Church fears split on male-only leadership

TORONTO — The Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches in Canada may be heading for a split after an effort to make male-only church leadership a test of membership failed at the denomination’s annual convention in Toronto Nov. 4­–7.

Christian Week reports that a motion requiring all 496 member churches to limit the offices of pastors and elders to “qualified men” as a condition of membership received 59 percent support from the more than 500 delegates, short of the two-thirds majority needed to enshrine the motion in the denomination’s bylaws. That had the motion’s backers warning a split is inevitable.