As we head into the home stretch leading up to the SBC Annual Meeting, we are once again hearing familiar voices espousing familiar positions that have had familiar results. Baptist Press is once again reporting that one of our entity heads (who seems to have a lot of time on their hands to be running the flagship seminary) is once again bringing the issue of women’s roles in the church to the front and center of a meeting which is supposed to be about missions.
The claim states there is still confusion over the role of women. Is there? After expelling some of our most influential churches over this issue, one must ask, is there any confusion over where we stand? The claim is that churches are changing women’s titles to other things, like to “shepherd of…” This entity head asserts that doing so is still “unbiblical.” Is it too far of a stretch to ask that what he really means is using the title: “minister?” “Minister” is a term that is derived from the word “servant,” or our English term: “deacon.” Not pastor, not overseer, not elder, not bishop.
In the millions and millions of SBC minutes spent over this issue, is the end goal to restrict even further what 45,000 autonomous congregations can and cannot do with the people who are called to serve?
In the four consecutive years this question has been brought up, Southern Baptists have time and again said that the Baptist Faith and Message is sufficient. That is not “confusion.” Yet some entity heads are clearly unhappy with the results. So again, much like efforts to defund the oft-derided ERLC, this issue is being brought to the messengers, sporting a bowtie and all.
What is not confusing is that certain entity heads are using a playbook more at home in Washington DC than in SBC life: flood the zone, make the people exhausted, win. What is not in need of clarity is this: we pay our entities millions of Cooperative Program dollars for the leaders of those entities to draw attention and notoriety to themselves. We pay millions of CP dollars for missions, only to get told there’s “confusion” on an issue to which we’ve clearly spoken.
The only people who are confused on this issue are the ones who believe that the convention exists to be their sandbox. The rest of us are clear of why the SBC exists: we are about missions. To help clear up any confusion, I propose the following action steps as we go to Orlando: Let’s pass the budget, send the missionaries, and return to our mission field. It’s as simple as that.
Matt Johnson is a life-long Southern Baptist. He has served churches in California, Nevada, and is currently pastoring in Oklahoma.