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In the 1994 classic (to me at least) movie The Little Rascals, a central focus is given to the He-Man Woman-Haters Club, a club run by little boys whose sole purpose is to exclude women from their membership. Naturally, the boys learn by the end that girls aren’t gross, and they allow them into their club. This movie will be 30 years old next year, and yet, it is light years ahead of the Southern Baptist Convention leadership, which is looking to bar women from being pastors and remove women who are already in that position. Per The New York Times:
The letter in October came as a shock to Linda Barnes Popham, who had been the pastor of Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., for 30 years, the first woman to lead her congregation. She had served in ministry even longer, since she started as a pianist at age 16.
But now, she read in the letter, officials of the Southern Baptist Convention had received a complaint about her church being led by a woman. The denomination was investigating, it said.
Eww, scary women telling everyone what to do. Who does she think she is? A leader of a congregation doing her job? That simply cannot do. Women are scary!
After rallying her congregation to support her leadership, Barnes, along with other churches led by female pastors, was expelled from the organization anyway. Per the above source:
Convention officials decided to expel her church anyway, along with four other congregations that have female pastors, including one of the most prominent in the country, Saddleback Church, based in Southern California.
“I never believed this would happen,” Ms. Barnes Popham said of the move to expel her church, as she prepared to appeal the expulsion on Tuesday afternoon before thousands of delegates at the annual S.B.C. convention in New Orleans. “Why would you want to silence the voices of the faithful churches? Why?
I mean, I can tell you why. Look no further than this transcript between Anderson Cooper and Southern Baptist Convention president Bart Barber from 2022, Per CBS News:
Anderson Cooper: Have evangelicals sold their soul in order to support Donald Trump?
Bart Barber: First of all, I think we had to choose from the choices that were given to us. And that’s, uh, that’s– that’s an inescapable reality in our political system.
So keep in mind, this was after Trump was impeached for the insurrection on Jan 6th. Evangelicals really don’t have better options than a man who told a mob to go forth and murder? Really? How is that teaching the word of the gospel? I seem to remember that one of the 10 Commandments said something about murder, mainly that you shouldn’t do it.
So to answer the above question: The Southern Baptist Convention simply wants to be as ultra-right-wing as possible and there’s no room for women in leadership positions in that case. Per The New York Times:
The right wing of the Southern Baptists, the largest Protestant denomination in America, is now — like conservatives more broadly — cracking down on what it sees as dangerous liberal drift. Most people in the denomination have long believed that the office of head pastor should be reserved for men. But an ultraconservative faction with a loud online presence is going further, pressing for ideological purity and arguing that female pastors are a precursor to acceptance of homosexuality and sexual immorality.
Seriously, a kid’s movie made almost 30 years ago had the message that exclusion was wrong, yet here we are in the year 2023, debating whether women should be allowed into an exclusive club, and the He-Man Women-Haters among them are big mad. Per The New York Times:
As the convention got underway on Monday in New Orleans, Mike Law, a Virginia pastor, pushed for his proposed amendment to the S.B.C. constitution that would further restrict the role of women in leadership, by stating that a church could be Southern Baptist only if it “does not affirm, appoint or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.”
More than 2,000 male pastors and professors signed a letter in support of the proposed amendment before the convention began. Church officials decided on Monday to advance the proposal to a full floor vote this week, even as they cautioned that they opposed it, arguing that it was unnecessary given the denomination’s existing theological positions. The amendment would need to be passed twice, in consecutive years, to go into effect.
This ban comes with a healthy dose of racism thrown in for good measure, in case you were worried the Southern Baptist Convention wasn’t going to win the “horrible people” bingo game. Per The New York Times:
While the denomination as a whole is overwhelmingly white, Black women are heavily represented as pastors among the churches that have female head pastors.
The vote was released today, and you’re not going to be surprised. The Convention voted to keep out female pastors. The He-Man Women-Haters Club reigns supreme once more.
(featured image: Rawpixel/Getty Images)
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