Rodney Roy DeLoach, a longtime Baptist pastor and chaplain, died March 28 in Tyler. He was 100. He was born March 13, 1923, in Bodcaw, Ark., to George McCluster and Ruth May Simmons DeLoach. After he graduated from Vidor High School in southeast Texas, he attended Lamar College in Beaumont, majoring in math. In 1943, he joined the U.S. Navy. After initially being stationed at Great Lakes, Ill., and training in Morse Code as a radio operator, he served in combat in the Pacific Theater of Operations. The Navy sent him to Rice University for one year as a math major, before he ultimately graduated from the University of Houston in 1949 with a petroleum engineering degree. While working on oil rigs, he also became one of the top insurance salesmen for the Great Southern Life Insurance Company, where he worked 10 years. He and JoAnn Teel married in Houston on March 31, 1951. Feeling God’s call to ministry, DeLoach enrolled in Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1958 and began serving his first church in 1961 at Loeb. He subsequently served churches in Addison, Ill.; Hamilton, Ohio; and San Antonio. He also was interim pastor of Bethany Baptist Church in West Chester, Ohio, and Liberty Baptist Church in Hawkins, Texas. He took great pleasure in serving as a chaplain both for the Longview Fire Department in 1992 and the UT Health Science Center in Tyler. He also was a Grand Lodge of Texas Master Mason for 70 years and a member of the American Legion. He was preceded in death by his son Rodney Roy DeLoach. He is survived by his wife of 72 years, JoAnn Teel DeLoach; daughter Debra Beike and her husband Bob; daughter Pam Mago and her husband Philip; daughter Lisa Ross and her husband John Ross; son George DeLoach and his wife Laura; 18 grandchildren; and 22 great-grandchildren. Memorial donations designated to the Rodney and JoAnn DeLoach Endowed Scholarship may be made to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, P.O. Box 22500, Fort Worth, TX 76122.

Messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting voted overwhelmingly to affirm the expulsion of three churches—two congregations that allow women to serve as pastors and one church that allegedly tolerated sexual abuse by a minister.

By a wide margin, messengers to the SBC annual meeting in New Orleans affirmed an Executive Committee decision to find Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., Saddleback Church in Southern California and Freedom Church in Vero Beach, Fla., outside the bounds of “friendly cooperation” with the SBC.

Messengers from Southern Baptist churches voted on Tuesday afternoon, June 13, and results were announced Wednesday morning, June 14.

They voted 9,700 to 806 (91.85 percent) to affirm the ouster of Fern Creek Baptist Church; 9,437 to 1,212 (88.46 percent) to support the decision to expel Saddleback Church; and 9,984 to 343 (96.46 percent) to ratify the expulsion of Freedom Church.

Churches appealed Executive Committee decision

The three congregations appealed the Executive Committee action. In each case, a church representative had three minutes to make a case for reinstatement prior to a vote by messengers.

Linda Popham has served Fern Creek Baptist Church 40 years, including the last three decades as senior pastor. She described herself as “more conservative than most Southern Baptist pastors.”

“We believe that the Bible allows women to serve in ways in which all of you do not agree,” Popham told messengers during the business session prior to the vote. “But we should still be able to partner together.”

Rick Warren, retired founding pastor of Saddleback Church, urged messengers to “act like Southern Baptists and agree to disagree” on the single issue of whether a woman can serve in the office of pastor.

Historically, Warren said, Southern Baptists have agreed to disagree on some doctrinal issues for the sake of a shared mission.

Churches should be disfellowshipped by the SBC for “sins that harm the testimony of our convention,” Warren said, but churches that call women to serve as pastors “have not sinned.”

He noted the SBC Constitution says cooperating churches “closely identify” with the Baptist Faith & Message, not “completely agree.” Saddleback Church disagrees with “one word” in the statement of faith, he said.

“Isn’t that close enough?” he asked.

Mohler defended decision to exclude churches

In both cases, the Executive Committee called on Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, to speak in support of the decision to exclude the two congregations with women in pastoral roles.

“The congregations of the Southern Baptist Convention are autonomous, and we do not seek to invade the autonomy of any local church,” Mohler said. “At the same time, this convention has the sole responsibility to establish its own membership and to define what it means to be a cooperative Southern Baptist church.”

The issue, Mohler said, is maintaining doctrine and order. He insisted the issue of women in the pastorate is grounded in the doctrine of biblical authority. Furthermore, he said, a shared commitment to a male-only pastorate has resulted in a unified convention.

“The issue of a woman serving in the pastorate is an issue of fundamental biblical authority that does violate both the doctrine and the order of the Southern Baptist Convention,” Mohler asserted.

Warren ‘wasn’t expecting to win’

“I wasn’t expecting to win,” Warren told reporters in a news conference soon after the vote results were announced. “I wanted to push a conversation that had stagnated.”

In the first century, all followers of Jesus—male and female—were involved in proclaiming the gospel and making disciples, he said.

“The church at its best was the church at its birth,” Warren said.

The priesthood of all believers means all followers of Christ are empowered for ministry, he said.

“In the New Testament, everybody gets to play,” Warren said.

Warren expressed surprise that more than 1,200 voted against affirming the Executive Committee decision to exclude Saddleback, given the composition of the SBC annual meeting.

He characterized those who attend the convention primarily as denominational workers, retirees who want a reunion with old friends, local Baptists from the area where a meeting is held and “activists” from small churches who are looking for a platform.

“The face of Southern Baptists does not look at all like the annual meeting,” he said.

A majority of messengers to the 2023 annual meeting chose “conformity and uniformity rather than unity,” Warren said.

Warren emphasized his belief in “historic Baptist principles,” noting, “Baptists are famous for dissent.”

“You have to do what’s right, even if you shake the boat,” he said.

“We made the effort knowing we weren’t going to win,” Warren said.

However, he voiced belief Saddleback’s view on women in ministry eventually will prevail.

“Truth inevitably wins out over tradition. … Change will happen,” he said.

