within the Southern Baptist Convention accepted its limitations on their leadership roles, the women in my studies and many others left the denomination to find opportunities elsewhere.</p>
<p>One became the <a href="https://goodfaithmedia.org/woman-theologian-to-lead-baptist-seminary-cms-4995/">first female president</a> of a Baptist seminary in the U.S., and another <a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/one-of-richmond-seminarys-original-professors-nominated-as-its-president/#.YaXvTMfP3D4">the president of a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship seminary</a> she helped found after moderate Baptists left the convention. Many served as pastors of local churches, and several became college, university or seminary professors. Some became administrators at their schools. One entered the business world.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436489/original/file-20211208-104971-1qo6p26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman in graduation regalia speaking to an audience." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436489/original/file-20211208-104971-1qo6p26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436489/original/file-20211208-104971-1qo6p26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436489/original/file-20211208-104971-1qo6p26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436489/original/file-20211208-104971-1qo6p26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436489/original/file-20211208-104971-1qo6p26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436489/original/file-20211208-104971-1qo6p26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/436489/original/file-20211208-104971-1qo6p26.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Karen G. Massey, associate dean for master’s programs, McAfee School of Theology in Atlanta.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mercer University</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While a number of these women have now retired, they pointed to their legacy in the young women they mentored and for whom they served as the role models they never had.</p>
<p>The women in my studies noted that the battles of the 1980s equipped them to face struggles as women in leadership, even among moderates and progressives. One participant explained, “Being <a href="https://utpress.org/title/a-marginal-majority/">at Southern Seminary</a> in all of the tumult solidified for good or ill the life lesson of ‘be true to yourself’ and that ‘you can’t be anyone other than who you are.’” </p>
<p>That these women redefined leadership while dealing with the challenges thrown at them is testimony to their resilience and commitment to their vocation. As one woman said, “People still found a way to be strong and to accomplish amazing things.”</p>
<p>[<em>3 media outlets, 1 religion newsletter.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-3-in-1">Get stories from The Conversation, AP and RNS.</a>]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169129/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan M. Shaw and Tisa Lewis received funding in 1997 from the Pew Charitable Trust for "Once There Was a Camelot," and Susan M. Shaw received funding in 2004 from the Louisville Institute and the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives to conduct research for God Speaks to Us, Too: Southern Baptist Women on Church, Home, and Society.</span></em></p>Many Southern Baptist women who left the denomination took leadership roles in other churches, educational institutions and organizations.Susan M. Shaw, Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1642882021-09-15T12:16:06Z2021-09-15T12:16:06ZCritical race theory is an important tool in better understanding how religion operates in America<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420337/original/file-20210909-19-1rmx676.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C432%2C2700%2C1766&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Many churches propped up white supremacist beliefs through pulpit rhetoric and segregationist policies.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/KKKSUNDAYSERVICES/4674d3299be5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/photo?Query=church%20AND%20KKK&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=13&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The debate over critical race theory has played out <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/opinion/dueling-critical-race-theories-watch-how-differently-morning-joe-and-fox-friends-explain-the-same-idea/">in TV studios</a>, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/critical-race-theory-invades-school-boards-help-conservative-groups-n1270794">school board meetings</a> and <a href="https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/education/2021/07/09/402708/the-texas-legislature-has-targeted-critical-race-theory-but-is-it-being-taught-in-public-schools/">state legislatures</a> across the U.S. It has also found its way into <a href="https://www.pressherald.com/2021/07/24/critical-race-theory-debate-dividing-christian-church-texas-pastors-say-2/">churches</a>. </p>
<p>The theory comprises <a href="https://theconversation.com/critical-race-theory-what-it-is-and-what-it-isnt-162752">a set of concepts</a> that frame racism as structural, rather than simply expressed through personal discrimination. Scholars <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24833093-900-systemic-racism-what-research-reveals-about-the-extent-of-its-impact/">point to racial discrepancies</a> in educational achievement, economic and employment opportunities and in the criminal justice system as evidence of how racism is embedded in U.S. institutions.</p>
<p>But as its critics tell it, critical race theory is a divisive ideology that has <a href="https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/2021/07/14/marsha-blackburn-keep-critical-race-theory-out-american-classrooms/7971030002/">infiltrated classrooms and needs to be stopped</a>. By and large, such depictions of critical race theory are <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/many-americans-embrace-falsehoods-about-critical-race-theory-2021-07-15/">inaccurate and misconstrued</a>, <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/07/christopher-rufo-and-the-critical-race-theory-moral-panic.html">perhaps at times even intentionally so</a>. But they have nonetheless made critical race theory a “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/07/25/critical-race-theory-sex-education-culture-wars/">culture war” issue</a>.</p>
<p>Religious voices, particularly among white evangelical Christians, were <a href="https://religiondispatches.org/where-did-white-evangelicalisms-hatred-of-critical-race-theory-really-begin/">among the earliest</a> and loudest in calling for critical race theory to be stopped. Conservative evangelical bloggers warned against the supposed dangers of the theory “<a href="https://truthandliberty.me/2018/04/18/dont-let-critical-race-theory-infiltrate-the-church-contra-david-platt/">infiltrating the church</a>” <a href="https://sovereignnations.com/2018/07/10/the-rise-of-woker-than-thou-evangelicalism/">back in 2018</a>. </p>
<p>And in 2019 – before the anti-critical race theory movement gained widespread attention – the <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/on-critical-race-theory-and-intersectionality/">Southern Baptist Convention</a>, the largest evangelical group in the U.S., passed a resolution criticizing the theory as a problematic secular ideology that conflicts with the authority of Scripture. A push by conservative Southern Baptists to again reject CRT by name failed at this year’s convention, but a <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/on-the-sufficiency-of-scripture-for-race-and-racial-reconciliation/">resolution was passed</a> against any theory that frames racism in a way other than its being “a sin” to be resolved by redemption through Christ.</p>
<p>These resolutions reflect a <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/White-Too-Long/Robert-P-Jones/9781982122874">common evangelical ideology</a>. Essentially, evangelical morality sees social problems such as racism as the result of sinful individuals, not larger structures or institutions. In the <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/critical-race-theory-debate-divides-christians">words of evangelical pastor and theologian</a> Voddie Baucham: “Critical race theory is at odds with Christianity because it takes the problem of racism out of the individual heart and puts it out there somewhere in systems and structures.” </p>
<p>Such views from evangelicals <a href="https://religiondispatches.org/where-did-white-evangelicalisms-hatred-of-critical-race-theory-really-begin/">laid the groundwork</a> for the uproar over CRT in recent months.</p>
<p>Rhetoric aside, it’s worth noting what critical race theory actually is: a complex body of scholarship that reflects the efforts of legal scholars to analyze how race functions in American society. As legal scholars <a href="https://www.law.columbia.edu/faculty/kimberle-w-crenshaw">Kimberlé Crenshaw</a>, <a href="https://www.wsulaw.edu/divi_overlay/neil-gotanda/">Neil Gotanda</a>, <a href="https://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/gary-peller/">Gary Peller</a> and <a href="https://www.law.columbia.edu/faculty/kendall-thomas">Kendall Thomas</a> <a href="https://thenewpress.com/books/critical-race-theory">explain</a> in their introduction to a key collection of writings on the topic, it explores “how a regime of white supremacy and its subordination of people of color have been created and maintained in America.”</p>
<p>As a <a href="http://tiffanypuett.me">scholar of religious studies</a>, I frequently use critical race theory as a tool to better understand how religion operates in American society. While critical race theorists initially focused on how race has been <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/07/02/1012696188/how-critical-race-theory-went-from-harvard-law-to-fox-news">embedded in our legal system</a>, the theory can also help us think about how race is entrenched in religious institutions. </p>
<p>It helps move beyond the idea of religion’s being primarily a matter of individual belief to seeing religious institutions and identities as shaped by larger social structures and movements.</p>
<p>In the U.S., race and religious institutions have been intertwined from the beginning. Early U.S. leaders used language that described a “true” American as essentially <a href="https://theconversation.com/protestantisms-troubling-history-with-white-supremacy-in-the-us-141438">both white and Protestant</a>. And many Protestant churches supported white supremacy through rhetoric from the pulpit, interpretations of the Bible and policies of segregation.</p>
<p>Critical race theory sheds light on the ways that religious institutions and rhetoric have helped justify and reinforce white supremacy. </p>
<p>And the Southern Baptist Conventions’s resolution against critical race theory is an example of this. Denying the existence of structural racism takes away the opportunity to assess its presence in education, housing, the legal system and religion. It also makes it harder to conceptualize new, more equitable policies. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>As such, theological arguments rejecting critical race theory can reinforce white supremacy by refusing to acknowledge the role racism has played in U.S. institutions. It is much akin to the ways that proponents of “colorblind” approaches to racism, in which people claim not to see race, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/color-blindness-is-counterproductive/405037/">may unwittingly reinforce racism</a>. </p>
<p>While some religious organizations may see critical race theory as incompatible with their ideology, the theory provides an important framework for analyzing the seen and unseen ways that race operates within all institutions and structures of American society – and that includes organized religions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164288/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tiffany Puett is also the Executive Director of the Institute for Diversity and Civic Life.</span></em></p>Race and religion have intertwined since the earliest days of the US. Critical race theory can explore how white supremacy has operated through religious establishments.Tiffany Puett, Adjunct Professor of Religious and Theological Studies, St. Edward's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1642092021-07-19T12:11:22Z2021-07-19T12:11:22ZEvangelical support for Israel is neither permanent nor inevitable<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411528/original/file-20210715-32900-1hrwmn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C3%2C1007%2C679&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Trump's evangelical supporters cheered the 2018 move of of the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/MideastUSEmbassyToJerusalem/b6ce96595ae2499cbbc86872bc51ffdf">Ariel Schalit/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Israel’s former ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/dermer-suggests-israel-should-prioritize-support-of-evangelicals-over-us-jews/">made waves</a> in May 2021 when he publicly suggested that Israel should prioritize its relationship with American evangelicals over American Jews. </p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/AmbDermer">Dermer described</a> evangelicals as the “backbone of Israel’s support in the United States.” By contrast, he described American Jews as “disproportionately among [Israel’s] critics.” </p>
<p>Dermer’s comments seemed shocking to many because he stated them in public to a reporter. But as <a href="https://walkerrobins.com/">a historian of the evangelical-Israeli relationship</a>, I didn’t find them surprising. The Israeli right’s preference for working with conservative American evangelicals over more politically variable American Jews has been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/world/middleeast/netanyahu-evangelicals-embassy.html">evident for years</a>. And this preference has in many ways paid off. </p>
<h2>Christian Zionism in the Trump era</h2>
<p>American Christian Zionists are evangelicals who believe that Christians have a duty to support the Jewish state because the Jews remain God’s chosen people.</p>
<p>During the Trump years, Christian Zionists were crucial allies for former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. They helped Netanyahu lobby Trump for the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/world/middleeast/netanyahu-evangelicals-embassy.html">relocation of</a> the U.S. embassy <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/12/18/the-biggest-fans-of-president-trumps-israel-policy-evangelical-christians/">to Jerusalem</a>, as well as the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/05/08/the-withdrawal-from-the-iran-deal-signals-a-new-power-player-in-washington-christian-zionists/">withdrawal of the U.S.</a> from the “Iran Deal” – the international nuclear arms control agreement with Iran.</p>
<p>These evangelicals also backed <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-endorses-israeli-control-of-the-disputed-golan-heights/2019/03/21/7cfc0554-4bfb-11e9-93d0-64dbcf38ba41_story.html">Trump’s recognition</a> of Israel’s 1981 annexation of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-trumps-recognition-of-the-golan-heights-as-israeli-territory-matters-114132">the Golan Heights</a>, as well as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-administration-cuts-more-than-200-million-in-aid-to-the-palestinians/2018/08/24/5bd7d58e-a7db-11e8-97ce-cc9042272f07_story.html">cuts of more than US$200 million to American funding for the Palestinian Authority</a> in 2018. </p>
<p>Coming after this string of policy victories for the Israeli-evangelical alliance, Dermer’s comments made sense.</p>
<p>However, the alliance’s future may be in doubt. <a href="https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/evangelical-youth-losing-love-for-israel-by-35-percent-study-shows-671178">Recent polling shows dramatic declines</a> in support for Israel among <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2021/05/26/as-israel-increasingly-relies-on-us-evangelicals-for-support-younger-ones-are-walking-away-what-polls-show/">young American evangelicals</a>. Scholars <a href="https://uncp.academia.edu/MottiInbari">Motti Inbari</a> and <a href="https://www.uncp.edu/profile/dr-kirill-bumin">Kirill Bumin</a> found that between 2018 and 2021, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/support-for-israel-among-young-us-evangelicals-drops-sharply-survey/">rates of support fell</a> from 69% to 33.6% among evangelicals ages 18-29.</p>
<p>While these polls speak most immediately to the current context, they also underline a larger historical point: Evangelical support for Israel is neither permanent nor inevitable.</p>
<h2>Southern Baptists and Israel</h2>
<p>The Southern Baptist Convention – long the denominational avatar of white American evangelicalism – offers an example of how these beliefs have shifted over time, which I examine in my book “<a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Between-Dixie-and-Zion,7406.aspx">Between Dixie and Zion: Southern Baptists and Palestine before Israel</a>.” </p>
<p>Southern Baptists are broadly supportive of Israel, and have been for much of the past half-century. Baptist leaders like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1971/06/20/archives/evangelists-meet-in-the-holy-land-1000-from-32-countries-confer-on.html">W.A. Criswell</a> and <a href="https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/ed-mcateer-pioneer-for-faith-in-public-policy-dies-at-78/">Ed McAteer</a> helped organize Christian Zionism in the U.S. The Southern Baptist Convention itself has passed a number of <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/?fwp_resolution_search=israel">pro-Israel resolutions</a> in recent decades.</p>
<p>More recently, Southern Baptist support for Israel was highlighted when the Trump administration <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/05/15/mitt-romney-may-not-like-it-but-robert-jeffress-was-a-natural-choice-to-deliver-the-invocation-at-the-new-u-s-embassy-in-jerusalem/">invited Robert Jeffress</a>, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, to lead a prayer at the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem in 2018.</p>
