On June 7, 2024, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) was having their meeting in Indianapolis, IN. I was not ready to be happy about anything to come out of that group. I was raised Southern Baptist and was voted out of one of their churches in 2001 because I am gay. I was led to believe that it was not a unanimous vote, but to know that people I had claimed as my church family decided I was not worthy to be amongst them made me doubt many things in my life before I found the Episcopal Church.
I was rather happy to read that a measure failed to pass this gathering of conservative vipers. If you don’t know already, the SBC does not believe that a woman, God forbid, could ever be considered a pastor. In many SBC churches, woman can’t hold any position because it is seen as against scripture. Women, according to Paul, are supposed to basically sit down, shut up with her head covered, and if she has a question, ask her husband when she returns home. She is not to have any say so whatsoever in the operation of the church. For a measure to pass in the convention, it has to get a 2/3 majority among the voting delegates. It also has to be passed two conventions in a row for it to become rule. At this convention, it failed to garner the number of delegates required to pass. Finally, something sane comes out of the SBC. Thanks to all those who opposed the measure.
Now, let’s look at something that was even more impressive that came from the convention. I was not aware that the golden child of the SBC, one mister Rick Warren and his Saddleback Church, had been disfellowshipped. This one time staunch SBC pastor now agrees that women should be ordained as pastors and has ordained three female pastors at his church. Well, I’ll be! I guess I could possibly read one of his books now without the need to sling it against a wall out of anger and diluted hatred.
Let’s take a look back at early Christianity, shall we? Let’s go back to that day that basically started the religion when we are told that Jesus was victorious over death and arose from his cave grave. Was it the disciples that found him there? Was it them that first believed that Jesus was back among the living? No, it was not either of them. We are told in the book of Luke that it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them that announced the resurrection of Christ to the apostles. In the book of John, we’re told that Mary Magdalene went to the tomb, but she ran back to tell Peter that the body was gone. He ran back to the tomb with “the other disciple” to make sure what Mary said was true. Of course, let’s question the woman that dropped everything to follow Jesus and soak in every word he said. Mary, however, didn’t just run back to where they were staying. Mary lingered outside the tomb crying because she didn’t know where Jesus’ body had been taken. I believe any of us today if looking into a grave and not finding a body, we would be shocked at first and then worried where our loved one had been taken.
While Mary was grieving for her lost teacher, she saw him and did not know it was him until he spoke to her. He told her to go back to his brothers and tell them that he was ascending to his father and her father….to his God and her God.
Now, I may be totally stupid about this, but I would think that if Christ himself calls her name and tells her to go tell the others that he is alive, I think that she, as a woman, was special enough to hear and tell the news of Christ. This doesn’t end with Mary Magdalene. In writings of Paul, we also learn about Priscilla (or Prisca) and Phoebe. They were women in the early church who some bible scholars believe were leaders in the church. Some have called Mary Magdalene the “apostle of the apostles.” If women from that period of the church, probably the most complicated and confusing period of the church, can be placed in such high regard, what makes simple minded men in 2024 think that women cannot be teachers of the word. I have known women in the church who could religiously run circles around men that try to show their machismo in the pulpit. It boggles my mind to think that some men feel women are below them and cannot be reached by Christ.
I tell you now, those men are full of themselves. I know it may sound awful of me, but I think Paul in all likelihood was full of himself as well. Sure, he saw Christ on the road to Damascus and was stricken with blindness until days later when Christ led a man to him to restore his sight. It took this to turn Paul in to a follower/believer from a Christian mass murderer and tormentor. We’re told that God uses the most unlikely people sometimes to do his work. I think that belief was fueled by Paul’s transformation.
Looking further back in the Bible, we cannot forget Deborah as a powerful and God fearing judge of the Israelites. We also cannot forget Ruth lest we forget how she fits into the lineage of David. It’s baffling how men in this day can believe that God does not reach out to women when we have such strong women in our holy book. They aren’t listed in the Bible, but the best known women who gave their lives for Christ were Perpetua and Felicitas. Their story is told in The Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas. These two women were persecuted viciously in North Africa after refusing to denounce that they were Christians. Oh, they can be ripped apart by lions and have their throats slit by centurions but they couldn’t possibly be worthy to teach others about Jesus. C’mon!
Sadly, one church did get the axe this year. Fern Creek Baptist Church was disfellowshipped by a majority of the delegates. Sounds stupid that the measure didn’t pass to block women from being called pastors but the church with the woman pastor was kicked out. In an article by The New Yorker, Linda Popham, the FCBC pastor, said that after the disfellowship, her congregation “has grown from a hundred to almost two hundred people” with young families there to support her. That made be very happy.