Church excluded over handling of abuse allegations

Messengers to the SBC annual meeting also heard discussion regarding the decision to deem Freedom Church not to be in “friendly cooperation” with the SBC, because the church failed to cooperate to resolve concerns regarding an abuse allegation.

Donald Stewart, a representative from the congregation said the pastor who was the subject of the allegations resigned May 22, and an independent party—the Anglican Church of North America—investigated and resolved the concerns.

Executive Committee member and Florida pastor Dean Inserra noted Freedom Church was disfellowshipped both by Treasure Coast Baptist Association and the Florida Baptist Convention.

He also said the congregation “took zero action” and failed to respond to the SBC Credentials Committee or the Executive Committee until after the decision to oust the church was reached.

NEW ORLEANS (BP)—Missionary surgeon and longtime healthcare missions advocate Dr. Rebekah Naylor was honored at the annual International Mission Board dinner June 12 during the 2023 SBC annual meeting in New Orleans.

IMB President Paul Chitwood announced a ministry fund being named in honor of Naylor.

“In honor of Dr. Rebekah Naylor’s commitment to getting the gospel to the nations through healthcare, we are creating the Dr. Rebekah Naylor Fund for Global Healthcare Strategies,” Chitwood announced.

“Every time someone gives to this fund, they will not only honor Dr. Naylor’s legacy of service, but they will also create opportunities for hurting people to receive physical help and eternal hope.”

Naylor was appointed to India in 1973 and has more than 50 years of service with the IMB. During her years of service in India, she helped supervise the growth of the former Chicken Coop Clinic into Bangalore Baptist Hospital as surgeon, chief of the medical staff, administrator and medical superintendent. She also served in pivotal roles on church-planting teams.

In 2009, Naylor retired from her work on the field and became IMB’s global healthcare strategies consultant. Today, IMB has more healthcare missionaries than ever in its history, largely due to her efforts. She has announced her upcoming retirement in September of this year.

In presenting a plaque accompanying the announcement, Chitwood shared that the inaugural $10,000 gift to the fund will come from the IMB.

Chitwood also recognized IMB President Emeritus Jerry Rankin, who was president for 17 years and served a total of 40 years with the IMB.

Consider grim reality of global lostness

Jeff Ginn, the IMB’s global engagement leader for the Americas and incoming vice president of mobilization, shared some of the stark realities of global lostness.

He personalized it, recounting a story from his time in Colombia. His wife, Nell, realized their son was missing. Stopping everything to search for him, she and a national friend discovered that a woman was trying to kidnap him. The friend rescued the boy and returned him to his mother.

“I still get weak in the knees when I think about how our lives would have been forever changed had she not had a concern for the lost,” Ginn recounted.

Ginn went on to tell how he had witnessed the power of the gospel among the lost, before moving to the stark reality of lostness—the world’s greatest problem.

More than half (59 percent) of the world’s population is unreached, Ginn explained. This means there are less than 2 percent evangelical Christians within their people group or nearby. In addition, 3,072 people groups (287 million people) are considered unengaged and unreached. These people groups have no missionary presence and likely no access to the gospel.

“This cannot be ignored, this cannot be tolerated, this cannot stand,” Ginn said, as he encouraged the crowd to pray faithfully for missionaries and unreached peoples.

Project 3000 and Great Pursuit

Another emphasis at the dinner was Project 3000. Through this pioneering initiative, Project 3000 will create 100 new jobs each year over three years. Each of these new missionaries will be exploring 10 people groups over a two-year period.

This announcement continues IMB’s theme of a Great Pursuit for those who remain without gospel access. IMB leaders have repeated this message, driving home why the IMB and the Southern Baptist Convention exist.

Chitwood commissioned attendees to take action as they left the dinner.

“As your missionaries continue the work of addressing the world’s greatest problem—spiritual lostness—with God’s solution—which is the gospel, they need your prayers, your continued generosity and more reinforcements,” he said.

“The number of missionaries who have applied and are walking through the process to go to the field has grown to 1,200,” he said.

“But we need more missionaries to go. Will you consider how God is calling you and how God is calling those in your churches?” he posed to attendees.

“From the Great Commission in Matthew 28 to the great multitude that we see in Revelation 7:9, we have been called to unite in this Great Pursuit: To reach every nation—no matter the cost,” Chitwood said.

NEW ORLEANS (BP)—Heather began addressing her same-sex attraction after accepting Jesus in college.

“As a new Christian, she started wrestling with what the Bible says about sexuality, and she revealed her own attraction and struggles of attraction to the same sex,” women’s ministry leader Katie McCoy said.

“And when she shared her struggles to a group of other Christians, she really just needed somebody to care, somebody to walk alongside of her, someone to help her understand and grow in God’s liberating truth and grace.

“Her community of Christian friends didn’t really know what to do.”

McCoy, director of women’s ministry for the Baptist General Convention of Texas, spoke to the Pastors’ Wives and Women’s Conference June 12 in advance of the 2023 Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans.

“In her vulnerability,” McCoy said of Heather, “she stumbled into the influence and acceptance of the LGBTQ community. The underlying issues of her self-perception and her sexual attraction went unaddressed.”

Heather’s mental health suffered as she declared herself a lesbian, had her breasts removed and took testosterone supplements.

McCoy was referencing Heather Skriba, who has shared her story publicly.

“She was, in her own words, ‘trying to modify my body to deal with soul-level heartache,’” McCoy said. “And in a short span of time, she had transitioned to living as a man. But here’s the miracle of the story.

“God had not given up on Heather, because months after her procedure, she realized that her pain was beyond the reach of a surgeon. She felt the connection of the Holy Spirit, that she was settling for her brokenness when her God offered wholeness.”

McCoy was among a team of women leaders who addressed the conference, focusing on gender confusion, marriage, singleness and the trappings of a postmodern culture.

Ministry in a challenging and changing culture

Speakers offered tips on ministering amid a changing culture that promotes lifestyles that were once unacceptable, rearing and mentoring children in the postmodern world, and developing resilience as God molds and changes your life.

