LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler called this week for a strong statement from Southern Baptists on the role of pastor and its limitation to men.
In a video posted to social media Thursday (April 16), Mohler said it is past time to put an end to the “confusion” surrounding the issue.
“Southern Baptists want this issue clarified,” Mohler said in the video. “The vast majority of Southern Baptists … are absolutely clear and have been all along that the office of pastors is restricted to men as qualified by Scripture.
“And by pastor, they mean pastor. … If you’re gonna try to just change the name ‘pastor’ to something else like ‘shepherd,’ that’s not going to work.”
The subject has come up at the last four SBC annual meetings. A motion to amend the SBC Constitution to add a sixth item required for a church’s “friendly cooperation” with the SBC – namely, that it does “not affirm, appoint or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind” – received the necessary two-thirds majority for adoption in 2022 but failed to do that in the required second-year vote. If adopted, the statement on the role of pastor would join other criteria for friendly cooperation like support of the Cooperative Program, lack of racial discrimination and proper handling of sexual abuse cases.
Various iterations of that 2022 amendment have fallen short of the required two-thirds majority three years in a row. Though Mohler referred in the video to a needed change in SBC “bylaws,” presumably he was lamenting the failure thus far to change the constitution.
“I still think that’s the best way to do it,” he said. “I think the bylaw is the efficient, constitutional way to do this in keeping with our polity. So I am enthusiastically in support of such an effort. I think it should have been adopted. I think with every day that passes, the reason for it becomes more clear.”
A change in governing documents is not all that is needed, though, Mohler said, calling on Southern Baptists to affirm their desire to restrict the pastorate to men “by any and every means possible.”
“In other words, I don’t think you choose among the buttons here,” he said. “I think you do just about everything that’s appropriate, originated by messengers in the form of anything from resolutions to whatever appropriate parliamentary action needs to be taken to express the will of the Convention on this matter in ways that should instruct the entire Convention.”
Mohler also issued a charge to the SBC Credentials Committee, which is tasked with inquiring into whether specific churches are in fact in friendly cooperation with the SBC.
“I think the Credentials Committee needs to operate very efficiently, clearly and without hesitation in matters that relate to this issue of Baptist conviction,” he said. “… We need them to show how they’re gonna deal with this efficiently so that these matters don’t always end up on the floor of the SBC.”
Mohler said he believes further confusion on the issue is “very dangerous for the future of the Southern Baptist Convention,” but added that he trusts Southern Baptist messengers to make the right decision.
“Over time, I have learned this extremely well,” he said. “Southern Baptist, faced with a clear issue of conviction, will do the right thing.”
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