<p>However, Southern Baptists were not always so unified in support for Israel, or the Zionist movement that led to its creation. This was evident only days after the establishment of Israel in 1948, when messengers to the convention’s annual meeting <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1948/05/20/archives/baptists-criticize-truman-on-israel-refuse-commendation-consider.html?searchResultPosition=1">repeatedly and overwhelmingly voted down resolutions</a> calling for the convention to send a congratulatory telegram to U.S. President – and fellow Southern Baptist – Harry Truman for being the first foreign leader to recognize the Jewish state. </p>
<h2>Zionism was ‘God’s plan’ – unless it wasn’t</h2>
<p>This seems shocking today, after years of seemingly unanimous evangelical support for Israel. However, as I document in <a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Between-Dixie-and-Zion,7406.aspx">my book</a>, Southern Baptists had diverse views on Zionism and “the Palestine question” in the decades leading up to Israel’s birth. While some did argue that support for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine was a Christian duty, others defended the Arab majority’s rights in the Holy Land. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="U.S. President Harry S. Truman holds a copy of the Torah, presented to him by Chaim Weizman, right, in Washington on May 25, 1948." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411331/original/file-20210714-13-hcy588.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411331/original/file-20210714-13-hcy588.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411331/original/file-20210714-13-hcy588.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411331/original/file-20210714-13-hcy588.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411331/original/file-20210714-13-hcy588.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411331/original/file-20210714-13-hcy588.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411331/original/file-20210714-13-hcy588.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Southern Baptist Convention refused to congratulate President Harry Truman for being the first world leader to officially recognize the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, even though he was one of their own. At right is Chaim Weizman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TrumanandWeizman/ae37ce7d442f4f5388d28efdb8b9938d">ASSOCIATED PRESS</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During this era, the Southern Baptist Convention published books, pamphlets and other materials reflecting both sides. In 1936, its press <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/9963436">published a work by missionary Jacob Gartenhaus</a>, a convert from Judaism to evangelical Christianity, arguing that to be against Zionism was “to oppose God’s plan.” The following year, however, the press published <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/7962317">a mission study manual by J. McKee Adams</a> contending that “by every canon of justice and fair-play, the Arab is the man of first importance.” </p>
<p>Adams was one among a coterie of professors at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary who spoke out against what they sometimes derided as “Christian Zionism” – then an unusual term.</p>
<p>Even evangelicals who believed the Bible anticipated the return of Jews to Palestine disagreed on whether the Zionist movement was part of God’s plan. </p>
<p>The influential Baptist leader J. Frank Norris of Fort Worth, Texas, who broke away from the mainstream Southern Baptist Convention in the 1920s, argued in the 1930s and 1940s that Christians had a duty to God and civilization <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/432608001">to support the Zionists</a>. </p>
<p>But there was no widespread sense that being a Baptist – or an evangelical Protestant – entailed support for Zionism. John R. Rice, a prominent disciple of Norris’, rejected his mentor’s arguments outright. “The Zionist movement is not a fulfillment of the prophecies about Israel being restored,” Rice <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/31748240">wrote in 1945</a>. “Preachers who think so are mistaken.” </p>
<p>Regarding the political question of whether Arabs or Jews should control Palestine, most evangelicals were unconcerned. The Southern Baptists focused on other priorities in the Holy Land, such as the growth of their missions in Jerusalem and Nazareth. Even those Baptists who supported the establishment of a Jewish state did not organize politically around the issue.</p>
<h2>The future of Christian Zionism</h2>
<p>In the decades after the establishment of Israel, however, <a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15966.html">motivated evangelical and Jewish activists – as well as the Israeli government – </a> worked to stitch together the interfaith relationships, build the institutions and spread the ideas underpinning today’s Christian Zionist movement. These efforts have been remarkably effective in making support for Israel <a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15966.html">a defining element</a> of many evangelicals’ religious and political identities.</p>
<p>However, <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/05/26/survey-young-evangelicals-largely-backed-biden-and-have-shifting-views-on-israel/">as the latest polling of young evangelicals shows</a>, there is no guarantee this will be permanent. This diverse and globally connected generation of evangelicals has <a href="https://theconversation.com/white-gen-x-and-millennial-evangelicals-are-losing-faith-in-the-conservative-culture-wars-162407">its own ideas and priorities</a>. It is more interested in social justice, less invested in the culture wars and increasingly weary of conservative politics.</p>
<p>Young evangelicals remain to be convinced of Christian Zionism. And they very well may not be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164209/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Walker Robins does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The political alliance between American evangelicals and Israel’s right wing may have peaked during the Trump administration.Walker Robins, Lecturer in History, Merrimack CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1633202021-07-01T12:15:25Z2021-07-01T12:15:25ZInfighting in the Southern Baptist Convention shouldn’t be a surprise – the denomination has been defined by such squabbles for 400 years<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409160/original/file-20210630-21118-upr640.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C5%2C1967%2C1300&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Each local congregation of the Southern Baptist Convention is autonomous and self-governing. Disagreements take place frequently.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/voters-raise-their-orange-ballots-to-reject-the-news-photo/1152791?adppopup=true">Joe Raedle/Getty images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Concerned over the direction that some leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention have recently taken, a number of pastors in the denomination <a href="https://conservativebaptistnetwork.com/press-release/">have formed</a> the “<a href="https://conservativebaptistnetwork.com/">Conservative Baptist Network</a>.” </p>
<p>This comes after some of the denomination’s most high-profile figures, including Bible study leader <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/10/us/beth-moore-southern-baptists.html">Beth Moore</a> and former president of the denomination’s moral and public policy agency <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/06/russell-moore-sbc/619122/">Russell Moore</a> (not related), have left the denomination, citing its leadership’s support of Donald Trump and its mishandling of clergy sex abuse and racism. These are far from the only departures the Southern Baptist Convention has suffered as membership has <a href="https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/religion/2021/05/28/southern-baptist-convention-membership-drops-14th-year-row/7419455002/">declined</a> over the past 14 years.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/akin-mohler-dispute-claim-of-sbc-liberal-drift/">disgruntled pastors</a> cite a number of grievances, from the SBC’s desire to address the denomination’s racist past to some leaders’ willingness to engage secular theories of social justice to understand contemporary social problems. </p>
<p>As a former Southern Baptist and now a scholar working in <a href="https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813124766/god-speaks-to-us-too/">religious and gender studies</a>, I’ve watched these recent controversies with interest. Such disagreements have defined Baptists since the 17th century. </p>
<h2>Baptist battles</h2>
<p>In 1972, historian Walter B. Shurden wrote <a href="https://www.helwys.com/sh-books/not-a-silent-people/">how disagreements across the centuries</a> had shaped the history of Baptists. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/baptist-battles/9780813515571">Baptist Battles</a>” – a term coined by sociologist Nancy Ammerman in 1990 – are rooted in Baptist theology. <a href="https://www.helwys.com/sh-books/the-baptist-identity/">Baptists believe</a> that God speaks directly to individuals and that each person can read the Bible and interpret it themselves. Because of these beliefs, Baptists reject hierarchy in religious governance.</p>
<p>The Southern Baptist Convention does not tell individuals what to believe or churches what to do. Each local congregation is autonomous and self-governing. They have generally agreed upon shared beliefs, but no Baptist or Baptist body can tell anyone else what they must believe.</p>
<p>With each Baptist having the authority of the individual conscience before God, disagreements are an inevitable and frequent occurrence.</p>
<p>Although such agreements can be healthy and push issues forward, more often they can also lead to skirmishes, battles and divisions. Here are just a few of the Baptist battles that have taken place over the past four centuries.</p>
<h2>The battle over salvation</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409158/original/file-20210630-21135-6l1nxz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A portrait of the first Baptist minister John Smyth." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409158/original/file-20210630-21135-6l1nxz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409158/original/file-20210630-21135-6l1nxz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409158/original/file-20210630-21135-6l1nxz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409158/original/file-20210630-21135-6l1nxz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=736&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409158/original/file-20210630-21135-6l1nxz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409158/original/file-20210630-21135-6l1nxz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409158/original/file-20210630-21135-6l1nxz.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=925&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">First Baptist minister John Smyth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John-Smyth.png">First Baptist Church, Malden, Massachusetts via Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.mupress.org/Baptist-Theology-A-Four-Century-Study-P1014.aspx">Two distinct strands</a> of Baptists emerged in England in the 17th century. The first were General Baptists, who believed in a “general” salvation, meaning that anyone could be saved. Salvation is believed to be a right relationship with God that leads to eternal life. General salvation is open to all, and each individual has free will to choose or reject salvation. </p>
<p>John Smyth, who founded the first Baptist church in Amsterdam around 1609 after fleeing religious persecution in England, believed that God allowed humans to make their own choices. People can choose to sin, and people can choose to repent, he said.</p>
<p>The second strand of English Baptists were known as Particular Baptists. They believed in a “particular” salvation, reserved for only those who have been chosen by God to be saved from eternal damnation. </p>
<p>People have no choice in the matter of their salvation or damnation. In 1644, Particular Baptists issued a confession of faith repudiating the “heresies” of General Baptists, especially the idea of free will.</p>
<h2>The battle over hymn singing</h2>
<p>Early Baptists, who had separated from the Church of England, were highly suspicious of the practices of Anglican worship, including of “set” – written and recited – prayers. They believed practices of worship should include only those directly authorized by Scripture. </p>
<p>General Baptists rejected congregational singing as a “fixed” form of worship. They feared fixed prayers and fixed singing could lead newly separated churches back into the errors of the Church of England.</p>
<p>Many Particular Baptists accepted the singing of Psalms, since these words were a part of the biblical text, although each Particular Baptist congregation made its own decisions about singing them or not. By the 1650s, a number of Particular Baptists were using congregational singing, and in the 1670s singing hymns that were not the Psalms began to be practiced.</p>
<p>In 1690 a <a href="https://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu%3A181205/">bitter public debate</a> erupted in printed tracts as Baptists attacked and defended the practice of singing hymns in worship. The controversy became so acrimonious that the 1692 Assembly of Particular Baptists took it up and asked its participants not to write publicly about it anymore.</p>
<h2>The battle over enslavement</h2>
<p>In the U.S., Baptists formed a national organization, the Triennial Convention, in 1814. Around the same time, attitudes of Baptists in the South toward the enslavement of Africans <a href="https://www.helwys.com/sh-books/not-a-silent-people/">began to harden</a> as the 1792 invention of the cotton gin, a machine that made it easier to separate the cotton fibers from their seeds, made enslavement more profitable. By the 1830s, abolitionism took firm hold among Northern Baptists, and both they and Baptists in the South argued they were upholding Scripture through their views on slavery.</p>
<p>Soon a debate erupted in the Triennial Convention over whether or not people who held enslaved Africans could be appointed as missionaries. Finally, the board of the convention announced it would not appoint such a person. </p>
<p>Baptists in the South decided to withdraw from the Triennial Convention and formed the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845. Rather than issuing a statement in support of slavery, however, the new SBC declared civil issues, such as slavery, outside the purview of religious issues with which the denomination concerned itself.</p>
<h2>The battle over Baptist history</h2>
<p>In the 19th century, most Baptists staked their claim as the one true New Testament church on their belief that the denomination started with John the Baptist and continued in an unbroken line ever since. </p>
<p>In 1893, Southern Baptist seminary president <a href="https://www.mupress.org/Baptist-Theology-A-Four-Century-Study-P1014.aspx">W. H. Whitsitt</a> published an article arguing that Baptists began around 1640 when some of those who broke from the Church of England rejected infant baptism and began to practice adult believers’ baptism by immersion.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.helwys.com/sh-books/not-a-silent-people/">backlash</a> to Whitsitt’s essay was swift and furious from prominent Baptists, local pastors and denominational newspaper editors who insisted Baptists could trace their origins to A.D. 30. Whitsitt resigned from the seminary, but eventually, Baptist historians vindicated him, and his version of 17th-century Baptist origins prevailed.</p>
<h2>The battle over the Bible</h2>
<p>In 1961, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary professor <a href="https://prabook.com/web/ralph_h.elliott/371306">Ralph H. Elliott</a> wrote “The Message of Genesis,” a scholarly book that suggested that the stories of the first 11 chapters of the biblical book of Genesis were theological rather than historical. Many Southern Baptists considered these stories literal and believed Elliott had challenged the trustworthiness of the Bible by questioning the historical accuracy of Genesis.</p>
<p>After the 1962 meeting of the SBC <a href="https://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+Ralph+Elliott+controversy%3a+competing+philosophies+of+southern...-a094161019">affirmed</a> the Bible’s historical accuracy and infallibility, the seminary demanded that Elliott agree not to republish the book. He refused, and the seminary fired him.</p>
<p>But the battle continued. When the denomination’s publishing house issued a commentary on Genesis in 1969 that challenged literal interpretations, the opposition was so great that the SBC demanded the publishing house withdraw the volume and issue a new edition with a different writer.</p>
<h2>The battle for the denomination</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408967/original/file-20210629-27-1bvw13c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=62%2C0%2C5856%2C3916&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People take part in a worship service during the annual Southern Baptist Convention meeting in June 2021, in Nashville, Tennessee." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408967/original/file-20210629-27-1bvw13c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=62%2C0%2C5856%2C3916&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408967/original/file-20210629-27-1bvw13c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408967/original/file-20210629-27-1bvw13c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408967/original/file-20210629-27-1bvw13c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408967/original/file-20210629-27-1bvw13c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408967/original/file-20210629-27-1bvw13c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408967/original/file-20210629-27-1bvw13c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dwindling numbers and internal divisions are posing a challenge to the Southern Baptist Convention.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ReligionSouthernBaptists/fa03e674291f4d48b01448356c8bacfc/photo?Query=southern%20baptists%202021&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=103&currentItemNo=21">AP Photo/Mark Humphrey</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These battles have continued into the present day. From 1979 to 1993, Southern Baptist fundamentalists and moderates fought for control of the denomination, with fundamentalists wresting away power and moderates leaving to form splinter organizations. </p>