Rachel Gilson, a Christian wife and mother with a background of same-sex attraction, offered tips to parents and leaders on sharing biblical truth with those struggling with same-sex attraction, gender confusion and related issues.

She serves on the ministry team of Cru—formerly Campus Crusade—helping train Cru missionaries to minister to those struggling with LGBTQ-related issues.

It’s important for parents to discuss such issues with their children, and for Christians to spread the truth among their neighbors, Gilson said, serving on a panel with others and also delivering an individual address.

“I’m not saying we need to have a full-blown sex talk with our kids at like 3 years old,” Gilson said on the panel. “But I do think that because they are getting targeted messages younger and younger, we do need to think about what are some age-appropriate ways—younger than I maybe thought before—that I can be sharing good news about what God says about our bodies.”

Gilson suggests parents tell children they can trust their bodies and that marriage can be a gospel picture as painted in Ephesians 5.

“Feelings do go all over the place and some of these feelings are deep, these feelings are troubling, but we can trust our bodies. They don’t lie to us because God gave them to us. They’re good,” Gilson has told her own daughter.

Gilson acknowledged biologically intersex conditions in some children, referencing two she’s aware of.

“But if we just keep giving good, positive, scriptural things (to children), it helps set a buffer against crazy messages, confusing messages that they hear outside,” she said.

Listen before speaking

When children confess a confusion over their true gender, Gilson said, parents would be wise first to listen and express love before presenting biblical truth.

“The most important thing you can do in that moment is thank them for sharing that with you and express that you love them,” Gilson said. “Most kids in this category, they’ve been holding this inside for a long, long time.

“And if they know you, they know what you think about the Bible. They’re not confused about what you think the Bible says, but they’re deeply terrified about whether you’re going to reject them or hate them, or maybe that God is going to reject them or hate them because of something that they’re feeling or experiencing,” Gilson said.

“So the first conversation, you just want to thank them, listen to them, love them, give them a hug, show them that you care.”

A child’s disclosure to a parent is often the end of a difficult journey and a time of relief, while it’s the beginning of a different journey for parents. Gilson advised parents to seek support from trusted, loving friends to process the range of emotions they likely will experience after a child admits such a struggle.

“You might be feeling a lot of legitimate emotions, a ton of other things coming up, maybe your own fear,” she said. “And that’s perfectly normal and OK.

“But you need to make sure you have a safe place that isn’t your child to process those things with, women who love you and love Jesus, who you can go to and talk about, because the relationship with your child is so unique and so tender, that you need to make sure you have the support you absolutely need to be able to engage with them well, to speak God’s truth and God’s grace to them.”

Panels explore how to discuss sexuality with children

Panel moderator Jacki King, a Bible teacher and author, said parents need to be a safe place for their children to discuss their feelings and learn the truth of God’s design for sexuality.

In an individual address following the panel discussion, Gilson used Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well in John 4 to examine ways to share gospel truth with neighbors.

While Jesus confronted the woman directly regarding her lifestyle and worship, Gilson said, Jesus also offered grace by going out of his way to encounter her, presented himself as vulnerable by asking the woman for a drink of water, and offered the grace of truth in salvation.

“We did not deserve Christ’s proximity when he came into the world to be born in human flesh. Proximity is grace,” she said. “And if we are going to see God save people out of this insanity, we have to choose the grace of proximity.

“By the power of the Spirit, we actually have to go. How are people going to believe if they haven’t heard and how are they going to believe if we’re not going?”

Other members of the panel, McCoy and Jess Archer, executive director and treasurer for the South Carolina Baptist Convention Woman’s Missionary Union, discussed singleness, marriage and cultural diversity in God’s body of believers. Both McCoy and Archer are single, and Archer addressed diversity from her viewpoint as an African American, the first to hold her current WMU post.

God “created us with beauty and diversity, and we can celebrate those things,” Archer said. “As women of color, we’ve always had to rely on the Lord to strengthen our faith. We’ve always had to call on the Lord to bring us through different things.

“Being that we’re in a fallen world, we know the history of slavery. We know the history of Jim Crow and oppression, and … segregation,” she said.

“But to learn how the Lord is faithful, the Lord has brought us through many things, and to see what the Lord’s going to do. Many of us are different, some of our views seem to be different, but we can always count on the Lord in what he can do.”

Regarding singleness, Archer pointed out both married and single women are daughters of King Jesus and are complete in that position.

McCoy, while acknowledging those with the gift of singleness need to be celebrated, termed marriage the “norm,” and encouraged church members to be matchmakers as well as affirmed her desire for marriage.

At other points in the three-hour event, Bible teacher, author and ministry leader Donna Gaines of Cordova, Tenn., led attendees in extended times of focused prayer both individually and in small groups.

Among Gaines’ emphases were unity over division, and the personal and corporate benefits of fulfilling God’s Great Commandment—to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love neighbors as ourselves.

Kathy Litton, the North American Mission Board’s director of church-planter spouse development, exhorted women in developing resilience in life and in ministry.

Using Joseph Jacob’s son as an example, she encouraged women to embrace change, to accept and yield to God’s plans for their lives, to walk by faith instead of sight, and to continue to build new relationships when God sets your life on an unexpected trajectory.

“Where has God called you,” Litton asked, “to step forward out of a difficult [situation] or a loss, or failure, to move forward with a resilient life, a changed perspective of how God wants to use you? I pray that he showed you that this morning.”

Messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in New Orleans reelected Bart Barber, pastor of First Baptist Church in Farmersville, as SBC president by a more than two-to-one margin.

Barber, the incumbent president, received 7,531 votes—68.38 percent—compared to 3,458 votes—31.4 percent—for challenger Mike Stone, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Blackshear, Ga.

The presidential election on Tuesday afternoon at the SBC annual meeting in New Orleans was scheduled before messengers voted whether to affirm an Executive Committee decision to find three churches outside of the bounds of “friendly cooperation” with the SBC.

Barber moderated the discussion regarding whether two churches with female pastors—Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., and Saddleback Church in Southern California—should be considered “not in friendly cooperation” with the convention.

