Full transcript of the video below.
Yall. I’m tired of this and I know you are too.
This guy announced yesterday that he’s going be the one to bring a constitutional amendment prohibiting women pastors at the Southern Baptist convention this year…and he’s added a phrase to the previous attempts to pass this.
This new amendment would read that a southern Baptist church does not act to affirm, endorse, or appoint a women serving in the office or function of pastor…such as preaching to the assembled congregation.
He’s calling it the truth and unity amendment.
Well here’s the truth.
All over this country, on Sundays, women are pastoring children, youth, and adults of all ages, women are standing in Baptist pulpits preaching to assembled congregations sitting in pews just like these.
Women are preaching and proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ…and people are finding the love and grace of God because of their ministry! Why a follower of Jesus wants to stop that from happening is beyond me.
You know what’s also the truth—women were preachers in the New Testament. Jesus called the women to be the first preachers of the good news of resurrection when they found the empty tomb that first Easter morning. And, and, in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 5, Paul says that when, when a woman prays or prophesies she should cover her head. Do you know what prophesying is? It’s preaching! We get so caught up in the head covering we miss that Paul just acknowledged that women preached in the Corinthian assembled congregations.
And as for unity.
I just don’t think it’s very unifying to exclude and punish people who are being faithful to follow their callings from God. That sounds more like disunity.
So as I mentioned, we’re all tired of the Southern Baptist Convention’s constant berating of women faithful to God’s call and the churches that affirm them, but we can’t just let them question women’s equal value to God and not say something about it.
In the same way we have to keep speaking out against all oppression, against violence, against threats to humanity and freedom, we have to keep speaking out against harmful theology and its enforcement.
So BWIM wants to make sure that the women in the Southern Baptist Convention who need to hear that someone sees them, who need to know that someone believes them when they say they are called, the women who need to be encouraged that God values them equally, we want to make sure they hear that we are all made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), that in Christ there is no distinction, we are all one (Galatians 3:26-28), that Christ came so that all might have abundant life (John 10:10), with no restrictions on who can have that abundant life and what it can look like.
That is the truth, y’all. And I offer it in a spirit of hope for unity in Christ’s church.
–Meredith Stone, BWIM Executive Director
Would you like to know more about how the Bible supports women in ministry? Download BWIM’s resource, A Baptist Reflection on the Bible & Women in Ministry and Leadership, to learn more.