<p>While fundamentalists framed the controversy as one over biblical fidelity and authority, the role of women was central. The SBC passed a <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/resolution-on-ordination-and-the-role-of-women-in-ministry/">1984 resolution</a> excluding women from ordination and becoming pastors and changed the denomination’s <a href="https://bfm.sbc.net/bfm2000/#xviii-the-family">confessional statement</a> to call for women’s submission to men.</p>
<p>Baptists have also fought over missions, other denominations, education, evolution, segregation, abortion, sexuality and social work. Now, Southern Baptists are fighting, again over salvation, race and gender.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163320/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan M. Shaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Baptists believe that each person can have a personal relationship with God. This theology, a scholar writes, has also contributed to disagreements within the denomination since the 17th century.Susan M. Shaw, Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1624072021-06-22T12:14:06Z2021-06-22T12:14:06ZWhite Gen X and millennial evangelicals are losing faith in the conservative culture wars<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407077/original/file-20210617-19-fd3gfc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C7%2C1010%2C717&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Younger evangelicals are openly questioning the religious and political traditions of their parents and grandparents.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ReligionPaulaWhite/d34a2fc5ce034461ac2a52c3d81efdcf">Julie Bennett/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Since the 1970s, white American evangelicals – a large subsection of Protestants who hold to a literal reading of the Bible – have often managed to get specific privileges through their political engagement primarily through supporting the Republican Party.</p>
<p>In the 1980s, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/03/22/reagan-tied-republicans-white-christians-now-party-is-trapped/">President Ronald Reagan symbolically consolidated the alliance</a> by bringing religious freedom and morality into public conversations that questioned the separation of church and state. In 2003, President George W. Bush signed the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/evangelicals/bushand.html">Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act</a> into law. In October 2020, President Donald Trump <a href="https://theconversation.com/where-the-politicisation-of-the-us-supreme-court-could-lead-149025">appointed a conservative Christian, Amy Coney Barrett</a>, to the Supreme Court, and went on to win <a href="https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/324410/religious-group-voting-2020-election.aspx">80% of the white evangelical vote in the following month’s election</a>. </p>
<p>Trump went so far as to appoint a <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/politics/key-evangelical-players-trumps-advisory-board">faith consultant board</a> composed of influential evangelical leaders. They included Paula White, a well-known pastor and televangelist; and James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, a leading organization in evangelical efforts to embed “family values” into politics. These panel members heralded <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2020/october/of-course-evangelicals-should-vote-for-trump.html">gestures by Trump</a>, such as signing the “Presidential Executive Order Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty,” which targeted enforcement of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-much-does-the-johnson-amendment-curtail-church-freedom-73165">Johnson Amendment</a>, a 1954 tax law requiring houses of worship to stay out of politics in order to remain tax-exempt. </p>
<p>Although it’s debated what specifically <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/evangelical-christian/418236/">constitutes an evangelical</a>, many agree that they are conservatives who are highly motivated by culture war issues like abortion, same-sex marriage and sexuality. </p>
<p>But even though evangelicals are often presented as <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/01/12/evangelicals-donald-trump-capitol-riot-voter-fraud/6644005002/">monolithic in the media</a>, current research signals <a href="https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/7695/evangelicals.aspx">a more complex picture</a>. </p>
<p>Over the past six years, I have been working with an interdisciplinary team of scholars at the <a href="https://www.aarweb.org/">American Academy of Religion</a> to analyze generational shifts in evangelicalism and religion more broadly in the United States. We are finding that some of the younger evangelicals are openly questioning their religious and political traditions. In short, the majority of <a href="https://religioninpublic.blog/2018/01/29/the-graying-of-white-evangelicalism/">white evangelicals are aging</a> and a portion of younger evangelicals are engaging in both religion and politics differently. </p>
<h2>Leaving the faith versus reforming from within</h2>
<p>My research consists of hours of participant observation within younger evangelical faith communities, along with 50 in-depth, qualitative interviews with individuals who were raised in the politically charged evangelicalism in the southeastern United States, a region dominated by evangelicals. </p>
<p>Taken together, this research indicates increasing disaffection among white millennial and Gen X evangelicals with the cultural and political preoccupations that have strongly motivated their parents and grandparents. There is a growing number of “<a href="https://religionandpolitics.org/2019/04/09/the-rise-of-exvangelical/">Exvangelicals</a>” who disavow their previous stances on same-sex marriage, race and sexuality. </p>
<p>Evangelicals, often citing the biblical text, typically maintain that marriage is <a href="https://www.prri.org/spotlight/americans-are-broadly-supportive-of-a-variety-of-lgbtq-rights/">between one man and one woman</a>. <a href="https://sites.duke.edu/ncsweb/files/2020/10/Racial-Diversity-in-U.S.-Congregations-1998-2019.pdf">Over 75% tend to worship in racially segregated congregations</a> and <a href="https://religionnews.com/2019/08/29/which-religions-support-gun-control-in-the-us/">favor gun rights and ownership</a> more than other faith groups. </p>
<p>But my interviewees tend toward intense critiques of their previous religious tradition, as well as rejecting the evangelical faith completely.</p>
<p>This data parallels other scholarship unearthing racialized structures within white, American evangelicalism like the <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/White-Too-Long/Robert-P-Jones/9781982122867">work of</a> sociologist <a href="https://www.prri.org/staff/robert-p-jones-ph-d/">Robert P. Jones</a> and religious studies scholar <a href="https://africana.sas.upenn.edu/people/anthea-butler">Anthea Butler</a>. Likewise, historian <a href="https://calvin.edu/directory/people/kristin-kobes-du-mez">Kristen Kobes Du Mez</a> <a href="https://uncpress.org/book/9781469661179/white-evangelical-racism/">examines how hypermasculinity is</a> embedded in <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781631495731">American evangelicalism</a>. </p>
<h2>Expanding religion and politics</h2>
<p>My research reveals communities of younger evangelicals who are expanding their religious boundaries and rethinking their stances on culture war issues, as well as questioning the merits of the culture war.</p>
<p>These younger evangelicals are trying to reform their communities from within the tradition as loyal but highly critical members. Sometimes these groups are called “emerging evangelicals” or “progressive Christians,” with some debating whether “evangelical” as a label is redeemable. </p>
<p>I observed several younger evangelicals working within their religious communities to encourage acceptance of those outside of the Christian tradition as co-religionists on similar faith paths. They herald interfaith interactions as positive. One interviewee proudly detailed to me how her church partnered with the local imam and Muslim community to educate each other on their religious practices and volunteered together at a local food bank. This kind of attitude typically is resisted by their older evangelical counterparts, as I learned in <a href="https://irstudies.org/index.php/jirs/article/view/237/203">previous research</a>. Many traditional evangelicals believe that their faith is the sole path to religious redemption, and interfaith cooperation might harm their followers. </p>
<p>Additionally, some younger evangelicals tend toward adopting spiritual resources outside of the Christian tradition. Whether incorporating meditation techniques or yoga, my interviewees highlighted the ways in which they are exploring their religious and spiritual beliefs. </p>
<p>This contrasts with older evangelicals who perceive their tradition as providing all necessary resources for spiritual growth and reject any outside or Eastern influences. One interviewee noted that she had to change evangelical churches after her evangelical church prohibited her from being both a church member and a local yoga instructor. </p>
<h2>Losing interest in the culture war</h2>
<p>Many of the younger evangelicals in my study stated that their stances on culture war issues were significantly different from the evangelical majority of the past 50 years, which aligns with <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/05/04/though-still-conservative-young-evangelicals-are-more-liberal-than-their-elders-on-some-issues/">the findings of a 2017 Pew Research Center poll</a>. This survey found that younger generations of millennials are more liberal than older evangelicals on numerous political issues. </p>
<p>My interviewees cited an acceptance and welcoming of those who identify as LGBTQ into their communities as both members and leaders. They support and ally with the objectives of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. In sum, they are actively dismantling many of the insider/outsider distinctions established by older white evangelicals and transforming what it means to be a politically engaged evangelical in America.</p>
<p>Furthermore, many of the people that I spoke with cited a culture war fatigue. Some believe that evangelicalism’s multi-decade investment in campaigning for these conservative stances and alliance with the Republican Party actually harmed the evangelical tradition instead of empowering it, while others are simply trying to opt out of the culture war and focus on their faith instead. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="President Donald Trump takes his seat next to National Rifle Associations (NRA) Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer Wayne LaPierre, right, and Pastor Paula White, left, of the New Destiny Christian Center, at a 2017 White House meeting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407078/original/file-20210617-25-1ibr9fk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407078/original/file-20210617-25-1ibr9fk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407078/original/file-20210617-25-1ibr9fk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407078/original/file-20210617-25-1ibr9fk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407078/original/file-20210617-25-1ibr9fk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407078/original/file-20210617-25-1ibr9fk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407078/original/file-20210617-25-1ibr9fk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Influential figures like Paula White, left, helped rally evangelical support for Donald Trump, who in turn rewarded them with advisory and other roles in his administration.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ReligionPaulaWhite/d34a2fc5ce034461ac2a52c3d81efdcf">Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP</a></span>
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<p>Interviewees also told me that often their views are creating <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10050341">familial conflict</a>, since their parents and grandparents cannot understand why any evangelical would not be committed to the older generations’ conservative political causes. </p>
<h2>Political conversion</h2>
<p>Research to date, including my own, has yet to measure how widespread these shifts of attitude and belief among young white evangelicals may be. But there is other evidence of internal unraveling. </p>
<p>Take a recent announcement by Beth Moore, an influential evangelical speaker and author, that she <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/03/09/bible-teacher-beth-moore-ends-partnership-with-lifeway-i-am-no-longer-a-southern-baptist/">has decided to leave</a> the Southern Baptist Convention – the largest evangelical group in the U.S. – and end her relationship with a prominent evangelical publisher. </p>
<p>Or consider the <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/06/02/leaked-russell-moore-letter-blasts-sbc-conservatives-sheds-light-on-his-resignation/">recent departure</a> of pastor Russell Moore, the former president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, who resigned from his position over the denomination’s handling of racial issues. These developments indicate a growing internal struggle over who can legitimately claim authority for the evangelical tradition. </p>
<p>The last several decades of American politics have been dominated by culture war issues, with white evangelicals in positions of national power. But as my research is documenting, a political transformation seems to be underway. With younger, white evangelicals rethinking their alliances and continued participation in the culture wars, it is possible that conservative politicians may not be able to count on white evangelical support for much longer. </p>
<p>This could have broader implications for the American political landscape. Without evangelical support and influence, the issues that are often at center stage could drastically change. </p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This article has been updated to clarify Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s faith as a conservative Christian and pastor Russell Moore’s title.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162407/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Terry Shoemaker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Growing numbers of young evangelicals and ‘Exvangelicals’ are pro-LGBTQ, support #BlackLivesMatter – or are fed up altogether with mixing faith and politics.Terry Shoemaker, Lecturer, School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1624572021-06-14T12:28:50Z2021-06-14T12:28:50ZSouthern Baptist Convention’s focus on mission recalls history of promoting white dominance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406025/original/file-20210613-21-8t30gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C24%2C3252%2C2475&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">J.D. Greear, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, has called on the denomination to focus on its theological mission.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ReligionSouthernBaptistsMeetingFriction/5a63ed4ecfe4401f9cd2d857e951fcb8/photo?Query=Southern%20AND%20Baptist&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=552&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo/Jay Reeves, File</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rocked <a href="https://apnews.com/article/tn-state-wire-baptist-sexual-abuse-by-clergy-religion-02eed70aa285370d4419c8fb585e6e38">by controversies</a>, <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/05/21/southern-baptist-decline-continues-denomination-has-lost-more-than-2-million-members-since-2006/">dwindling numbers</a> and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/the-fight-for-the-heart-of-the-southern-baptist-convention">internal divisions</a>, the Southern Baptist Convention will meet for its <a href="https://sbcannualmeeting.net/">annual meeting on June 15</a> under the banner: “We Are Great Commission Baptists.”</p>
<p>The slogan is notable not only for the unifying “we” but for the statement of intent regarding the SBC’s theological mission – the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-great-commission-and-why-is-it-so-controversial-111138">Great Commission</a>” refers to Jesus’ call in the Bible for his <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2028%3A16-20&version=NIV">disciples to spread the word</a> throughout the world.</p>
<p>Expounding on his choice of the motto for this year’s event, SBC President J.D. Greear remarked, “<a href="https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/2021-sbc-annual-meeting-to-remain-in-nashville-shift-venues/">I can’t wait to join brothers and sisters as we assemble to focus on the Great Commission and keep the Gospel above all</a>.”</p>
<p>His comments come after a number of prominent leaders left the SBC over social issues. In December 2020, several <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/12/23/black-pastors-break-southern-baptist-critical-race-theory/">influential Black pastors from the denomination</a> departed after all <a href="https://religionnews.com/2020/12/29/the-sbcs-critical-race-theory-debacle/">six Southern Baptist seminaries declared</a> critical race theory – which analyzes racism through the role of structures and institutions rather than individual prejudices – to be incompatible with the “<a href="https://bfm.sbc.net/">Baptist Faith and Message</a>” and antithetical to the Gospel. In the spring, <a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/why-beth-moores-departure-from-the-sbc-really-matters/#.YLegd_lKiUk">Beth Moore</a>, a widely popular writer and speaker, and <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/06/02/russell-moore-parts-from-southern-baptists-professionally-and-personally/">Russell Moore</a>, not related, who was until recently the president of the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, left the denomination over its handling of issues including race, gender and sexual abuse.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://religionnews.com/2020/09/16/southern-baptists-warm-to-moniker-great-commission-baptists/">moniker</a> “Great Commission Baptists” – which some Southern Baptists have been using as an unofficial descriptor for nearly a decade – indicates a focus on theological purity over social divisions. Jason Allen, president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, <a href="https://twitter.com/jasonkeithallen/status/1305882501110550528">tweeted in regard to the “Great Commission” moniker</a> that: “Geographically, it reflects our national identity. Missiologically, it states up front what most unites & animates us.”</p>