“We want to partner with you,” Linda Popham, pastor of Fern Creek Church, told messengers during the business session.

Rick Warren, founding pastor of Saddleback Church, urged messengers to “act like Southern Baptists and agree to disagree” on the single issue of whether a woman can serve in the office of pastor.

In both cases, the Executive Committee called on Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, to speak in support of the decision to exclude the two congregations with women in pastoral roles.

Messengers also heard discussion regarding the decision to deem Freedom Church in Vero Beach, Fla., not to be in “friendly cooperation” with the SBC because the church failed to cooperate to resolve concerns regarding an abuse allegation.

Donald Stewart, a representative from the congregation said the pastor who was the subject of the allegations resigned May 22, and an independent party—the Anglican Church of North America—investigated and resolved the concerns.

An Executive Committee representative noted the church had been disfellowshipped both by its local association and state convention. He also said the congregation failed to respond to the SBC Credentials Committee or the Executive Committee until after the decision to oust the church was reached.

Messengers voted by ballot whether to affirm the Executive Committee’s decision to exclude each of the three congregations. Vote tallies were not available when the Tuesday session ended.

‘Dwell on things worth dwelling on’

Earlier in the day, Barber delivered his presidential sermon based on Philippians 4:8-9, calling on Southern Baptists to “dwell on the right things” and allow God to give them “a distinctively Christian sense of taste.”

“Dwell on things that are worth dwelling on,” he urged. “Christianity changes our view of what is beautiful.”

Barber—a blogger with a wide following on social media—noted the danger in focusing on critical tweets and controversial posts rather than those that are encouraging.

“If you’re not sure about the state of your own heart, let me tell you, Google knows. … The algorithm knows,” he said.

“If your social media feed is a constant barrage of criticism and conspiracy, what social media is giving you is a mirror image of the sense of taste you have cultivated. … Rise up and be better than the world.”

Dwelling on those things that are good does not mean ignoring or covering up problems.

“Cover-ups get us in trouble in the end,” he said. “You don’t have to cover up the ugly things to dwell on the beautiful things.”

God wants to accomplish “something far more fundamentally important than spin control and public relations,” he said.

In a poignant conclusion to his sermon, Barber described how his mother—who died two days earlier—taught him to see the beauty in people.

He recalled a poor family whose car broke down outside of Lake City, Ark. A service station owner—who knew Barber’s parents at church—called Barber’s mother, asking if she could help.

Barber said his mother found the family a place to live and helped them secure food and clothing.

As she developed a relationship with the family and helped them feel at home at church, the mother and children came to faith in Christ. Later, their father also became a Christian.

All of the children matured in their faith, went on to graduate from college and became successful as adults.

“It’s so easy to become callous, but my mom never did,” Barber said. “She learned to see the beauty in people around her. And because of that, she changed people’s lives.”

NEW ORLEANS (RNS)—Membership in the Southern Baptist Convention’s affiliated churches has been plummeting, its national leaders are feuding or quitting, and any good work the denomination could boast about has been largely overshadowed by a sex abuse crisis.

In the past week, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary announced its leaders had run up $140 million in deficits over the past two decades, depleting the school’s reserve and leaving it in an ongoing financial crisis.

Alongside these existential challenges, Southern Baptists, like other Americans, have indulged in the nation’s ongoing “woke wars,” in which discussion of policy governing race, education and other issues quickly devolves into a shouting match, especially on social media.

All these factors threaten to erode the SBC’s so-called “rope of sand”—bonds of trust, rather than official hierarchy or legal ownership, that bind together the 40,000 churches and 13 million members of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

Yet most of the denomination’s adversity will be overshadowed during the SBC’s annual meeting in New Orleans this week by a slow-simmering debate that has heated up among Baptists over the past few years: What should be done about the handful of women who serve as pastors at SBC churches?

Consider constitutional amendment

During the opening day of the SBC’s annual meeting, which runs June 13-14, thousands of local church messengers will consider appeals from a pair of congregations that have been expelled for employing women as pastors, which conflicts with the denomination’s statement of faith.

The messengers on Wednesday will debate a proposed constitutional amendment that would make it clear that churches with women as pastors cannot be part of the SBC.

The SBC Executive Committee voted June 12 to approve placing the amendment before the messengers during this year’s meeting. But they also noted their opposition to changing the constitution to address the debate, with some members saying during the meeting the faith statement is the place for such doctrinal issues.

“While the messengers to the 2022 SBC Annual Meeting entrusted the Executive Committee with this motion, we recognize the significance of the matter, at this given time, and therefore believe it is prudent to place the referred motion before the entire body of messengers,” the committee stated, “while also expressing our opposition to the suggested amendment to SBC Constitution Article III.”

Long-standing differences on role of women

At stake at the meeting is not only the role of women in the church, but a broader question about how closely a church needs to identify overall with the Baptist Faith & Message to remain “in friendly cooperation” with the convention.

Southern Baptists long have argued over the role of women in the church. In 1885, a group of Virginia women showed up at the annual meeting as messengers. Baptist leaders admitted that no rule barred their presence but barred them anyway, then changed the rules so that only “brethren” were allowed. The rules later were changed back.

In 2000, the statement of faith was updated to hold that men and women are “gifted for service in the church” but restricts the office of pastor to men alone. Some believe that means women cannot do any of the things that male pastors do—lead a church, preach during worship services or oversee both men and women. Others say that only the office of senior pastor of a church is limited to men.

Yet for decades, women served as missionaries, teaching and sometimes preaching. In the 1960s, women began to serve as SBC pastors, with their number growing to at least several hundred by the 1980s.

That changed after the so-called Conservative Resurgence took over the convention and drove off more moderate Baptists who supported women pastors. Other women pastors left on their own, feeling no longer welcome.

Still, some remain.

Will they stay or will they go?

At Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Ky., Linda Popham has served 40 years, the last 30 as senior pastor. The church holds to a 1963 version of the Baptist Faith & Mission, which makes no mention of gender when it comes to pastors.

