When Gospel Today magazine hit shelves recently with a cover story featuring five female pastors, LifeWay Christian Stores decided quickly that it couldn’t stay there.
“We removed the September/October issue of Gospel Today magazine from the shelves of LifeWay Christian Stores because the cover story, featuring female senior pastors, clearly advocated a position contrary to our denomination’s statement of faith, the Baptist Faith & Message (BF&M),” said Chris Turner, a LifeWay spokesman.
The BF&M states that “the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”
“We certainly understand that some customers have different positions on the issues and do not agree with every point,” Turner said.
“We also recognize that some customers like to read a variety of views on subjects such as these to stay engaged in the culture,” he added. “For that reason, we have continued to make the magazine available upon request to accommodate those needs as best we could.”
While seven of Alabama’s 11 LifeWay stores declined to comment on the decision, four store managers reported their stores as having seen no response to the stores’ ban of Gospel Today.
“We haven’t seen much of a response so it hasn’t impacted us,” said Christine Greiner, head store manager of Oxford’s LifeWay store. “We really haven’t seen people responding. I was expecting to and we were prepared for it, but it hasn’t affected us.”
Scott Tarver, store manager of Huntsville’s LifeWay store, agreed that while he had no comment to provide outside the comments from the corporate office, his store has seen no response.
“I thought we might get flooded with concerns, but we have had zero inquiries,” he said. (TAB)
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