<p>But this mission orientation is not as neutral on social issues as it might seem. As a <a href="https://memphisseminary.edu/dr-janel-kragt-bakker/">scholar who studies the history of mission and evangelism</a> among white Protestants, I examine the connection between <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/sister-churches-9780199328215?cc=us&lang=en&">cultural imperialism and the modern Western missionary movement</a>. And Southern Baptist rhetoric about mission taps into a long history of promoting white dominance through religious means. </p>
<h2>‘Making disciples of all nations’</h2>
<p>William Carey, an English Baptist shoemaker, is often <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-bb/Christian+Mission%3A+How+Christianity+Became+a+World+Religion+-p-9780631236207">considered by historians</a> to have jump-started the modern Western missionary movement among Protestants with his 1792 manifesto, “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11449/11449-h/11449-h.htm">An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens</a>.”</p>
<p>In this widely circulated tract, Carey argued that Jesus’ words in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2028&version=NIV">Matthew 28</a> to “go therefore and make disciples of all nations” were not just a directive to Jesus’ contemporaries. Rather, they served as a command to modern-day Christians to spread the gospel around the world.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An engraving of shoemaker turn missionary William Carey" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405999/original/file-20210612-15-cwu3t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405999/original/file-20210612-15-cwu3t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405999/original/file-20210612-15-cwu3t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405999/original/file-20210612-15-cwu3t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405999/original/file-20210612-15-cwu3t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405999/original/file-20210612-15-cwu3t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405999/original/file-20210612-15-cwu3t7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">William Carey’s missionary beliefs were entwined with white supremacy thinking.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William_Carey.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>Carey urged Christians to “use every lawful method to spread the knowledge of [Jesus’] name.” </p>
<p>He advocated for Protestants in Europe and North America to borrow the capitalist model of the trading company to establish voluntary missionary societies dedicated to global evangelism. </p>
<p>But from the beginning of this movement, this missionary work was <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300171365/christian-imagination">intertwined with white supremacist beliefs</a> and the <a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15798.html">exploitation of nonwhite bodies</a> that spurred Carey’s native U.K. into becoming a colonial superpower.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.zondervan.com/9780310830627/from-jerusalem-to-irian-jaya/">Carey convinced fellow Christians</a> to buy shares in his missionary venture, send his family and him to India on a merchant ship, and support him financially while he spread the Christian message among those he described as “heathens.” The return on investment would be the spiritual reward of following Jesus’ command while rescuing (black and brown) souls in foreign lands from eternal damnation.</p>
<p>Voluntary missionary societies like Carey’s sprung up all over Europe and North America in the 19th century with the intent of widening the boundaries of “Christendom.” But closely overlaid was the concept of “<a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9780230616493">civilizing” nonwhite people</a>. Many white Protestant Christians believed themselves to have not only the right, but the duty, to <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-kingdom-of-god-has-no-borders-9780190213428?cc=us&lang=en&#">expand their version of the “Kingdom of God</a>.”</p>
<h2>Southern Baptists and slavery</h2>
<p>Although <a href="https://www.orbisbooks.com/transforming-mission.html">Christian understandings</a> and <a href="https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/7562/migration-and-the-making-of-global-christianity.aspx">practices of mission are far from monolithic</a>, the Southern Baptist Convention was a direct descendant of the embrace of imperialism as mission.</p>
<p>Baptists first <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/baptists-in-america-9780199977536?cc=us&lang=en&">organized nationally</a> in the U.S. in the early 19th century in order to collectively support mission efforts both abroad and on the American frontier. Understanding salvation as the <a href="https://bfm.sbc.net/bfm2000/">rescue of an individual from eternal condemnation</a> through belief in Jesus, many Baptists focused on promoting individual conversions rather than challenging the social hierarchy or creating a more just society. In the South, evangelizing people who were enslaved was often encouraged <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/slave-religion-9780195174120?cc=us&lang=en&">as a means to keep them docile and compliant</a>.</p>
<p>The SBC, which <a href="http://www.baptisthistory.org/baptistorigins/southernbaptistbeginnings.html">was founded in 1845</a> in a split with Northern Baptists, owes its very existence to assumptions about the rightful dominion of white male Christians. </p>
<p>While the national Baptist body adopted a position of “neutrality” on slavery, in which they neither condemned nor condoned the practice, prominent Baptists in the South pushed the issue by demanding that slaveholders be eligible for missionary appointments. When Northerners refused, Southern Baptists split. They created the SBC for the express purpose of continuing the work of mission. </p>
<p>This pro-slavery legacy of the SBC continues to haunt the denomination, producing <a href="https://sbts-wordpress-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/sbts/uploads/2018/12/Racism-and-the-Legacy-of-Slavery-Report-v3.pdf">halting attempts to clear its name</a> while <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/on-critical-race-theory-and-intersectionality/">evading systemic analysis of racism that is found in critical theory</a>.</p>
<h2>Continuing cultural imperialism</h2>
<p>It is important to keep this history in mind when considering the current agenda of the Southern Baptist Convention and other white Christians steeped in a legacy of cultural imperialism and white supremacy. Without an interrogation of the meaning of their rhetoric, current SBC appeals to the gospel message and an evangelistic mandate – as shown though the promotion of the “Great Commission Baptists” moniker – reinforce rather than challenge this legacy. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>The SBC maintains in its statement of faith, “The Baptist Faith and Message,” that the role of “missionary effort” is “<a href="https://www.sbc.net/about/">to win the lost to Christ</a>.” At the annual meeting in Nashville, the Southern Baptist Convention will likely adopt “<a href="https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/2021-sbc-book-of-reports-released/">Vision 2025</a>.” It is a plan that includes increasing missionary activity and <a href="https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/vision-2025-5k-new-congregations-reachable-if-churches-step-forward/">planting more churches</a> in a bid to retain more young people and stave off <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-End-of-White-Christian-America/Robert-P-Jones/9781501122323">ongoing numerical decline</a>.</p>
<p>But coming from an almost entirely white male SBC leadership, such rhetoric about “winning the lost” and “planting churches” may echo a familiar quest to regain cultural and political territory in theological terms.</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.ats.edu/">Memphis Theological Seminary is a member of the Association of Theological Schools.</a></p>
<footer>The ATS is a funding partner of The Conversation US.</footer>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janel Kragt Bakker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The SBC is meeting amid divisions, controversy and dwindling numbers. But in pushing rhetoric over its theological mission, the denomination is tapping into a history of white supremacy.Janel Kragt Bakker, Associate Professor of Mission and Culture, Memphis Theological SeminaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1624112021-06-11T12:40:21Z2021-06-11T12:40:21ZFrom abortion and porn to women and race: How Southern Baptist Convention resolutions have evolved<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405761/original/file-20210610-27-glalc5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C311%2C4617%2C2907&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Raise your hands if you think this year's Southern Baptist Convention meeting could be feisty.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SouthernBaptists/ea4186124356480596285b6aaf176122/photo?Query=Southern%20Baptist%20Convention&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=271&currentItemNo=63">AP Photo/Matt York</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Southern Baptist Convention will convene its annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, on <a href="https://sbcannualmeeting.net/">June 15, 2021</a>, in what could be the most consequential such get-together in recent memory.</p>
<p>Just 15 years ago, the SBC <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/05/21/southern-baptist-decline-continues-denomination-has-lost-more-than-2-million-members-since-2006/">boasted some 16.3 million members</a> across the United States. However, it is hemorrhaging members. According to data released in May, Southern Baptists have <a href="https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/southern-baptists-grow-in-number-of-churches-plant-588-new-congregations-amidst-covid-19-pandemic/">lost over 2 million members since 2006</a>, with <a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/sbc-loses-another-435000-members-in-2020/#.YMJABJNKj_Q">over 400,000 defections</a> in the last year alone.</p>
<p>The denomination has also been embroiled in a number of controversies in recent years. A <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/on-critical-race-theory-and-intersectionality/">resolution passed at the 2019 meeting</a> condemned critical race theory, a set of ideas that view racism as structural rather than expressed through individual prejudice, prompting <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/12/23/black-pastors-break-southern-baptist-critical-race-theory/">several prominent Black pastors to depart</a>. And in March, Beth Moore, a very popular female Southern Baptist author and speaker, <a href="https://religionnews.com/2021/03/09/bible-teacher-beth-moore-ends-partnership-with-lifeway-i-am-no-longer-a-southern-baptist/">publicly announced that she was leaving the group</a>, citing the SBC’s approval of Donald Trump and its views on gender. The widely held perception is that the SBC has <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/06/southern-baptist-convention-is-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket.html">lurched farther to the right</a> over the last few years.</p>
<p>As a result, all eyes will be on the resolutions that are debated and subsequently passed at the annual meeting, the belief being they will give tremendous insight into the trajectory of the SBC and more generally American evangelicalism, of which Southern Baptists are the largest group.</p>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://www.eiu.edu/polisci/faculty.php/hendrickson.php?id=rpburge&subcat=">religion data analyst</a> who wrote a computer script to collect and organize the text of all the resolutions passed at the annual meeting data back to 1845 to see if there were any patterns. What became clear was that many of the “bread and butter” culture war issues that fueled the SBC 20 years ago – such as abortion and homosexuality – have faded and been replaced by a new set of issues that seem to be furthering the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/the-fight-for-the-heart-of-the-southern-baptist-convention">divide between conservatives and more moderate members</a> of the Southern Baptist Convention.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405510/original/file-20210609-28624-1r6d28r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/405510/original/file-20210609-28624-1r6d28r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405510/original/file-20210609-28624-1r6d28r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405510/original/file-20210609-28624-1r6d28r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405510/original/file-20210609-28624-1r6d28r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405510/original/file-20210609-28624-1r6d28r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/405510/original/file-20210609-28624-1r6d28r.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://twitter.com/ryanburge/status/1401704061762785289">Ryan Burge</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>One thing to note is that for the first 100 years of the convention, which was formed in 1845, the culture wars that dominate the conversation today were largely absent. The discussion concerning race began only in the 1940s, but that quickly ebbed a decade later.</p>
<p>In the 1970s, the annual meeting began to turn to concerns about abortion and how that affected women in the United States. In the early years after the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1971/70-18">Roe v. Wade decision</a> in 1973, many resolutions that discussed abortion also contained the word “women.” </p>
<p>But that linkage began to weaken by the late 1980s. Discussion around abortion peaked in the mid-1990s, which is right about the same time that topics concerning homosexuality were being discussed with greater frequency. </p>
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<p>But in the last 10 years, there’s clear evidence that the classic culture war issues of abortion and homosexuality have faded. In fact, the word “homosexuality” has not appeared in a resolution since 2013. In their absence, race and gender have become much more central to the debate. Pornography – a hot resolution topic during the 1980s when the <a href="https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/want-a-closer-look-at-the-1980s-porn-industry-in-nyc">pornographic industry was experiencing a boom</a> – no longer registers as a concern worthy of registering in a resolution.</p>
<p>The last meeting of the SBC occurred in 2019, and there was both a resolution on women not being included in the selective service, which would determine who would be eligible for a military draft in the U.S., and one against the teaching of critical race theory. </p>
<p>There’s ample reason to believe that both the role of women and race will be on the minds of the attendees next week, given the amount of media coverage to the topics in the runup to the event.</p>
<p>The trajectory of evangelicalism hinges in part on what resolutions get debated at the annual meeting and which ones eventually pass. Is the solution to a rapidly declining membership becoming more theologically and ideologically conservative? Or is a more inclusive SBC the remedy to this downturn? </p>
<p>The annual meeting might deliver a clearer picture of where members of the SBC see the future of the denomination.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162411/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ryan Burge does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A religion data analyst scraped the texts of all Southern Baptist resolutions over the last 150 years. Here’s what he found.Ryan Burge, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Eastern Illinois UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1610612021-06-01T12:48:52Z2021-06-01T12:48:52ZHow women in the Southern Baptist Convention have fought for decades to be ordained<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402949/original/file-20210526-21-lqusbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=83%2C14%2C1834%2C1026&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Southern Baptist Convention leaders believe women's ordination violates biblical teaching. Women have long protested against such views.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/WomensRightsRallyatSouthernBaptistConvention/8ff52b15e87d4f949036fd2827a76988/photo?Query=Southern%20Baptist%20Convention%20women&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=23&currentItemNo=1">AP Photo/Julie Bennett</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention <a href="https://sbcannualmeeting.net/">meet during their annual gathering</a> in Nashville, Tennessee, in June 2021, the issue of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2021/05/11/saddleback-ordain-women-sbc/">three women being ordained</a> to ministry will likely be an intense topic of conversation. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/the-debate-over-women-pastors-is-a-southern-baptist-smoke-screen/2021/05/14/51769a36-b4f2-11eb-bc96-fdf55de43bef_story.html">Convention leaders had decried the moves</a> in May by Saddleback Church, in Lake Forest, California – one of the demonination’s largest churches – as a violation of biblical teaching and the Southern Baptist Convention’s stance on women in ministry. </p>
<p>As someone <a href="https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813124766/god-speaks-to-us-too/">who was ordained</a> as a Southern Baptist minister in 1993, I know that opposition to women’s ordination has always existed, but many denominational leaders, seminaries and local churches have supported the practice.</p>
<p>For Southern Baptists, ordination is an affirmation of a call to ministry that enables the church in its work in the world. Ordination recognizes a person’s calling and gifts for leadership and allows people to carry out certain ministerial duties such as being a pastor, administering communion, performing baptisms and officiating weddings. It does not necessarily bestow any religious authority.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://bwim.info/remembering-addie-on-the-fifty-fifth-anniversary-of-her-ordination-part-1-by-pam-durso/">first woman</a> to be ordained by a Southern Baptist church was Addie Davis in 1964 at the Watts Street Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina. </p>