Fern Creek was among five churches removed from the SBC in February for having female pastors—the first time the denomination has acted on a national level to do so.

Fern Creek will appeal that decision this week, as will another disfellowshipped church, Saddleback Church in California, founded by bestselling author Rick Warren. After Warren’s retirement last year, Stacie Wood was named teaching pastor beside her husband, senior pastor Andy Wood.

Popham, who spent last week at her church’s Vacation Bible School, said the move to kick her church out of the SBC is baffling. The church works closely with its local Baptist association and state convention, gives to SBC missions, does door-to-door evangelism and runs a host of SBC-related programs. A lifelong Baptist, she has served on state committees, hosted SBC leaders at her church and gone on a dozen international mission trips.

 “We have been in friendly cooperation with the SBC all these years,” she said. “It makes no sense. What happened in the last two years?”

Cultural and political divisions dominate

The answer has much to do with Donald Trump and the SBC’s abuse crisis. The current debate over women as pastors and preachers actually goes back to 2019, when the popular Southern Baptist Bible teacher Beth Moore referred on Twitter to a recent appearance she’d made at a church on Mother’s Day.

Moore already had earned the ire of some Baptist leaders for being critical of Trump’s treatment of women. Her Mother’s Day tweet gave her opponents a doctrinal weapon.

At the time, the SBC was dealing with the fallout of a Houston Chronicle report about hundreds of cases of sexual abuse in recent decades by SBC pastors and church leaders. Then the conversation changed.

“We were in the middle of the biggest sexual abuse scandal that has ever hit our denomination,” Moore told Religion News Service in 2021. “And suddenly, the most important thing to talk about was whether or not a woman could stand at the pulpit and give a message.”

Moore eventually left the SBC altogether.

‘We don’t want you’

The debate over women pastors blew up again in 2021 after Saddleback Church announced it had ordained three women on staff as pastors. That led to calls to kick Saddleback, and churches like it, out.

Mike Law, the Virginia pastor who proposed the amendment to bar churches with women pastors, has compiled a list of 170 women. Fewer than a third are senior pastors. The rest are associate pastors, children’s pastors or fill other staff roles.

The amendment, if passed, would only allow churches to cooperate with the SBC if they do not “affirm, appoint, or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.”

Popham says she knows some of the current women pastors in the SBC. Most, she said, served away from the spotlight, doing the work of the gospel. She worries that the move to kick out any church that has any woman with the title of pastor will be harmful to all women.

“I think it sends a clear message to other women in the convention,” said Popham, who got her first job in ministry while a student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville. “We don’t want you, and we need you to be quiet.”

The continued focus on women in the church has been exhausting, said Bible teacher and author Jacki King.

“A big chunk of Southern Baptists are just really discouraged,” said King, who is the minister to women at Second Baptist Church in Conway, Ark., where her husband is pastor.

King said she believes only men should be pastors, but the recent conflicts, she said, have cast suspicion on any woman who holds a significant role or even speaks at events when both men and women are present.

King found herself under fire a few years ago for speaking during a chapel service at a Christian college, which was seen by critics as a violation of Scripture.

The conflict has left outsiders to see Southern Baptists primarily as people who cut each other and fight, she said.

 “There’s more happening by friendly fire than us actually like being attacked by anything outside,” she said. “I just keep being discouraged at how people are treating one another.”

Women still want to serve in the church

Despite the tensions, women still want to serve in the church, said King. She pointed to the consistent presence of women at SBC seminaries and other schools of theology.

Women make up almost 1 in 4 (24 percent) students at Southern Seminary, the SBC’s flagship seminary, and at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth (24 percent). A third of the students at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in North Carolina this spring were women, and nearly that many (29 percent) were at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, according to data supplied by the seminaries.

Few faculty are women, ranging from 4 percent at Southern to 12 percent at New Orleans seminary. Those female faculty tend to hold positions related to counseling, education, women’s ministry or libraries.

Nationwide, women make up about 10 percent of clergy in the United States, according to the 2020 Faith Communities Today study. About a third (32 percent) of mainline Protestant churches had women pastors. Only 4 percent of evangelical congregations have a woman pastor.

Katie J. McCoy, an author and former seminary professor and now director of women’s ministry for Texas Baptists, said women still want to learn theology in order to understand the Bible better. In her role, she helps run education programs for women leaders at churches, putting her experience as a seminary professor to work on a statewide basis.

She said she’s hopeful that many younger pastors care about doctrine but also want to empower women in the church.

“One of the great things happening in the SBC today is millennial pastors who recognize the need to champion the gifts of women,” she said. “They don’t want to be part of all the infighting.”

Popham said that she will speak to the convention next week, making the case that Fern Creek should be allowed to stay. She’s been given three minutes for the appeal—and wants to be precise and truthful.

“I want to make sure that I bring glory to the name of Christ,” she said. “I want to make sure I speak the truth in love.”

Adelle M. Banks contributed to this report.

NEW ORLEANS (BP)—The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee approved a recommendation to place a motion before messengers to the annual meeting concerning whether churches that have female pastors should be considered outside the bounds of cooperation with the SBC.

The motion, introduced to messengers at last year’s SBC annual meeting by Virginia pastor Mike Law, calls for an amendment to the SBC Constitution whereby a sixth identifier would be placed to Article III, paragraph 1. Churches “in friendly cooperation” with the SBC, it stated, would “not affirm, appoint, or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.”

While the recommendation is for messengers to decide the fate of the motion, the Executive Committee also expressed its “opposition to the suggested amendment.”

The Executive Committee “strongly affirms” Article VI of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 that limits the office of pastor to men “as qualified by Scripture,” the recommendation stated.

 “However, the Executive Committee deems that our beliefs are most appropriately stated in our adopted statement of faith rather than in our constitution and therefore opposes a suggested amendment to SBC Constitution, Article III, which would unnecessarily restate the Baptist Faith & Message 2000, Article VI.”

Trustee Josh Hetzler proposed an amendment to the recommendation striking language in order to make it “more neutral.”

