Don and Esther Gardner entered retirement with excitement a few years ago because they could now do volunteer missions with their daughter and son-in-law, Debbie and Jerry Stephens in Kenya.
Don Gardner formerly served as a pastor and chaplain but has been doing video work in Africa with the Stephenses, who are International Mission Board (IMB) missionaries.
The Birmingham couple loved the work and impressed the Southern Baptist officials in Africa so much that they decided to apply for appointment with the International Service Corps. This would allow the Gardners to be short-term missionaries.
The appointment process seemed to be on schedule until an IMB trustee informed IMB officials that the Gardners’ church, Baptist Church of the Covenant, had called a woman pastor, Sarah Jackson Shelton.
The Gardners learned Sept. 10 the IMB declined to appoint them.
A Sept. 13 article in The Birmingham News announcing the Gardners’ rejection by the IMB raised questions concerning the importance of one’s position on women in ministry.
Jerry Rankin, president of the IMB, told the News that the theological issue of supporting a woman pastor was a key issue in the board’s decision not to appoint the Gardners.
“They have to be consistent with the Baptist Faith and Message statement,” Rankin said in the News article. “They made it very clear that they supported women pastors. It was discussed with them, and they did endorse their pastor and there was disagreement.”
Esther Gardner said in the same article that the decision hurt. “We’ve been Southern Baptists all of our lives. It just hurt down deep.”
The Gardners even agreed to abide by the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message in their missions work.
“Every employer has the right to say, ‘These are the guidelines, work within that,’” Don Gardner told the News. “If they want to force their theology on people who work for them, I can live with that. I just stated that was not my personal belief.”
The News reported that the Gardners signed the statement but attached explanations of what points of theology they disagreed with — namely women in ministry.
When Rankin announced that all current and new missionaries would have to sign the faith statement, he did not indicate what would happen if they did not sign or what would happen if they agreed to abide by the statement while disagreeing with parts of it. His statements also focused on the work on the field, not the missionaries’ home churches in the United States.
According to reports in The Alabama Baptist this year, Rankin’s letter sent to missionaries on the field asked them to respond yes or no to the statement, “I have read and am in agreement with the current Baptist Faith and Message.” The form asks anyone replying “no” to cite any area of difference.
By signing and dating the form, the missionary also affirms, “In accountability to the International Mission Board and Southern Baptists, I agree to carry out my responsibilities in accordance with and not contrary to the current Baptist Faith and Message as adopted by the [SBC].”
“Our missioanries, as they are processed for appointment, have always had to sign the Baptist Faith and Message statement,” Rankin told the News. “[The Gardners] just did not fulfill the criteria that 5,000 missionaries in the field have fulfilled.”
Another example
Also facing questions over her role in ministry is Ida Mae Hays, retired missionary to Brazil who is active in Alabama Baptist life.
Birmingham Baptists got to know Hays when Birmingham Baptist Association formed a partnership with the Brasilia Baptist Convention in 1990 for chapel construction and evangelism. Hays was the coordinator and supervisor of the partnership which lasted 11 years. During those years, volunteers from Birmingham worked with Brazilians to construct 33 chapels and share the gospel.
After serving 31 years in Brazil, Hays was honored upon her retirement by the church with which she worked.
The church ordained her to the gospel ministry and named her pastor emeritus.
According to a recent article in Baptists Today, when these honors were printed in The Alabama Baptist as part of a feature on her and her years of service, Hays was called to a meeting with her regional leader and an IMB trustee.
She was questioned about the honors and later was asked to rescind the ordination and pastor emeritus status, according to the article. While the article reported that Hays declined to do so, saying only the church that bestowed those honors could do that, the IMB publicly stated it would not recognize the ordination nor her pastor emeritus status.
In the article, Hays concluded by saying, “There is much more that I could reveal but I do not want to dwell on the negatives and hurts incurred. … I know that God is in control. I have come to the conclusion that my ordination is a honor, my church’s gift to me, and is an expression of deep appreciation and love from a humble group of Brazilian Baptists who have loved me, prayed for me and worked with me during my missionary career.”
In an interview with The Alabama Baptist, Rankin said the IMB currently does not have a policy dealing with ordination of women. He said there is no basis for a woman or any missionary being ordained on the missions field because missionaries do not serve as pastors.
If there is a female missionary candidate who has been ordained, Rankin said the trustees “scrutinize this very carefully.” He added that some ordained women have been asked to turn their ordination papers back to the church.
Rankin noted that when he first came as president of the IMB in 1993, the ordination of women was really not an issue. But concern over the issue has grown since approval of the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message. All IMB missionaries are required to sign the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message, which includes opposing women serving as pastors.
The North American Mission Board (NAMB) also adopted a policy requiring all missionaries who receive 100 percent of their funding from NAMB to sign the statement of faith.
The adoption of the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message also led NAMB to no longer endorse women chaplains who have been ordained.
Another prominent Southern Baptist who has faced the issue of women in ministry is Anne Graham Lotz, featured speaker at this year’s Alabama Baptist Evangelism Conference.
“I speak as a woman who is not in authority,” she writes in the opening pages of her new book, “My Heart’s Cry.” “Instead, I am a woman who is under authority — the authority of my Lord! And I speak with the authority that comes not from any position I hold but from the Person I know.”
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