<p>At the time, the Watts Street Baptist Church was already known to be a progressive congregation that was supportive of the civil rights movement. So ordaining a woman fit within the church’s progressive vision, although most members weren’t aware they were making history with Davis’ ordination. The church’s pastor and Davis did receive some letters opposing her ordination, but the Southern Baptist Convention meeting a year later <a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/was-addie-davis-ordination-an-anomaly-or-a-precursor-for-the-time/#.YKVO1s-SnD4">did not take up the issue</a>. </p>
<p>However, it wasn’t until the 1970s that more women were ordained. As the women’s movement began to have influence across society, many churches and individual women began to recognize that if women could be CEOs and university presidents, they could also be pastors and denominational leaders. Soon, <a href="https://theconversation.com/sexism-has-long-been-part-of-the-culture-of-southern-baptists-112209">greater numbers of women</a> began attending Southern Baptist seminaries, professing a call to ordained ministry. I was among them.</p>
<p>As a scholar who writes about <a href="https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813124766/god-speaks-to-us-too/">Baptist women</a>, I know how fundamentalists within the Southern Baptist Convention continue to oppose women’s ordination. I also know that there is not an awful lot fundamentalists can do to prevent it. Local churches are fully autonomous, and the Southern Baptist Convention cannot tell them what to do. At most, it can expel a congregation from membership. </p>
<h2>Controversy over role of women</h2>
<p>In the 1970s, Southern Baptist publishing houses, seminaries, boards that appointed missionaries and commissions organized a number of national gatherings focused on the role of women in the church. Subsequently, a group known as <a href="https://bwim.info/history/">Women in Ministry, SBC</a> was formed.</p>
<p>During its first meeting in 1983, the group adopted a purpose statement that it should “provide support for the women whose call from God defines her vocation as that of minister … and to encourage and affirm her call to be a servant of God.”</p>
<p>But by this time, fundamentalist Southern Baptists had a begun to wrest control of the Southern Baptist Convention from more moderate voices. </p>
<p>This controversy set up a bitter dispute within the Southern Baptist Convention over the role of women, especially in ordained ministry. From the early 1980s, some local churches ordained women as pastors. However, some local Baptist associations <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1987/10/20/baptist-group-ousts-church-with-female-pastor/6510f2cd-935b-4c57-abbc-da6c0d82cebb/">ousted such churches</a>. </p>
<p>A year after the formation of Women in Ministry, the Southern Baptist Convention adopted a resolution entitled “<a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/resolution-on-ordination-and-the-role-of-women-in-ministry/">On Ordination and the Role of Women in Ministry</a>.” This resolution stated that women should be excluded from pastoral leadership “to preserve a submission God requires because man was first in creation and woman was first in the Edenic fall.” The resolution concluded by encouraging “the service of women in all aspects of church life and work other than pastoral functions and leadership roles entailing ordination.” </p>
<p>Nonetheless, by 1987, Southern Baptist churches had ordained <a href="https://bwim.info/history/">nearly 500 women</a>, 18 of whom served as pastors. Women in Ministry, SBC changed its name to Southern Baptist Women in Ministry to highlight the organization’s independence from the Southern Baptist Convention.</p>
<h2>Women’s submission</h2>
<p>Women’s ordination sparked a backlash from fundamentalists who gained control of the Southern Baptist seminaries, mission boards and publishing house. Their views on women’s ordination became a litmus test for faithfulness to Christian belief. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://divinity.wfu.edu/academics/faculty/bill-j-leonard/">Bill J. Leonard</a>, a historian of religion, wrote in a 1995 paper, scholars who supported women’s ordination were removed from teaching positions, and new hires had to affirm women’s exclusion from ordination. </p>
<p>The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary <a href="https://sbts-wordpress-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/sbts/uploads/sites/3/2021/03/AA-203-2019-SBTS-Academic-Catalog-20-21-updated-v1-1.pdf">barred women</a> from preaching and pastoral care classes. <a href="https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/namb-will-no-longer-endorse-ordained-female-chaplains/">Mission boards</a> stopped appointing women to equal positions with men. Southern Baptist publications asserted women’s submission. </p>
<p>By the late 1990s, women’s ordination among Southern Baptists seemed a settled issue in favor of exclusion. A <a href="https://bfm.sbc.net/bfm2000/#vi-the-church">2000 revision</a> of the Southern Baptist Convention’s statement of faith reaffirmed this: “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”</p>
<h2>Controversy reemerges</h2>
<p>Finding themselves no longer aligned with the fundamentalist-dominated Southern Baptist Convention, many individuals and churches left it to form the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the progressive <a href="https://allianceofbaptists.org/about">Alliance of Baptists</a>, both of which <a href="https://cbfblog.com/2017/04/28/leading-women-conference-offers-affirmation-of-every-womans-story/">support</a> women’s ordination and women in the pastorate. </p>
<p>In 1995, Southern Baptist Women in Ministry again changed its name, this time to Baptist Women in Ministry, to reflect its complete break from the Southern Baptist Convention. Today Baptist Women in Ministry supports and advocates for women in ministry through educational and networking opportunities and awards that recognize preaching and pastoral leadership. As of 2017, <a href="https://eileencampbellreed.org/wp-content/uploads/Downloads/State-of-Clergywomen-US-2018-web.pdf">nearly 2,500 Baptist women</a> had been ordained, and 174 served as pastors in Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Alliance churches.</p>
<p>For Southern Baptists, most of whom likely thought the issue of women’s ordination was settled, the ordinations at Saddleback Church renewed the controversy over women’s roles in the church. Saddleback is the largest and most prominent Southern Baptist church to ordain women since the fundamentalists gained control of the denomination.</p>
<p>Already, a number of Southern Baptists are <a href="https://evangelicaldarkweb.org/2021/05/09/will-rick-warren-be-kicked-out-of-the-southern-baptist-convention/">calling for the Southern Baptist Convention to investigate</a> and possibly expel Saddleback Church for its ordination of women. When asked about the ordinations, <a href="https://illinoisbaptist.org/sbc-candidates-respond-to-ordinations-at-saddleback/">one of the candidates</a> standing for election as Southern Baptist Convention president when it meets in June responded, “The BFM [Baptist Faith and Message] is clear that Southern Baptists do not believe in women serving as pastors. Churches which ordain or call female pastors are not acting in friendly cooperation with the SBC and should either change, withdraw, or be subject to our disfellowshipping processes.”</p>
<p>The upcoming annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention will certainly test Southern Baptists’ willingness to exclude even an eminent church and its celebrated pastor over the issue of women’s ordination.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161061/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan M. Shaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Southern Baptists are calling for an investigation into the ordination of three women. A scholar explains why this continues to be a fraught issue, even though 2,500 women have been ordained to date.Susan M. Shaw, Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1574962021-03-23T18:30:48Z2021-03-23T18:30:48ZPurity culture and the subjugation of women: Southern Baptist beliefs on sex and gender provide context to spa suspect’s ‘motive’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391156/original/file-20210323-20-4wmays.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4228%2C2814&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Southern Baptist purity culture teaches that women are to blame for men's sexual urges.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CORRECTIONMassageParlorShooting/8fdee80b46e04a22b1e167b24de9ebdb/photo?Query=Robert%20Aaron%20Long&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=26&currentItemNo=22">AP Photo/Mike Stewart</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article was originally published on March 23, 2021.</em></p>
<p>Even before a member of a Southern Baptist church was accused of the <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-news/hundreds-join-rally-to-denounce-hate-in-wake-of-deadly-spa-shootings/JQ6OJPMB2BH5HPZ5JOGTH726RY/">Georgia spa massacre</a>, motivated, he told police, by guilt over a “<a href="https://theconversation.com/sex-addiction-isnt-a-justification-for-killing-or-really-an-addiction-it-reflects-a-persons-own-moral-misgivings-about-sex-157543">sex addiction</a>,” the Southern Baptist Convention was under scrutiny over its teachings on gender and sexuality. </p>
<p>Just a week before, prominent evangelical Bible teacher <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/10/us/beth-moore-southern-baptists.html">Beth Moore</a> announced she had left the Southern Baptists, primarily over what she described as denominational leaders’ <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/03/11/976124629/prominent-evangelical-beth-moore-announces-split-from-southern-baptists">misogyny</a> as reflected in their support for Donald Trump. </p>
<p>And then came the <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/crime/spa-shooting-suspects-parents-helped-authorities-catch-him/MOL7IHLAIFBNXOC5VNCENBCYVU/">attack on March 16</a>, which left eight dead, including six Asian women. The suspect’s church has <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/ny-atlanta-spa-shooter-expelled-crabapple-baptist-church-20210321-tmi3xhhqkjhpvbimzpqdiet4jq-story.html">since expelled</a> Robert Aaron Long, the 21-year-old charged in the killings, and condemned the actions as the result of a “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/03/21/atlanta-gunman-expelled-church/">sinful heart</a>.”</p>
<p>No one is suggesting that the denomination was responsible for what happened.</p>
<p>But as a <a href="https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/users/susan-shaw">scholar of gender and religion</a> and someone who grew up Southern Baptist, I am aware that holding girls and women responsible for men’s sexual urges is not uncommon in a denomination that expects women to submit to men. This expectation of submission was a theme that came up repeatedly in <a href="https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813124766/god-speaks-to-us-too/">interviews I conducted with 159 current and former Southern Baptist women</a> for my book “God Speaks to Us, Too: Southern Baptist Women on Church, Home, and Society.”</p>
<h2>Common beliefs, not creeds</h2>
<p>Southern Baptists, the largest branch of evangelicalism in the U.S., are noncreedal. This means Southern Baptists do not have a required dogma, although the denomination’s confessional statement, “<a href="https://bfm.sbc.net/">The Baptist Faith and Message</a>,” lays out commonly held beliefs. Not every Southern Baptist, then, believes the same things.</p>
<p>But since the 1990s, fundamentalists who adhere to a strict set of beliefs <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40071252?seq=1">have controlled the denomination</a>. Their approach to interpreting the Bible and their beliefs about gender predominate in Southern Baptist churches. They are taught in Southern Baptist seminaries, practiced in hiring for missionaries and agency workers, and reflected in curriculum materials for churches. </p>
<p>Central is the belief in <a href="https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1991/06/15/why-southern-baptists-insist-on-biblical-literalism/">Biblical literalism</a> – a method of interpreting the Bible based on the belief that the text is literally true. Biblical literalists believe, for example, that God created the universe in six days, that a worldwide flood destroyed all but Noah’s family and the pairs of animals on the ark, and that the Red Sea parted so the Israelites could walk across on dry ground. </p>
<p>Literalism goes hand in hand with <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/on-biblical-scholarship-and-the-doctrine-of-inerrancy/">inerrancy</a> – the belief that the Bible is without error, not only in doctrine but also in history and science. </p>
<p>This method of interpreting the Bible <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/srt056">plays a significant role</a> in how Southern Baptists come to many of their beliefs about gender. </p>
<h2>The fall of Eve</h2>
<p>Many Southern Baptists believe that the story of Adam and Eve in the Bible happened literally as described. That is, God created one man and one woman, put them in the Garden of Eden, and forbade them to eat the fruit from one tree.</p>
<p>Because Eve was the first of the humans to fall from God’s grace by eating the forbidden fruit, she became subject to man. And that subjugation fell on all women, according to Southern Baptist teaching.</p>
<p>Further, some Baptists argue that gender hierarchy was God’s original intention. </p>
<p>This interpretation of Eve as “first in the Edenic fall” was cited by Southern Baptists in a 1984 <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/resolution-on-ordination-and-the-role-of-women-in-ministry/">resolution</a> calling for women to be excluded from ordained ministry.</p>
<p>This fits with the Southern Baptist principle of <a href="https://cbmw.org/about/danvers-statement">complementarianism</a>, which holds that while God created men and women as equals, they perform separate but complementary roles: that men are to be leaders in home, church and society, and women are to be submissive helpers, primarily responsible for caring for the home and rearing children.</p>
<p>In this way, women are expected to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/10/us/southern-baptists-declare-wife-should-submit-to-her-husband.html">submit to men</a> in the home and in the church. Southern Baptist leaders point to the writings of the apostle Paul in the Bible (Ephesians 5:22) as evidence of God’s expectation of women’s submission: “Wives, submit yourself unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.” </p>
<p>This view of submission also means that women <a href="https://religionnews.com/2019/06/05/beth-moores-ministry-reignites-debate-over-whether-women-can-preach/">should not hold leadership over men or teach men</a> in the church, hence the move to prevent women being ordained. </p>
<h2>Sexuality and gender identity</h2>
<p>The denomination’s teachings on sexuality are similarly rooted in traditional beliefs about women and men.</p>
<p>Humans were, according to Southern Baptists, created heterosexual, and sexual activity is acceptable only between a man and a woman in a lifelong heterosexual marriage. While 54% of Christians support acceptance of homosexuality, only <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/18/most-u-s-christian-groups-grow-more-accepting-of-homosexuality/">30% of Southern Baptists</a> believe homosexuality should be accepted. In 1992, the Southern Baptist Convention <a href="https://www.baptistpress.com/resource-library/news/sbcs-homosexuality-stance-reinforced-by-1992-amendment/">amended its constitution</a> to exclude churches that implied acceptance of homosexuality. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A bell dating to 1894 is seen at Crabtree First Baptist Church in Milton, Georgia." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391159/original/file-20210323-18-qjr06v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391159/original/file-20210323-18-qjr06v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391159/original/file-20210323-18-qjr06v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391159/original/file-20210323-18-qjr06v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391159/original/file-20210323-18-qjr06v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391159/original/file-20210323-18-qjr06v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391159/original/file-20210323-18-qjr06v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The suspect in the spa killings attended Crabtree First Baptist Church in Milton, Ga.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/bell-dating-to-1894-is-seen-at-crabtree-first-baptist-news-photo/1231821437?adppopup=true">Chris Aluka Berry for The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention recently <a href="https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/religion/2021/02/23/southern-baptists-expel-churches-sex-abuse-homosexuality/4497855001/">ousted two churches</a> that welcome LGBTQ people into membership.</p>
<p>Most evangelicals believe that God created humanity as <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/11/27/views-of-transgender-issues-divide-along-religious-lines/">male and female only</a>. According to the denomination, only these two biological sexes exist, and gender aligns with sex.</p>
<p>In 2014, the Southern Baptist Convention approved a <a href="https://www.sbc.net/resource-library/resolutions/on-transgender-identity/">resolution</a> affirming, “God’s good design” is “that gender identity is determined by biological sex and not by one’s self-perception.”</p>
<p>These views on sexual activity and gender roles are reflected in the <a href="https://msmagazine.com/2018/10/29/ms-qa-linda-kay-klein-broke-free-purity-culture/">purity culture</a> that influences many Southern Baptists. Purity culture focuses on abstinence outside traditional heterosexual marriage and dangers in girls’ and women’s sexuality. In particular, purity culture teaches that <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-extreme-abstinence-of-the-purity-movement-created-a-sense-of-shame-in-evangelical-women-127589">girls and women are responsible for boys’ and men’s sexuality</a> and that they may cause boys and men to sin through expressions of their own sexuality. </p>