Hetzler’s amendment had been voted down in committee, missions and ministry committee chair Richard Spring explained, adding that it came down to a matter of “governance and procedure.”

Reiterating the recommendation was going to the messengers, Spring questioned the wisdom of “putting our statement of faith in our constitutional documents.”

“Have we taken the time to analyze all the ramifications of moving in this direction as a denomination and convention?” he asked.

“The Executive Committee has historically not spoken to theology issues. We let the messengers make those determinations.”

The vote will go before messengers during the Executive Committee report on Wednesday morning, June 14.

In other business, the committee elected Philip Robertson, pastor of Philadelphia Baptist Church in Pineville, La., as chair.

NEW ORLEANS (BP)—Abiding in Christ brings abundant hope, Woman’s Missionary Union leaders said at the 2023 WMU Missions Celebration and annual meeting.

Held June 11-12 at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary campus, this year’s theme was “Hope in Christ,” based on Romans 12:12.

Sandy Wisdom-Martin, executive director-treasurer of national WMU, presented examples of what happens when God’s faithful abide in Christ.

“June saw something in a young woman who was fearful in speaking with others. June taught her to lean in and depend on the Lord. And for the past 35 years, Beth has taught WMU workshops and written articles and mentored others,” said Wisdom-Martin, former executive director-treasurer of Woman’s Missionary Union of Texas.

She also described 91-year-old Barbara, who lives in an assisted living facility. Barbara’s husband has dementia, and every afternoon while he naps, she makes bookmarks and sends them to missionaries she reads about in WMU materials.

Wisdom-Martin also described Lydia, who shared her Christian witness with others and called young people in Uganda to sexual purity, even as she died of AIDS.

As a result, Wisdom-Martin said, “Uganda’s president witnessed the impact on the youth and credited the program for the nation’s 66 percent reduction in HIV. … The course of an entire nation changed because a Christ-follower abided in Christ.

“When people abide in Christ, other lives are transformed. If you want others to experience abundant hope, then you need to abide in Christ.”

During a business session at the annual meeting, WMU reelected Connie Dixon of First Baptist Church in Elida, N.M. as president, and Shirley McDonald of Greens Creek Baptist Church in Dublin as recording secretary.

Hope isn’t found in “finances, degrees, abilities or things that don’t really count,” Dixon said. “We must put our hope in Christ and in Christ alone.”

The WMU had hope 135 years ago when the organization formed, Dixon said. Since its beginnings, the missions-supporting organization has raised more than $7.2 billion to reach the world for Christ, she noted.

“Be as bold as our foremothers,” she said. “We need to study their experiences and methods … and apply Christ to the needs of the world.”

Take time to listen to God

Kay Bennett, recently retired North American Mission Board Send Relief missionary, told the assembly, “Abiding in Christ will make you look good.”

Bennett told about her 35 years of ministry service to trafficked, unhoused and addicted individuals at the Baptist Friendship House and the Brantley Center in New Orleans.

Admitting she could do nothing without God, Bennett stressed the importance of having a “sanctuary” where people can hear from God.

Those listening times have informed her entire ministry and have had ripple effects, she said, pointing to when a church group came to the Friendship House in 2021 and were trained how to recognize human trafficking.

The team returned on another trip to New Orleans and were doing ministry at a local laundromat when a girl ran to the bathroom. The team feared she was being trafficked and called the Friendship House.

Bennett later learned another trafficker had shot and killed her trafficker the night before. As Bennett and the young teenager exited the building, the team lined up for her like a sports team, putting on full display their abundant hope in Christ.

“That church was abiding in Christ, or they wouldn’t have recognized or helped the trafficked victim,” Bennett said.

New identity in Christ

Natalie Nation, who has served the past two years as an International Mission Board journeyman and is transitioning into a career appointment, described how God gave her abundant hope as a young woman and competitive swimmer in college in Hawaii.

Nation injured her back and had to stop swimming, which caused her to feel a loss of identity, she said. She took notice of the peace and joy her Christian friends experienced and soon connected with them and with Jesus.

After three years of ministering in Hawaii, Nation accepted a call to Tokyo, Japan, home to 39 million people, less than 1 percent of whom are Christians. Nation described the overwhelming hopelessness and darkness and trains crammed with people who do not know God. She related how she started praying for the people on the crowded trains, picturing each of them worshipping around God’s throne in their Japanese language.

“God has brought many people into my life that I can share my story of hope. … [It’s been] a journey with a lot of tears and laughter and really good Japanese food,” Nation said.

Stories of hope shared

This year’s celebration featured testimonies about hope from former WMU officers paired on stage with this year’s teen Acteens panelists.

Liz Encinia, executive director-treasurer of Kentucky WMU, talked about the hope she has found in Christ, despite the depression she is prone to face.

“Having an abundance,” which she defined as “more than you need,” seems too good to be true, she said. “Brokenness causes a chasm in this understanding … but we know Jesus, and he is our living hope, and his hope is eternal.”

Linda Cooper, national WMU president emerita and current Kentucky WMU president, shared how God provided hope through her education and career as a dental hygienist and how she uses her practice to share hope with her patients. She felt a call to missions, ultimately becoming involved in WMU leadership on the state and national levels.

Dorothy Sample, national WMU president emerita from Flint, Mich., said she “has been on the road for a long time” and has seen God’s faithfulness over and over. Abundant hope, she says, is having a mindset of focusing on the positive …even when things seem impossible. It means “relaxing in God and trusting in him to make things happen.”

A recent tornado in Little Rock, Ark., showed Kaye Miller the abundant hope of Christ. The tornado left massive damage in the neighborhoods surrounding her church, but the church was untouched, said Miller, national WMU president emerita from Little Rock.

Miller had the opportunity to minister to a young woman who handed over to her a wet, 2-week-old baby. Devastated by the loss of everything in her life, the new mother fell to the ground crying.

Later, after being ministered to, the mom said, “You have shown me what hope looks like.”

Miller urged, “Be that difference-maker that shows others what abundant hope looks like.”

