As an Alabama Baptist, I read Jennifer Rash’s opinion piece, “Pondering how to understand the coming ‘truth and unity’ SBC amendment,” with deep concern. I appreciate The Alabama Baptist’s long history of serving our churches with news and commentary, and I understand that opinion pieces invite conversation. But because this piece addresses a matter soon to come before the messengers of the Southern Baptist Convention, I believe several of its statements and implications deserve a direct response.
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Rash writes, “If you are attending the meeting and planning to vote as a messenger, I encourage you to read the amendment’s wording carefully and consider all aspects of what it means before casting your vote.” I agree. Messengers should read the wording carefully. But careful reading should also include careful representation. The proposed amendment does not ask messengers to vote on rumors, fears, or imagined consequences. It asks them to vote on specific language concerning whether a cooperating church may “affirm, appoint or endorse a woman serving in the office or function of a pastor/elder/overseer, such as preaching to the assembled congregation.”
That wording did not arise in a vacuum. For more than five years, Southern Baptists have debated how our Convention should respond when churches use the title pastor for women, install women in pastoral office, or assign women to the public preaching and shepherding function Scripture ties to pastor/elder/overseer. This conversation has involved Saddleback Church, Fern Creek Baptist Church, First Baptist Church Alexandria, the Law Amendment, multiple Credentials Committee decisions, and repeated annual meeting debate. To frame this as an unnecessary novelty ignores the actual history of the discussion.
Rash also cautions messengers to be “cautious about the title” because “messengers are fearful of looking rebellious if they vote against something labeled like this amendment is.” I understand the concern about rhetorical framing. But messengers are not voting on a title. They are voting on a motion. It is fair to debate the wording. It is fair to oppose the amendment. It is fair to argue whether this is the best way forward. But suggesting the title itself is the issue shifts attention away from the actual substance before the Convention.
‘Troubling’ turn
The article then says, “Many state the goal is to prevent women from serving as senior pastors of Southern Baptist churches, while others are concerned the wording takes it much farther.” This is where I believe the piece becomes most troubling. That sentence leaves the impression that the amendment may be aimed at removing women broadly from ministry. But supporters of the amendment, including Dr. Mohler, have repeatedly clarified that this is not about eliminating women from ministry service. It is about the pastoral office and pastoral function.
Southern Baptists should gladly affirm that women are gifted for ministry. Women teach, disciple, serve, counsel, lead other women, serve children, strengthen missions, organize ministries, care for the hurting, and build up the body of Christ in countless ways. Our churches would be weaker without the faithful service of godly women. But affirming women in ministry does not require us to confuse the office of pastor with every form of ministry service.
The Baptist Faith and Message is not unclear. It states, “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor/elder/overseer is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” The present question is whether our Constitution should clearly say that churches acting contrary to this confession do not closely identify with the faith and practice of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Rash asks, “Could the wording Mohler is proposing provide ammunition for SBC leadership to step into a role contradictory to our local church autonomy heritage?” I do not believe so. No SBC amendment gives the Convention the authority to govern a local church. The SBC cannot appoint a pastor, remove a pastor, set a church budget, dictate a ministry calendar, or control a local congregation. Local church autonomy remains intact.
Micromanagement or cooperation?
But local church autonomy is not the same as automatic Convention participation. A church is free to practice as it chooses under its own governance. The Convention is also free to determine whether that church’s faith and practice closely identifies with the Convention’s adopted confession. That is not micromanagement. That is the meaning of cooperation.
Rash also asks, “Could it give leverage for interpretation to be used according to an individual’s preferences at the associational, state convention and/or national level?” Any language in any governing document must be interpreted and applied. That is not unique to this amendment. The SBC already uses constitutional language concerning churches that affirm homosexual behavior, act inconsistently with our beliefs regarding sexual abuse, or endorse discriminatory behavior on the basis of ethnicity. Those provisions also require interpretation and application. Yet few would argue we should remove them because they might be misused.
That raises an important question. Why is constitutional clarity acceptable when addressing LGBTQ affirmation, sexual abuse, and ethnicity, but suddenly treated as foreign to Baptist cooperation when addressing the pastoral office? If our confession matters in one area, it should matter in this area too.
Rash asks, “Why include ‘endorse’ and ‘function,’ and how should those be interpreted? Does ‘preaching’ include speaking, sharing a testimony or leading a large group Bible study?” These are fair questions, but they are not unanswerable. The issue is not whether a woman may ever speak in a church gathering, share a testimony, read Scripture, pray, or lead in appropriate settings. The issue is whether a church affirms, appoints, or endorses a woman in the office or function of pastor/elder/overseer. The language is addressing pastoral authority and public preaching as a pastoral function, not every instance of female speech.
The article also asks, “Why has such fear of ministry service by women escalated in recent years?” I would respectfully challenge that framing. This is not an escalating fear of women serving in ministry. It is a growing concern that some Southern Baptist churches are redefining pastoral ministry in ways that contradict our adopted confession. The issue is not women serving. The issue is whether the office and function of pastor are being separated from the biblical qualifications attached to pastor/elder/overseer.
Rash further asks how many Southern Baptist churches are led by women senior pastors. But that question narrows the issue too much. The Baptist Faith and Message does not say only the senior pastor role is limited to qualified men. It speaks of the office of pastor/elder/overseer. The concern is not merely whether a woman holds the top leadership position in a church. The concern is whether churches are affirming women in pastoral office or pastoral function in contradiction to our confession.
‘Unity without truth becomes drift’
Finally, Rash asks whether the “truth and unity” label is fair when “a nearly 200-year-old convention has not needed such a restrictive statement nor sought to micromanage individual church bodies in this way.” But the Convention has already adopted constitutional cooperation standards. We have already said certain beliefs and practices place a church outside friendly cooperation. The proposed amendment does not create a new category of Baptist life. It applies an existing category to a doctrinal issue already stated in our confession.
Truth and unity are not enemies. They belong together. Unity without truth becomes drift. Truth without unity becomes fragmentation. Southern Baptists need both.
As an Alabama Baptist, my concern is that this opinion piece did not merely ask questions. It shaped the issue in a way that downplays the real doctrinal concern, implies the amendment threatens women’s ministry broadly, and treats constitutional clarity on pastoral office as though it were foreign to Southern Baptist cooperation.
Messengers should read the amendment carefully. They should pray. They should think. They should vote with conviction. But they should not be led to believe this is about removing women from ministry, violating church autonomy, or micromanaging local churches. It is about whether churches that participate in the Southern Baptist Convention should closely identify with the Baptist Faith and Message on the office and function of pastor.
For the sake of truth, unity and honest cooperation, I believe they should.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Dr. Robert L. Wilson II, lead pastor of First Baptist Church Meridianville.
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