On the SBC’s recent vote

Long post alert.

The SBC just passed a constitutional amendment by a 3-to-1 margin to ban churches with women pastors from denominational membership.

I’ve been sitting with that for a while today and here are my thoughts.

I’m not here to debate the theology of women in ministry. Sincere, Bible-believing people land in different places on that, and I have my own convictions.

What I can’t shake is something much simpler… the urgency and the fervor it was voted in with.

I don’t know many people who walked away from the church because their pastor was a woman. I know a lot of people who walked away because of abuse, manipulation, spiritual coercion, and leaders who used their platform to harm the very people they were called to shepherd.

In 2019, the Houston Chronicle published an investigation documenting hundreds of cases of sexual abuse by Southern Baptist leaders spanning two decades. A 2022 independent report confirmed that SBC leadership worked to protect the institution and its clergy over the victims.

That never generated a constitutional amendment. There was no 3-to-1 vote to build better accountability systems or ban leaders or churches for misconduct and cover ups.

And I have to ask, if our standard is “we take scripture seriously and apply it consistently,” where is that same fire directed at consumerism? Pride? Gluttony? Heterosexual sin? Nationalism? The love of money? Idolatry in the form of comfort? The abuse of power?

Scripture isn’t quiet on any of these. Not even close.

We are majoring in the minors and people are watching it split the church. Remind me of Mark 3:25.

The issues that generate the most institutional urgency are rarely the ones that require us to look inward. They tend to be the ones that draw cultural battle lines and keep the spotlight pointed outward.

Jesus had something to say about this. He looked at the religious leaders of His day and said you clean the outside of the cup, but the inside is full of greed and self-indulgence. You look righteous on the outside, but inside you’re full of hypocrisy. They were experts at maintaining the appearance of obedience while the inside of the institution was rotting. He didn’t commend them for it. He rebuked them for it.

I wonder if He’d call it out now too.

I’m not pointing fingers. I’m asking questions I think we all need to sit with. Myself included.

If we applied scripture as broadly and honestly as we claim to in this one area, what would our churches look like? What would our leaders look like? What would we look like?

Selective application is selective obedience.