The 2023 National Acteens Panel included Isavela Montanez Ojeda of Freeman Heights Baptist Church in Garland and Hannah Rickman of Retama Park Baptist Church in Kingsville, along with Leslie Almonte of New Jersey, Destiny MacCarthy of Alabama, and Alyssa McMillon of North Carolina.

The young women talked about how their hope in Christ sustained them in the face of health issues, identity crises and family dynamics. Each shared Bible passages that encouraged them in their faith.

Robert Dee “Bob” Longshore, Texas Baptist pastor and development officer, died June 10 in Mesquite. He was 100. He was born Jan. 25, 1923, in Commerce to Otis and Leonora Longshore.  Soon after he graduated from Commerce High School, where he was co-captain of the football team, he joined the U.S. Army. Longshore served as a first sergeant in the Army Signal Corps attached to the Air Force during World War II. He was honorably discharged in 1945 having been awarded nine Bronze Stars, one Bronze Arrowhead, the American Defense Service Medal and the Good Conduct Medal. While stationed in Darmstadt, Germany, Longshore felt God calling him to preach. Upon returning to the United States following the war, he was ordained to the ministry by First Baptist Church in Commerce. He earned his undergraduate degree from Baylor University and Bachelor of Divinity and Master of Theology degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. While a student at Baylor, he met Anita Ruth Moore. They married June 18, 1948, in Winnsboro. Longshore was pastor of Fairlie Baptist Church near Commerce, Heidenheimer Baptist Church in Bell County, First Baptist Church in College Station and First Baptist Church in Littlefield. In 1966, he joined the Baptist General Convention of Texas as a development officer. In 1969, he was instrumental in starting Baylor University’s Student Foundation, a student organization that has since raised more than $5 million in student scholarships. He retired from the Baptist General Convention of Texas in 1985 as the director of the Texas Baptist institutional development program. He was preceded in death by a brother and two sisters. He is survived by his wife of nearly 75 years Anita; daughter Catherine Rendon of Mesquite; daughter Faith Houston of Sunnyvale and husband Steve; and daughter Deanna Harrison of Denver, Colo., and husband Scott; five grandchildren; one great-granddaughter; and three great-grandsons. Visitation will be at 1 p.m. on June 17 at Restland Funeral Home Memorial Chapel in Dallas, with a memorial service following at 2 p.m. Burial is scheduled at 1 p.m. on June 21 at the Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Baylor University Student Foundation, to the Baptist General Convention of Texas designated for the “Pastor Sabbatical Grant” or another charity. 

When Sandra Sexton Welling joined the Hardin-Simmons University faculty, she not only brought a love for Jesus, a wealth of knowledge and a collaborative spirit. She also arrived with a vision for developing a program focused on Christ-centered nursing.

Welling, the founding director of nursing and associate dean of the HSU College of Health Professions, long has been drawn to helping others. It’s a lesson learned from her mother, who was a nurse.

From a young age, she saw the impact nursing has on the individual and community. Following her mother’s example, she wants to extend a helping hand wherever she can.

 “We need to give back,” Welling said. “What kind of society would we be if we just take and not give back?”

When Welling attended college, she initially was drawn to history and education. Her passion for history and understanding “why” is an aspect of nursing she practices daily. Any student who wants to see her collection of vintage bedpans (thoroughly sanitized, of course) or historical texts can visit her office.

Welling points to Nago Nagle, who founded the Presentation Sisters, as an inspiration. Nagle, who predated Florence Nightingale by a century, was known as the Lady of the Lantern, because she walked the streets at night to help the poor and lowly.

The Presentation Sisters—a worldwide Roman Catholic religious order—follow the example of Nano Nagle and “work for justice, alleviate oppression and promote human dignity, especially among the poor.”

Sandra acts as a cojourner of the Presentation Sisters, a lay group open to any baptized person who exhibits the Presentation Sisters’ spirituality, values and mission within the framework of her own life, career and responsibilities.

Dedication to servant leadership

At the core of everyone called to nursing is a need to serve, Welling believes. Her focus on service is evident in the curriculum she and Laura Wade, assistant professor of nursing, are developing for the new school of nursing.

“God is at the center of the program. Our leaders are Christ-centric and servants to the community,” she said.

The HSU School of Nursing will be dedicated to servant leadership and focused on nurturing, fostering and empowering others to generate a community of creativity, collaboration, satisfaction and successful performance, she said.

Welling noted she is “most excited about creating a program founded on biblical teaching and social justice.”

She has experience in program creation and has facilitated the development of two Master of Science in Nursing degree programs, a practical nurse program, extensive Bachelor of Science in Nursing expansions and hybrid degree programs, and she designed five simulation labs.

She received the Registered Nurse diploma from Methodist College of Nursing in Omaha, Neb., her bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Detroit Mercy, a Master of Science in Nursing degree from Regis University’s Rueckert-Hartman School for Health Professions and a Ph.D. from New Mexico State University.

She and her husband, Dave, have four children—Ryan, who is deceased, Nikole, Makenna and Sidney.

When asked why she chose to join the Hardin-Simmons faculty, Welling said: “This place is different. You can feel Christ permeate the campus. It feels good.”

And, she added, teaching at HSU offered a benefit not available at every university.

“I needed to be able to pray with students,” she said.

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Three years after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis brought crowds into the streets for a summer of protests, Christian groups quietly are launching initiatives that address the still-fraught racial divisions among their members and in the wider society.

In New Orleans, leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention—which has been roiled by unrest over critical race theory and other racial issues in recent years—is holding a forum on racial reconciliation.

Meanwhile, representatives of mainline and historic Black Protestant denominations held a three-day meeting in Philadelphia to discuss plans for “eradicating racism.”

SBC needs ‘honest conversations’

“We need to have honest conversations with people who don’t look like us to find out why we have these differences,” said Fred Luter, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention and the first African American to lead the group.

“We need to talk about it, we need to discuss it and we should be able to discuss it in a Christian-like manner and hopefully come up with simple steps of what we can do to bring about unity among the races in the SBC.”

