SBC Issues

Why is it that we only hear of Deborah during debates on complementarian doctrine? On the one side she’s held up as evidence that women are permitted to hold pastoral positions over men in the church, while the other side seemingly has no idea what to do with her. As one who has run in “hard” complementarian circles for most of my life, I’ve heard every attempt to explain away Deborah’s story in Judges ranging from “there were no men in Israel fit to lead” to “Deborah was a sign of God’s judgment on His people”. Interestingly, Deborah is sandwiched in a roster of all male judges. There are … [Read more...] about Deborah: An agent of God’s compassion and deliverance (by Ashley Blosser)

I wrote a post a few days ago in which I argued that the path forward in the SBC on the "complementarianism brouhaha" was fairly simple.   We adhere to our common confession, the BF&M 2000 which details that the pastoral role be reserved for men and that there is a differentiation of roles in marriage. We adhere to our long-held principle of local church autonomy for the rest. As long as a church is faithful to the BF&M 2000, we allow the local church to decide precisely what role women can have in their local church. One church can fence the pulpit from women … [Read more...] about A Soft Question for “Hard Complementarians”

I have read of some who were around when "complementarian" was invented. They would speak reverently and in awe of the term. It certainly was a brilliant move that provided folks with a sophisticated sounding, eight-syllable word to use. Who would argue with a fancy term like that? After that, we could assign ourselves to one of two broad categories: egalitarian or complementarian. Egalitarian was always fairly straightforward but complementarian meant something a lot more fuzzy and not much more than that it was not egalitarian. It's a political reality that issues are won or lost on the … [Read more...] about “Complementarianism” isn’t worth diddly-squat any more

"When will the SBC stop lying about how many members they have?" "The SBC reports 15 million members but no one can find 10 million of these." "SBC membership figures are a total fraud and they should repent." I like a good, indignant gripe as much as any SBC pastor and I haven't been above figuratively slapping my beloved denomination around for the differential between reported membership and average attendance. I'll confess to having said something along the lines of the second quote above: "The SBC reports 15 million members but no one can find 10 million of these." If LifeWay offered a … [Read more...] about The phoney war on SBC membership statistics

There are fights worth fighting, times when taking a stand is necessary. When the gospel is at stake or when the reliability and perfection of God’s word are challenged, we must stand and be counted. The world hates us because we hold to the biblical ideal that marriage is between one man and one woman. If the SBC abandons that I will abandon the SBC. If the SBC walks away from the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the substitutionary atonement of Christ, or a number of other essential doctrines, I will walk away from the SBC. But we must stop tearing the SBC apart unnecessarily by demanding that … [Read more...] about Our Current Complementarian Brouhaha – Finding a Way Forward

I don't think that any member of any church I ever pastored knew what the Executive Committee of the SBC was. The exception to that might have been the guy who pastored SBC churches for some years who paid much closer attention to all the SBC inside baseball talk. Aside from him, the EC might as well have been some group of no-name SBCphiles who look, feel, and sound important but do little that affects my local church. The EC is not even a tiny blip on the average SBC member's radar. 'Obscure' wouldn't be the word for it in regard to the many million SBC members. 'Unknown' would be a better … [Read more...] about The obscure and mysterious SBC Executive Committee