<p>These teachings are supported by an entire industry of purity rings, purity balls, purity curricula and purity music. Purity culture rarely talks about sexual violence or consent because of the assumption that controlling men’s sexual urges is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2021/03/18/purity-culture-atlanta-shooter-women-sexuality/">women’s responsibility</a>, and so, if women will be completely asexual, men will not be overcome by their sexual urges.</p>
<p>Taken together, these beliefs create a context in which men exert authority and control. Women are expected to submit to men and to constrain men’s sexual urges and behaviors through their pure lifestyles. Women are seen as important but secondary, equal in value but submissive in actuality. </p>
<p>None of this can excuse or explain the actions of the shooting suspect in Georgia. But Southern Baptist beliefs about sex and gender give context to the suspect’s apparent conviction that his sexual urges were wrong, and that the women he believed to have encouraged them were in some way responsible.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157496/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan M. Shaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar of gender and religion who grew up Southern Baptist explains how literal teachings on the Bible inform members’ views on women.Susan M. Shaw, Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1186712019-06-27T12:46:54Z2019-06-27T12:46:54ZShould Southern Baptist women be preachers? A centuries old controversy finds new life<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281430/original/file-20190626-76726-1h1aii6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Members at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in 2017, in Phoenix</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Southern-Baptists/2d9be3effebb4dd49a715ec4da2d9f4d/91/0">AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Southern Baptists are arguing again over the role women should play in the church.</p>
<p>Following a tweet from popular Southern Baptist speaker, teacher and writer <a href="https://religionnews.com/2019/06/05/beth-moores-ministry-reignites-debate-over-whether-women-can-preach/">Beth Moore</a> that suggested she was preaching at a Southern Baptist church, many Baptist leaders accused her of defying God’s word. </p>
<p>These Baptist leaders believe women cannot hold positions of authority over men and that means they shouldn’t preach, teach men, or serve as pastor. The <a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/mohler-says-women-should-not-occupy-the-lords-day-pulpit/#.XQPTYcR7nic">president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary</a> went so far as to say, “I think there’s just something about the order of creation that means that God intends for the preaching voice to be a male voice.” </p>
<p>Beth Moore is theologically conservative and <a href="https://www.baptiststandard.com/news/baptists/beth-moore-reignites-debate-over-whether-women-can-preach/">doesn’t believe women should be pastors</a>. But her recent tweet renewed a debate that’s been an issue for more than 300 years.</p>
<p>The issue of women’s leadership has raged among Baptists <a href="https://archive.org/details/companyofwomenpr0000unse">since the beginning</a> of the denomination in <a href="http://www.baptisthistory.org/baptistorigins/baptistbeginnings.html">17th century England</a>. </p>
<h2>Women preachers among early Baptists</h2>
<p>As a <a href="http://www.kentuckypress.com/live/title_detail.php?titleid=2105#.XQQSFcR7nic">researcher</a> who studies Baptist women and was also ordained by Shalom Baptist Church in Louisville in 1993, I’m deeply familiar with this history.</p>
<p>Only a few years after Baptists arose in England, women began teaching and preaching, particularly in London.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.helwys.com/sh-books/the-baptist-identity/">Baptists believe</a> God speaks directly to each individual, and, each person’s conscience, under God’s guidance, directs their belief and behavior. </p>
<p>Baptists also believe that each individual church is autonomous and should make its own decisions rather than relying on the authority of a bishop or pope. These core Baptist convictions led to <a href="https://www.helwys.com/sh-books/not-a-silent-people/">great disagreements</a>. </p>
<p>Early Baptists disagreed over, for example, whether salvation was available to everyone or only to those whom God had predestined. They even disagreed over whether or not hymn-singing was appropriate. </p>
<p>And, from the beginning, Baptists <a href="https://www.baylorpress.com/9781602583184/a-company-of-women-preachers/">also disagreed on women preaching</a>. Some congregations allowed it while others did not.</p>
<p>Even women who preached were not ordained. As Baptists set up processes for how churches would administer themselves, they <a href="https://www.baylorpress.com/9781602583184/a-company-of-women-preachers/">limited ordination to men</a>. </p>
<p>But some of the women <a href="https://www.baylorpress.com/9781602583184/a-company-of-women-preachers/">justified their preaching</a> by hearkening back to biblical times. They gave examples of the leadership of women such as Miriam, sister of Moses, who was a prophetess. They quoted an 11-century B.C. prophetess Deborah, who was a judge of the Israelites. Based on Baptist beliefs, they claimed a calling from a higher authority than church or government. </p>
<p>Church authorities, however, <a href="https://www.baylorpress.com/9781602583184/a-company-of-women-preachers/">criticized and dismissed</a> these women.</p>
<p>One of these women, Anne Wentworth, who was active in preaching, <a href="http://womenwriters.digitalscholarship.emory.edu/content.php?level=div&id=went_029&document=went">wrote</a> in 1679, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I am reproached as a proud, wicked, deceived, deluded, lying Woman; a mad, melancholy, crackbrained, self willed, conceited Fool, and black Sinner, led by whimsies, notions, and knif-knafs of my own head.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>A few Baptist churches in England permitted women to declare their commitment to Christ publicly or tell a public story of God’s work in their lives, even when they did not allow then to preach. Other churches forbade women from <a href="https://www.baylorpress.com/9781602583184/a-company-of-women-preachers/">speaking in church at all.</a> </p>
<h2>Baptist women preaching in the U.S.</h2>
<p>In the United States, <a href="https://www.lifeway.com/en/product/the-baptist-heritage-P005318206">the first Baptist church</a> was founded in 1638 in Providence, Rhode Island by Roger Williams, a Puritan minister who converted to Baptist beliefs. </p>
<p>In the 18th and 19th centuries, Baptist women continued to exercise leadership in Baptist churches in the U.S., although Baptists <a href="https://www.amazon.com/No-longer-ignored-collection-articles/dp/1578430429/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=no+longer+ignored&qid=1561475688&s=gateway&sr=8-1">remained at odds</a> over women preaching. </p>
<p>In the mid 18th century, <a href="https://www.lifeway.com/en/product/the-baptist-heritage-P005318206">two factions of Baptists emerged</a>. One group was known as “Separate Baptists.” The group grew out of the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/british-history/great-awakening">Great Awakening</a>, a series of revivals in the 1740s that emphasized religious feeling and zeal as important expressions of authentic faith. They “separated” from the more urban, conventional, and dispassionate “Regular” Baptists.</p>
<p>While Regular Baptists opposed women preaching, Separate Baptists offered greater opportunities for women. Separate Baptists accepted women as <a href="https://www.mupress.org/Southern-Baptist-Sisters-In-Search-of-Status-1845-2000-P482.aspx">deaconesses and eldresses</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.lifeway.com/en/product/the-baptist-heritage-P005318206">Shubal Stearns</a>, a Congregational preacher and evangelist, became a Separate Baptist. His sister, Martha, and brother-in-law were also preachers, and together the three of them established the <a href="https://www.sandycreek.online/his-story">first Separate Baptist church</a> in the South at Sandy Creek in 1755. </p>
<p>Martha Stearns Marshall soon became known for her ardent preaching. In 1810, Baptist historian <a href="http://www.bwim.info/news/Bulletin%20Insert%202011.pdf">Robert Semple noted</a> about Martha’s preaching, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Without the shadow of an usurped authority over the other sex, Mrs. Marshall, being a lady of good sense, singular piety, and surprising elocution has, in countless instances, melted a whole concourse into tears by her prayers and exhortations.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Openness to women preaching was the exception, and women in preaching roles remained controversial. </p>
<p>After the Southern Baptist Convention was founded in 1845, Southern Baptist women focused their efforts mostly on supporting <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4950562-a-century-to-celebrate">missions work</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281241/original/file-20190625-81780-bhzghv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281241/original/file-20190625-81780-bhzghv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281241/original/file-20190625-81780-bhzghv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281241/original/file-20190625-81780-bhzghv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281241/original/file-20190625-81780-bhzghv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281241/original/file-20190625-81780-bhzghv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281241/original/file-20190625-81780-bhzghv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear speaking to the denomination’s executive committee earlier this year.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Southern-Baptists-Abuse/ccedba25e95446d09104b48f55752621/33/0">AP Photo/Mark Humphrey</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even as missionaries, they invited criticism. Southern Baptists’ most famous missionary was <a href="https://www.lifeway.com/en/product/the-baptist-heritage-P005318206">Lottie Moon</a>, who was appointed as a missionary to China in 1873. Moon, who was very petite, often stood in her rickshaw and elevated her voice so she could be heard. Other missionaries accused her of “preaching.”</p>
<p>She responded by saying that if the men didn’t like what she was doing, they could send more men to do better. </p>
<h2>Southern Baptist women’s ordination</h2>
<p>Despite the controversy over women’s preaching, some churches have chosen to ordain women. </p>
<p>An example is the Watts Street Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina. The church ordained the first Southern Baptist woman, <a href="https://www.mupress.org/Southern-Baptist-Sisters-In-Search-of-Status-1845-2000-P482.aspx">Addie Davis</a>, who had been a dean at a Baptist school in West Virginia, to ministry in 1964.</p>
<p>Preaching itself does not require ordination. However, <a href="http://www.baptisthistory.org/21stcentury/ordination.html">ordination</a> affirms a person’s call to ministry and allows people to perform church rituals such as leading communion and officiating at weddings. It is also a requisite for serving as pastor of a church.</p>
<p>After Davis, no other Southern Baptist church ordained a woman for the next seven years. Historian <a href="https://addran.tcu.edu/faculty_staff/elizabeth-flowers/">Elizabeth Flowers</a> suggests that Davis’ ordination was <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469618920/into-the-pulpit/">downplayed at the time</a> to avoid direct conflict in the denomination. </p>
<p>Later, as fundamentalists seized power over the Convention from more moderate Baptist leaders starting in 1979, <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/236180/summary">women’s roles moved to the center</a> of debate. Fundamentalists claim to read the Bible literally. They also insist the Bible excludes women from ordained ministry, and they saw the ordination of women as evidence of theological liberalism in the denomination. </p>
<p>In 1984, the Convention passed a <a href="http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/1088/resolution-on-ordination-and-the-role-of-women-in-ministry">resolution</a> excluding women from pastoral leadership because “the man was first in creation and the woman was first in the Edenic fall.” </p>
<p>The Convention also amended its <a href="http://www.sbc.net/bfm2000/bfm2000.asp">confessional statement</a> in 2000 to claim, “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” </p>
<h2>Discord in the 21st century</h2>
<p>In 2008, I published <a href="http://www.kentuckypress.com/live/title_detail.php?titleid=2105#.XQQSFcR7nic">God Speaks to Us, Too: Southern Baptist Women on Church, Home, and Society</a>. I interviewed over 150 current and former Southern Baptist women, including dozens of women in ministry. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281244/original/file-20190625-81758-ulkbbp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281244/original/file-20190625-81758-ulkbbp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281244/original/file-20190625-81758-ulkbbp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281244/original/file-20190625-81758-ulkbbp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281244/original/file-20190625-81758-ulkbbp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281244/original/file-20190625-81758-ulkbbp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281244/original/file-20190625-81758-ulkbbp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Southern Baptist women have taken on roles as missionaries, but preaching remains controversial.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Southern-Baptists/5c42b9a584414b278ea815da058017a9/53/0">AP Photo/Jeffrey McWhorter</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Like their 17th century forebears, they told me that they had simply followed God’s calling. Most of them noted the refrain they had heard as children in their Southern Baptist churches: “You can be anything God calls you to be.” </p>
<p>Most of these women left the denomination after fundamentalists gained full control of the Convention. As more moderate Baptists abandoned the Convention and formed alternative organizations, <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469618920/into-the-pulpit/">the issue of women</a> preaching went largely silent among Southern Baptists over the past two decades.</p>
<p>But with Beth Moore’s tweet, the controversy has been rekindled.</p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118671/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan M. Shaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A controversy has erupted yet again among Southern Baptists over women’s preaching. An expert explains how despite this 300-year-old controversy, Baptist women have shown remarkable leadership.Susan M. Shaw, Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1123512019-03-11T11:11:28Z2019-03-11T11:11:28ZWhat lessons can the clergy sex abuse crisis draw from a 4th-century church schism?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262764/original/file-20190307-82652-bkdogl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Following the recent revelations about sex abuse, many Christian communities are facing a crisis of trust.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Vatican-Sex-Abuse/b9dea6b4a30248f7978238537ab398cc/25/0">AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A string of sex abuse scandals have rocked Christian communities recently: In the Roman Catholic Church, revelations related to sex abuse by priests continue to unfold <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-44209971">across the globe</a>. Within the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., media reports have brought into public view <a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/article/Southern-Baptist-sexual-abuse-spreads-as-leaders-13588038.php">allegations of sexual abuse</a> dating back decades.</p>
<p>These scandals stand alongside abuses by prominent male church officials that have occurred in independent Christian communities, such as <a href="https://slate.com/human-interest/2019/03/mancow-muller-james-macdonald-harvest-bible-chapel.html">Harvest Bible Chapel</a>, <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2018/april/bill-hybels-resigns-willow-creek-misconduct-allegations.html">Willow Creek Community Church</a> and <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/october-web-only/mark-driscoll-resigns-from-mars-hill.html">Mars Hill Church</a>.</p>
<p>Such scandals have <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/11/us/catholic-gallup-survey/index.html">led to</a> widespread <a href="https://www.chron.com/news/special-reports/article/Awful-awful-trauma-Southern-Baptist-13621251.php">doubts</a> about church officials and institutions. And this is not for the first time. As a <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300197938/when-you-were-gentiles">scholar</a> of <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/assembling-early-christianity/1DF721088E8AAC0B8CB76FD099DA891D">early Christianity</a>, I know that in the fourth century, Christian churches in North Africa faced a similar crisis of trust in their leaders. </p>
<p>Known as the Donatist controversy, it caused a schism that lasted for centuries and offers a parallel for thinking about the impact of these crises on contemporary Christian communities today.</p>
<h2>Traitors during Christian persecution</h2>
<p>Christians in the Roman Empire occasionally experienced periods of imperial persecution. These periods were often memorialized in Christian tradition through stories of famous martyrdoms. The stories often portrayed Christians as courageous and virtuous in the face of imperial violence.</p>
<p>The most infamous period of <a href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/%7Egrout/encyclopaedia_romana/hispania/diocletian.html">persecution</a> occurred in the early fourth century A.D. Spearheaded by the emperor <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1508458?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">Diocletian</a>, it was also the final imperially sponsored persecution of Christian communities. </p>
<p>While <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062104526/the-myth-of-persecution/">persecutions</a> were sporadic, local and rare, they often put difficult choices before Christian clergy and laity.</p>