As messengers to the SBC annual meeting gather, Luter said he expects about 300 people at the racial reconciliation event organized by the Unify Project, a campaign Luter founded with another former SBC president, Ed Litton, with the advice of Dallas megachurch pastor Tony Evans.

The Unify Project aims to bring pastors and churches together for meals and to help them speak out and jointly provide community service.

In 2018, in Memphis, Tenn., the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, then headed by Russell Moore, co-sponsored an event on racism marking the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. But since then, race has again become a sore point for the SBC.

Luter said he hopes the New Orleans gathering, co-hosted by the ERLC, will turn the SBC to a new direction.

“All we can do is hope,” he said. “That’s my hope, personally.”

Uniting to combat racism

In Philadelphia, the 10 denominations that comprise the 21-year-old Churches Uniting in Christ convened to address how its member groups can work on “a shared mission to combat racism.” It is one part of an eight-point agenda that also includes commitments to promoting unity, celebrating Communion together and continuing theological dialogue.

“Our hope is to set some goals for the next three years that will focus on how we can continue to work on racial equity together and how we can continue to dialogue with each other,” Jean Hawxhurst, a United Methodist ecumenist and vice president of CUIC, said prior to the Philadelphia gathering.

Bishop Jeffrey Leath of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a member of the CUIC Coordinating Council, said participants wanted to discuss how their work fits with that of other ecumenical groups working on race issues and how their representatives can address a range of forms of biases.

“Black and brown communities should be committed to working on issues of anti-bias as we work along with our white brothers and sisters on anti-racism,” said Leath, who also is the ecumenical officer of the AME Church.

“The African American and various Black and brown communities are plagued with classism, colorism and xenophobia in ways that are just as egregious as racism.”

The meeting also included a prayer walk past some of the city’s historical sites related to slavery.

The inaugural National Unity Weekend, June 10-11, grew out of an event at the National Museum of African American History and Culture last September, when white, Black and Asian American evangelical leaders toured the museum together to raise awareness of systemic racism. The tour was organized by Let’s Talk, founded in 2021 by Bishop Derek Grier, pastor of a nondenominational church in Dumfries, Va.

For the past two years, Let’s Talk has sponsored first monthly and now quarterly Zoom calls for dozens of Asian, African American, Hispanic and white evangelical leaders.

“We began to talk heart to heart. We wanted to listen, as well as be heard,” Grier said. “And as important as conversation was, we recognized nothing changes without action.”

Over the weekend, more than 130 churches and ministries committed to help their communities perform local volunteer service, with some distributing food boxes.

On Sunday, the clergy of many of those same congregations delivered sermons about racial healing based on the same verse from the New Testament’s Letter to the Galatians: “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

“It’s vital that we not only preach it and teach it, but we also demonstrate it,” Grier said of the combination of community and worship services focused on racial unity that he hopes will become annual activities.

“Folks will no longer just be informed by CNN or MSNBC or Fox News. They would have heard from their pastor what the Scripture says, what Jesus teaches about these very, very important issues.”

More than a month after mob violence began in the Manipur State of northeast India, at least 250 churches have been burned, and casualty reports grow daily.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah visited the region in mid-May and called on the minority Kuki and majority Meitei ethnic communities to observe a two-week truce.

“The violence did not stop,” said Pastor Thong Lun of Greater Houston Burmese Christian Fellowship. Thong’s church has a longstanding ministry among refugees from Myanmar who live in northeast India, and he has maintained close contact with sources there.

“The majority-Hindu Meitei did not stop,” Thong said. “They attacked villages.”

Manipur Chief Minister Biren Singh announced the death toll reached 98 on June 2, but other sources estimate twice that number of fatalities.

“In remote tribal areas, there are people who have been missing for weeks, and there is no way to know if they are dead,” Thong said.

Officials report more than 300 people have been injured, and about 37,000 displaced people are in relief shelters. More than 4,000 cases of arson have been reported.

From political dispute to ethnic cleansing

Conflict between the Kuki, a predominantly Christian ethnic group, and the Meitei, who are mostly Hindu, began as a political dispute over land rights.

Riots first broke out in response to May 3 protests calling on the government to grant scheduled tribe status to the Metei people. Scheduled tribes have constitutionally granted property protection, and tribal members have access to political representation, educational benefits and affirmative action in employment.

The political situation is “complicated and difficult for anyone on the outside to understand,” Thong acknowledged.

But he views the mob violence—and the lack of protection offered by state police—as clearly evil.

“It is ethnic cleansing,” Thong said. “And there’s also religious persecution involved. … The Meitei Hindu nationalists are determined to wipe out the tribal Kuki Christians from the land.

“But the mobs also are destroying Meitei Christian churches and killing their own people who are Christians. Mobs raided police stations and took about 5,000 guns they are turning on their own people.”

Thong expressed hope President Biden will raise issues of human rights and religious freedom—particularly the persecution of Kuki Christians in Manipur—when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives in the United States for a White House visit and state dinner in two weeks.

The Kuki Christians desperately need humanitarian aid, and ethnic and religious minorities in the region need protection the state police are failing to provide, Thong said.

He urged Texas Baptists and other concerned Christians to pray for an end to violence in Manipur and for the protection of those who are helpless, such as refugees from Myanmar—such as his own mother—who have been living near the border.

“She moved to India two years ago” after the February 2021 military coup in Myanmar, he noted. “In the town where she has been living, she was frightened by the fighting and burning. Now, she is moving back to Burma—even though there is no safety there, either.”

Mervyn Thomas, founding president of the Christian Solidarity Worldwide human rights organization, likewise called for the protection of vulnerable communities.

“Manipur has been in a state of shocking violence for over a month now, and it is clear that the measures taken by the state and central governments thus far have been insufficient to halt this crisis,” he said.

“We extend our deepest condolences to all those who have lost loved ones in the violence and stand in solidarity with those displaced from their homes. We call on authorities in Manipur to ensure that vulnerable communities are protected, that those who have been displaced are able to return home safely and afforded any assistance they may need to rebuild their lives, and that those responsible for these egregious acts are brought to justice.”