<p>Some renounced Christianity. Others handed over sacred books or church property and outed fellow Christians to the authorities. Christians called the latter “traditores,” a Latin term meaning “those who handed over,” the root of the word “traitor.”</p>
<p>Whether and how to welcome such traditores back into Christian communities after the persecutions was a topic of intense debate among Christians. </p>
<p>Traditores were considered to have betrayed their communities to save themselves. This sense of betrayal was particularly felt with respect to clergy members who had become traditores.</p>
<p>The issue <a href="http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198264088.001.0001/acprof-9780198264088">came to a head in A.D. 311</a> in North Africa when Caecilian, the bishop of Carthage, became embroiled in controversy after it was alleged that one or more of the bishops who presided at his consecration had been traditores.</p>
<p>In the eyes of many Christians in North Africa, Caecilian’s virtues did not matter. The presence of a traditor among those who ordained him invalidated his ordination.</p>
<h2>The Donatist schism</h2>
<p>Caecilian was supported politically and financially by the imperial administration. Caecilian’s opponents pressed their case in regional councils and before local magistrates.</p>
<p>They even appealed to the Emperor Constantine, who wrote in a letter to the Vicar of Africa in A.D. 314 that <a href="http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/optatus_11_appendices.htm">he had grown tired</a> of receiving requests from Caecilian’s opponents.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262766/original/file-20190307-82652-11h21nr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262766/original/file-20190307-82652-11h21nr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262766/original/file-20190307-82652-11h21nr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262766/original/file-20190307-82652-11h21nr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262766/original/file-20190307-82652-11h21nr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262766/original/file-20190307-82652-11h21nr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262766/original/file-20190307-82652-11h21nr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Emperor Constantine.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mharrsch/151417859">Mary Harrsch</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They brought charges, which ultimately proved to be false, against Felix of Aptunga, one of the bishops that had ordained Caecilian. Charges against other bishops soon followed.</p>
<p>In A.D. 313, Donatus was consecrated bishop of Carthage and became the leading voice of Caecilian’s opponents. These “Donatists,” as they came to be called, created their own massive network of churches that stood in opposition to those allied with Caecilian and the Roman state.</p>
<p>Constantine soon grew fed up with the Donatists and the schism that they had created in the church. From A.D. 316-321, Constantine used the force of the state to coerce the Donatists back into the fold.</p>
<p>Constantine’s attempts to intervene led to violence that resulted in the deaths of Donatist Christians. His intervention did little to end the schism. Constantine soon gave up state-sponsored persecution of the Donatists. </p>
<p>In A.D. 346, the Emperor Constans, who succeeded Constantine, tried again to end the schism. His agents used imperial funds to woo clergy back, but also used violence. Macarius, one of Constans’s agents, led a campaign of suppression, in which Christians killed other fellow Christians. </p>
<p>Macarius became infamous among Donatist communities. The Donatists considered those who died to be martyrs. These martyrs and their memory were <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/donatist-martyr-stories-9780853239314?cc=us&lang=en&">celebrated</a> by Donatist communities. </p>
<p>Donatus was said to have questioned the very role of the emperor in the controversy, <a href="http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/optatus_03_book3.htm">saying,</a> “What has the emperor to do with the church?”</p>
<p>By the fifth century, Donatist churches were thriving and sparring with Catholics. And Donatist churches remained active in North Africa until the Islamic conquests of the seventh century. </p>
<h2>Donatist beliefs</h2>
<p>The Donatists believed the sins of traditores <a href="https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/6931/christianity-in-roman-africa.aspx">risked the salvation</a> of individual members and the health of the community. </p>
<p>“How,” they asked, “could sacraments administered by an offending priest be recognized by a holy God?” And if those sacraments were not effective, the salvation of the individual and the community were at risk. For the Donatists, only sacraments performed by uncompromised clergy were effective.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262760/original/file-20190307-82672-18an9vj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262760/original/file-20190307-82672-18an9vj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262760/original/file-20190307-82672-18an9vj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262760/original/file-20190307-82672-18an9vj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262760/original/file-20190307-82672-18an9vj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262760/original/file-20190307-82672-18an9vj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262760/original/file-20190307-82672-18an9vj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Augustine and Donatists.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Augustine_and_donatists.jpg">Charles-André van Loo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In their attempts to respond to Donatist critique, the Catholic Church settled on a strategy developed by Augustine, an influential fifth-century Catholic bishop in North Africa.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520280410/augustine-of-hippo">Augustine</a>, who describes the sparring between Donatists and Catholics in his writings, argued that the sacraments were effective regardless of the morality of the clergy involved – a church doctrine known as “<a href="https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/socal/reader.action?docID=691811&ppg=201">ex opere operato</a>.” He said that as the sacraments were the work of Christ, they did not depend on the moral character of the officiating priest.</p>
<h2>What can be learned today</h2>
<p>Today, in the face of the sex abuse crisis, contemporary Christian communities find themselves asking questions about institutions that condoned, hid and promoted abusive clergy.</p>
<p>This might be a moment to revisit the Donatist critique. They created their own churches because they feared not only for the efficacy of the sacraments but also for the character of a church that made it too easy for traditores to continue to remain leaders.</p>
<p>Widespread sexual abuse by Christian clergy represents a very different crisis from that faced by the betrayal of the traditores. </p>
<p>However, I believe the Donatists offer a lesson for Christian communities about the risks to the integrity and cohesion of institutions when they shield the abuser rather than protect the victims.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112351/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cavan W. Concannon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the fourth century, Christian churches in North Africa faced a crisis of trust. A separate church of the Donatists emerged that lasted for centuries.Cavan W. Concannon, Associate Professor of Religion, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1122092019-03-06T11:39:06Z2019-03-06T11:39:06ZSexism has long been part of the culture of Southern Baptists<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261526/original/file-20190228-106368-can7yl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Southern Baptist Convention messengers hold signs during a rally protesting the convention's treatment of women in 2018. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Southern-Baptists/a298f67b61954edea555eac6f10d72cb/40/0">AP Photo/Jeffrey McWhorter</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recent media reports have revealed <a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/article/Southern-Baptist-sexual-abuse-spreads-as-leaders-13588038.php">decades of abuse</a> by Southern Baptist pastors. </p>
<p>Denominational leaders are offering apologies and calling the sexual abuse <a href="http://www.bpnews.net/52394/papers-sexual-abuse-report-leaves-sbcs-greear-broken">“evil,” “unjust”</a> <a href="https://www.russellmoore.com/2019/02/10/southern-baptists-and-the-scandal-of-church-sexual-abuse/">and</a> a <a href="https://albertmohler.com/2019/02/11/reality-sexual-abuse-hits-home-happened-now/">“barbarity of unrestrained sinful patterns</a>.” Many Southern Baptist leaders are <a href="https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Southern-Baptist-president-to-call-for-13624796.php">considering action</a>. </p>
<p>As a scholar who has <a href="http://kentuckypress.com/live/title_detail.php?titleid=2105#.XGrr07iIaUk">written a book</a> on Southern Baptist women and the church, I’d argue that this scandal has its origins in how Southern Baptists have long and purposefully pushed back against women’s progress.</p>
<h2>The ‘woman question’</h2>
<p>Since the Southern Baptist Convention’s founding in 1845, Southern Baptists have had a complicated history with women.</p>
<p>Historian <a href="https://addran.tcu.edu/faculty_staff/elizabeth-flowers/">Elizabeth Flowers</a> explains that questions of women’s roles as preachers, teachers and deacons were <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9781469618920/into-the-pulpit/">frequent subjects of disagreement among Baptists</a>.</p>
<p>Women were not allowed to serve as <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Baptist_polity_as_I_see_it.html?id=MKJf-ovEqj4C">messengers</a> to the Southern Baptist Convention until 1918. A messenger is a member of a local Southern Baptist church who is appointed by the congregation to attend the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention and vote on Southern Baptist Convention business. The church doesn’t <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3710193.pdf">instruct the messenger how to vote</a>, nor does the messenger represent the church. Messengers attend as individuals who vote based on their own conscience. </p>
<p>When Southern Baptist women <a href="https://www.mupress.org/Southern-Baptist-Sisters-In-Search-of-Status-1845-2000-P482.aspx">formed a national organization</a> to support missionary work in 1888, they had to hold their first meeting in a Methodist church down the street from the Baptist church where the Southern Baptist Convention was meeting. Until the 20th century, only men gave the organization’s report to the Southern Baptist Convention. </p>
<p>Indeed, women in the U.S. did not have the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/wori/learn/historyculture/womens-suffrage-history-timeline.htm">right to vote</a> at this time. The Southern Baptist Convention’s practices certainly reflected larger social norms around gender, but its reasoning was also theological. These beliefs formed a basis for gender hierarchy that ultimately triumphed in the late 20th century. </p>
<h2>Southern Baptist controversy</h2>
<p>In the 1970s, greater numbers of women entered the six Southern Baptist seminaries, many professing a calling to the pastorate, even though most churches still refused to ordain them. </p>
<p>I grew up Southern Baptist and was a student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in the 1980s. By that time, women were about a third of the student body, although very few women were professors.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261533/original/file-20190228-106365-1sd4peb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261533/original/file-20190228-106365-1sd4peb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261533/original/file-20190228-106365-1sd4peb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261533/original/file-20190228-106365-1sd4peb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261533/original/file-20190228-106365-1sd4peb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261533/original/file-20190228-106365-1sd4peb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261533/original/file-20190228-106365-1sd4peb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The idea that the Bible is without error in history, science or theology was used as a test for theological faithfulness by Southern Baptist fundamentalist leaders.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/clairewhetton/2216445457/in/photolist-4nRS1R-4NB7sY-bnh5mb-8ShpRH-2Gah5n-8DAytv-bsJcvE-8RJqYu-2sqmC9-qsHMyJ-8QG6Uc-jvmx9b-8LwCCz-aqER91-p8YVh7-PGM6W1-gq5Mw-8MieGD-r2cE3d-9h2jYG-scAcbJ-qDCdGW-7w4yGQ-8LS8YG-5UmiCv-4oSuMn-dN3H2g-rCfnqc-doLuz9-9NwGNN-6mPsqo-dRTgg-46XMRA-8SkGgk-hdpTVm-4Duj2t-r4993-8TDYe8-5r9n3V-8RqkfM-btEjgF-4DhiWe-muB5SG-5LxEsH-XNqCp-kg77a-6bz3yX-e5Kh2G-6VYQZG-CvJDb">claire.whetton/Flickr.com</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This was also a time when <a href="http://www.sbcec.org/bor/2018/2018SBCAnnual.pdf">fundamentalists took charge</a> of the Southern Baptist Convention. The Southern Baptist Convention owns six seminaries and numerous publishing and missionary agencies worth billions of dollars. </p>
<p>Fundamentalists used biblical inerrancy, the idea that the Bible is without error in history, science or theology, as a test for theological faithfulness. </p>
<p>Beginning with the denomination’s annual conference in 1979, these fundamentalists were able to <a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/New-Crusades-the-New-Holy-Land,774.aspx">inspire voters</a> to elect fundamentalist leaders. They claimed that moderate Baptists who did not accept inerrancy were also the ones who did not believe the Bible.</p>
<p>The new leaders <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/baptist-battles/9780813515571">purged the moderates</a> from Southern Baptist Convention employment and leadership. </p>
<p>While fundamentalists claimed <a href="http://kentuckypress.com/live/title_detail.php?titleid=2105#.XGrr07iIaUk">this takeover</a> was about biblical inerrancy, in reality, it was as much, if not more, about <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/236180/pdf">women</a>. As historian <a href="https://www.baylor.edu/history/index.php?id=7724">Barry Hankins</a> also concludes, the “gender issue” eventually <a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Uneasy-in-Babylon,1237.aspx">became a central issue</a> for Southern Baptist fundamentalists as their takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention proceeded. </p>
<p>So even as these Baptist leaders claimed their movement was about the Bible, they <a href="http://utpress.org/title/southern-baptists-observed/">specifically targeted women</a> and <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/baptist-battles/9780813515571">worked to reverse</a> women’s progress in church and home. </p>
<h2>First in the Edenic fall</h2>
<p>In 1984, as fundamentalists gained greater control, the Southern Baptist Convention <a href="http://www.sbc.net/resolutions/1088/resolution-on-ordination-and-the-role-of-women-in-ministry">passed a resolution against women’s ordination</a>. The resolution reasoned that women are excluded from ordained ministry to “preserve a submission God requires because the man was first in creation and the woman was first in the Edenic fall.” </p>
<p>In other words, because Eve was the first to eat the fruit that led to the humans’ expulsion from Eden, they argued, God compels all women to submit to men.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the resolution argued for the preservation of “God’s delegated order of authority” – “God the head of Christ, Christ the head of man, man the head of woman.”</p>
<p>In Baptist polity, local churches are autonomous and free to ordain and call as pastor whom they will. The Southern Baptist Convention has no official control over local churches.</p>
<p>As, however, local churches did ordain and call women to the pastorate, local Baptist associations “disfellowshipped” these congregations, <a href="http://www.bpnews.net/45692/tenn-assoc-disfellowships-church-with-female-pastor">excluding them</a> from participating in the local association. </p>
<p>Fundamentalists appointed a president of Southern Seminary in 1993 who forced <a href="https://www.cbts.edu/staff/molly-t-marshall-ph-d/">Molly Marshall</a>, the first woman to teach theology at a Southern Baptist seminary, to resign in 1994, primarily over her support for women in ministry. </p>
<h2>‘Gracious submission’</h2>
<p>In 2000, reinforcing fundamentalist beliefs about women, the Southern Baptist Convention changed its statement of faith, <a href="http://www.sbc.net/bfm2000/bfm2000.asp">noting that</a> women and men “are of equal worth before God” while insisting “A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband.” </p>
<p>In 2003, an administrator at Southern Seminary explained that in response to women’s desire to rule over men <a href="https://www.ethicsdaily.com/seminary-magazine-describes-biblical-womanhood-cms-3663/">men must exercise their rightful “rulership”</a> over women. What this administrator interpreted as a desire to “rule over” was actually a simple demand for equality in the home and the ability to serve as pastors and leaders in church and society.</p>
<p>For Southern Baptists, the statement of faith is not a creed but rather a set of largely agreed-upon beliefs. The statement is not binding on any individual or local church. Seminaries and denominational agencies, such as the International Mission Board, however, must work within the guidelines of the statement. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261530/original/file-20190228-106362-g4z727.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261530/original/file-20190228-106362-g4z727.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261530/original/file-20190228-106362-g4z727.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261530/original/file-20190228-106362-g4z727.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261530/original/file-20190228-106362-g4z727.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261530/original/file-20190228-106362-g4z727.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261530/original/file-20190228-106362-g4z727.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1010&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Theology professor Sheri Klouda.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Baptists-Woman-Professor/751607d624da424cb842a4d8eb72473c/24/0">AP Photo/Tom Strattman</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The 2000 statement of faith <a href="http://www.sbc.net/bfm2000/bfm2000.asp">also asserts</a>, “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” In response, in 2004, Southern Baptists’ North American Mission Board <a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/namb-stops-endorsing-female-military-chaplains/#.XGrWnMR7nic">stopped endorsing</a> women as chaplains. Prior to the controversy, more moderate Southern Baptists had supported women in ordained ministry, including chaplaincy.</p>
<p>Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary then <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/16828466/ns/us_news-education/t/professor-seminary-ousted-her-over-gender/#.XHGBPcR7nic">used this statement</a> in 2007 to remove Sheri Klouda from its faculty, where she taught Hebrew, <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/I-Suffer-Not-a-Woman-to/33121">simply because she was a woman</a>. Klouda was not ordained and did not support the ordination of women. In their thinking, however, she was teaching men the Bible, which they forbid women to do. </p>
<p>They were able to remove her on the basis of gender because religious institutions are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/business/09religious.html">exempt from gender-based nondiscrimination laws</a> for positions that have an explicit religious function, such as pastor or seminary professor, if their beliefs sanction such discrimination. </p>
<h2>Sexual abuse among Southern Baptists</h2>
<p>As early as the 1980s, Dee Ann Miller, who had <a href="http://kansaspublicradio.org/blog/dan-skinner/conversations-dee-ann-miller-enlarging-bostons-spotlight">survived sexual assault</a> by a Southern Baptist missionary, <a href="http://www.takecourage.org/">tried to call attention</a> to the problem of sexual abuse but found a denomination unwilling to address it. </p>
<p>Similarly, in 2009 another survivor, <a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/article/Southern-Baptist-sexual-abuse-spreads-as-leaders-13588038.php">Christa Brown</a>, critiqued the denomination’s minimizing and <a href="http://www.foremostpress.com/readers/brown_c/light.html">enabling of abuse</a>. Southern Baptist churches often allowed abusers to move onto a new and unwitting congregation <a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/article/Southern-Baptist-sexual-abuse-spreads-as-leaders-13588038.php">without reporting abuse</a>, and the Southern Baptist Convention refused to create a registry of abusers for churches to consult. </p>
<p>A scandal at Baylor University brought Baptists’ inaction on sexual assault to the fore. A 2016 report on the university’s handling of sexual assault found a “fundamental failure by Baylor to implement Title IX.” The report <a href="https://www.baylor.edu/thefacts/doc.php/266596.pdf">noted</a> “that Baylor’s efforts to implement Title IX were slow, ad hoc, and hindered by a lack of institutional support and engagement by senior leadership.” The report was specifically in response to the sexual assault problems in athletics.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261527/original/file-20190228-106371-1xjxuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261527/original/file-20190228-106371-1xjxuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261527/original/file-20190228-106371-1xjxuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261527/original/file-20190228-106371-1xjxuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261527/original/file-20190228-106371-1xjxuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261527/original/file-20190228-106371-1xjxuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261527/original/file-20190228-106371-1xjxuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=534&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paige Patterson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Georgia-United-S-/56ce14b086e6da11af9f0014c2589dfb/6/0">AP Photo/Erik S. Lesser</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Baylor was not alone in institutional mishandling of abuse. In 2018, trustees of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary fired President Paige Patterson, an architect of the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC, over statements he had made <a href="http://msmagazine.com/blog/2018/06/11/reckon-metoo-southern-baptists-need-reckon-theology/">encouraging abused wives to return</a> to abusive husbands and discouraging seminary students from reporting rapes to police. </p>
<h2>Sexism and rape myths</h2>
<p>Research suggests that sexist beliefs <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1077801216651339">affect men’s attitudes toward sexual coercion</a>. In particular, men who hold sexist beliefs are more <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-006-9101-4">likely to accept</a> <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1524838009334131">the myths</a> that <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1471-6402.1994.tb00448.x?journalCode=pwqa">“women ask for it”</a> or “if a woman is wearing provocative clothes, she wants sex” or “lots of women lie about being raped.” </p>
<p>Most significantly, research also suggests that fundamentalist and sexist clergy <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/10778010222183026">also tend to have more negative attitudes</a> toward rape victims. </p>
<h2>Apologies will not be enough</h2>
<p>In my view, Southern Baptists’ history in relation to women provides important context for the current moment and helps explain the denomination’s inaction on sexual abuse by pastors.</p>
<p>The Southern Baptist Convention has fostered a culture in which sexual abuse and inadequate responses are not at all surprising. Apologies will <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/baptists-can-learn-catholic-sex-abuse-scandal/583111/">likely do little</a> <a href="https://baptistnews.com/article/an-apology-is-not-repentance-responding-to-clergy-sexual-abuse-and-other-crises-in-american-christianity/#.XHGMU8R7nid">to change that culture</a> as long as beliefs about women’s submission stay in place.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112209/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan M. Shaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Recent media reports point to years of sexual abuse by Southern Baptist pastors. An expert writes why a long culture of women’s submission is responsible for this crisis.Susan M. Shaw, Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Oregon State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/964522018-05-24T10:27:41Z2018-05-24T10:27:41ZWomen’s higher education was pioneered by evangelical Christian leaders<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220185/original/file-20180523-51091-126ylpm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Evangelical Christian educator, Paige Patterson.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Erik S. Lesser, File</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Southern Baptist Convention leader <a href="http://paigepatterson.org/">Paige Patterson</a> was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/05/30/southern-baptist-seminary-fires-paige-patterson-over-handling-of-sex-abuse-case/?utm_term=.4752fc36c1f4">fired</a> Wednesday following a meeting of the board of trustees of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he served as president. With a following of <a href="http://www.sbc.net/BecomingSouthernBaptist/FastFacts.asp">over 15 million</a>, Southern Baptists are <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/">America’s largest Protestant denomination</a>. </p>
<p>Trustees were responding to <a href="https://swbtsletter.com/">a petition</a> by over 3,000 Southern Baptist women regarding what they called Patterson’s “unbiblical” remarks on womanhood, sexuality and domestic violence. In an audio recording from 2000 that surfaced recently, Patterson was heard <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/05/02/southern-baptist-leaders-advice-to-abused-women-sends-leaders-scrambling-to-respond/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.d1b3413b2016">counseling a woman to stay with her abusive husband.</a> In another sermon, he <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=114&v=gDRUVmcaQ3k">commented on a 16-year-old girl’s body</a>. Trustees <a href="https://swbts.edu/news/releases/statement-southwestern-theological-seminary/">specifically cited Patterson’s handling of a student’s assault allegations</a>. <a href="https://twitter.com/megannlively/status/1001276688129544194">One female seminary student</a> claimed that Patterson advised her <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/05/22/southern-baptist-leader-encouraged-a-woman-not-to-report-alleged-rape-to-police-and-told-her-to-forgive-assailant-she-says/?utm_term=.f55b20f2c8d6">not to report a rape to the police</a>.</p>
<p>It would be easy to assume evangelical Christian educators like Patterson uniformly discriminate against women because they believe the Bible teaches women to submit to men. But, <a href="https://www.baylor.edu/history/index.php?id=86138">as a historian of women, religion and higher education</a>, I know that the story is not that simple: <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100037450">Evangelicals actually led in opening higher education to women</a>.</p>
<h2>Evangelicals pioneer women’s higher education</h2>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220186/original/file-20180523-51121-ejqq6n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220186/original/file-20180523-51121-ejqq6n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220186/original/file-20180523-51121-ejqq6n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220186/original/file-20180523-51121-ejqq6n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220186/original/file-20180523-51121-ejqq6n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220186/original/file-20180523-51121-ejqq6n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220186/original/file-20180523-51121-ejqq6n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Oberlin College, Severance Hall.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oberlin_College_-_Severance_Hall.jpg">Daderot via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>The very first college in world history to offer a bachelor’s degree to women, <a href="https://www.oberlin.edu/about-oberlin/oberlin-history">Oberlin,</a> did so in 1837, with the goal of training more people <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100037450">to spread the evangelical gospel</a>. </p>
<p>In other words, theologically conservative Christians pioneered women’s higher education for theological reasons. </p>
<p>I call these people “evangelical pragmatists” because they were willing to bend cultural norms about appropriate activities for women in order to get more hands on deck for God. For the same reason, they structured Oberlin to be unusually affordable and even admitted African-American students <a href="https://www.oberlin.edu/about-oberlin/oberlin-history">starting in 1835</a>. Prior to this time, <a href="https://www.jbhe.com/chronology/">only a handful of African-Americans</a> are believed to have graduated from any American college. </p>
<p>Remarkably, the first and longest standing single-sex institution of higher education for American women, <a href="https://www.mtholyoke.edu/about/history/detailed">Mount Holyoke</a>, was <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100037450">founded in 1837 by evangelical pragmatists for the same reason</a>. Mount Holyoke was only a three-year institution at its founding, and it did not immediately admit African-Americans. But it was the most advanced and affordable single-sex education available to American women at the time.</p>
<h2>Evangelicals historically disagree on women</h2>
<p>Even in the 1800s, when almost all ministers were men, Oberlin president Charles Finney, <a href="http://www.pbs.org/godinamerica/people/charles-finney.html">one of the most famous evangelists of that era</a>, allowed a woman, <a href="http://www2.oberlin.edu/external/EOG/OYTT-images/NettyBlackwell.html">Antoinette Brown Blackwell</a>, to enroll in Oberlin’s attached theological seminary. Members of Oberlin’s faculty disagreed on whether the Bible permitted women to preach, but they supported Christian women getting the best education possible.</p>
<p>Unlike the founders of Oberlin and Mount Holyoke, <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100037450">not all evangelical educators</a> believed in theological education for women and their role in the church – a disagreement that continues to the present. </p>
<p>The problem is that the Christian scriptures contain <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians+3%3A26-28&version=RSV">some passages that affirm absolute equality between men and women</a> – which is truly radical for the time they were written. <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+timothy+2%3A12-15&version=RSV">Other passages</a>, however, seem to teach divinely ordained roles for men and women. </p>
<p>Even Christians who agree that the Bible is a reliable communication from God to humankind disagree on the meaning of the teachings on gender difference. The contentious debate about those passages has often centered around questions such as: Were they <a href="https://www.cbeinternational.org/sites/default/files/english_3.pdf">simply advice</a> to women and men in past cultures on how to act wisely in those contexts, or did <a href="https://cbmw.org/about/danvers-statement">God intend those roles to be binding at all times</a>?</p>
<h2>Modern Southern Baptists and women</h2>
<p>Since the 1980s, the Southern Baptist Convention has fallen into what is called the “complementarian” category that believes God intended different gender roles for all times. In particular, Paige Patterson was a leader in the <a href="http://www.bpnews.net/50882/gaines-addresses-patterson-racial-diversity-sbc">“conservative resurgence”</a> within the denomination that <a href="http://www.uapress.ua.edu/product/Uneasy-in-Babylon,1237.aspx">led to a more restrictive interpretation of the Bible</a>. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220187/original/file-20180523-51121-1wtm0hu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220187/original/file-20180523-51121-1wtm0hu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220187/original/file-20180523-51121-1wtm0hu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220187/original/file-20180523-51121-1wtm0hu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220187/original/file-20180523-51121-1wtm0hu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220187/original/file-20180523-51121-1wtm0hu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220187/original/file-20180523-51121-1wtm0hu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The 2014 annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, in Baltimore. Modern Southern Baptists believe God intended different gender roles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Steve Ruark</span></span>
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<p>The SBC statement of belief subsequently published in 2000, <a href="http://www.sbc.net/bfm2000/bfm2000.asp">The Baptist Faith and Message (BFM)</a>, asserts, “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” Many <a href="http://www.sbc.net/aboutus/entities/seminaries.asp">Southern Baptist seminaries</a> interpret this ruling to mean that the professors who train pastors should also be men. </p>
<p>Indeed, the thousands of Southern Baptist women who signed the petition against Patterson <a href="https://swbtsletter.com/">explicitly affirmed SBC doctrine</a> and did not ask for women’s ordination. They, and many Southern Baptist men, believe that while women and men have distinct roles to play, they should receive equal hearing and respect. </p>
<p>Many of the first women to attend Oberlin <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100037450">would have agreed with the BFM statement as well</a>, although Oberlin also graduated early Christian feminists like <a href="https://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biographies/lucy-stone">Lucy Stone</a>, who founded the American Woman Suffrage Association and was one of the first women to keep her maiden name after marriage.</p>
<p>Thus, even evangelicals who agree on different roles for the sexes disagree on what types of educational and church leadership opportunities women should have. <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo20063403.html">“Culture warrior”</a> Christians, focused on defending the accuracy of the Bible against liberals, have tended towards being more restrictive of women’s opportunities. Pragmatists, who are more focused on spreading the Christian message, have, on the other hand, tended to open up opportunities for women.</p>
<p>Prominent among Southern Baptist pragmatists is women’s Bible study teacher <a href="http://www.lproof.org/about">Beth Moore</a>. She <a href="https://blog.lproof.org/2018/05/a-letter-to-my-brothers.html">recently penned an open letter to Southern Baptist men</a> about the sexism she has encountered in the denomination. Moore noted many men use her lack of formal theological training as an excuse to discount her, but that she was unwelcome when she sought to attend Southwestern Seminary in 1988. Even today <a href="http://catalog.swbts.edu/school-of-theology/faculty/">only three of the seminary’s 38 faculty members are women</a>. All three teach in a separate women’s studies department. </p>
<p>With <a href="http://www.sbcannualmeeting.net/sbc18/">the upcoming June annual meeting</a> of the Southern Baptist Convention following closely on the removal of Patterson, it remains to be seen whether the denomination will <a href="https://blog.lproof.org/2018/05/response-swbts-board-trustees-decision.html">follow Moore’s lead</a> and open more opportunities to women.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of a piece first published on May 24, 2018.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96452/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea L. Turpin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With controversial Christian educators like Paige Patterson who believe that the Bible teaches women to submit to men, it matters to know today that evangelicals encouraged women’s education in the past.Andrea L. Turpin, Associate Professor of History, Baylor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.