Recently, I was speaking with two young men who will be facing an ordination council within the next week. I told them that in my lifetime, certain hot-button issues have come to the forefront, and I had to wrestle with them and take a stand, whether or not it was popular or convenient for me to do so.
The very next day, “Voices: Deirdre LaNoue: A woman called to ministry” in the Baptist Standard came to my email inbox.
Review of the op-ed
From the outset, the article’s title informs us this would be an opinion piece addressing women in ministry and, in particular, those ordained into the pastoral ministry.
In my own home, I have a wife and two daughters. Between them, they have a doctorate, a master’s, and soon-to-be master’s degrees with a strong emphasis on theology in their educational disciplines. We support and celebrate women being educated and women in ministry.
The author of this op-ed begins by writing of hiking and observing the difficult journey a stream faced as it made its way around “countless obstacles—rocky banks that constrained its flow and stones it flowed over or found a way around.”
She writes of being in Montana and Texas, states known for rugged and imposing environments both physically and metaphorically.
Then, she makes the declaration, “as a woman called by God into ministry,” her life has also been a difficult journey. She portrays herself as someone who has been oppressed and shares with us how that came about.
From the start, the emphasis on barriers, obstacles, and personal struggles is presented using emotive language to appeal to the feelings of this topic as most important.
Stories from her childhood follow, and we celebrate her salvation, baptism, and her passion for sharing the message about God. She mentions a “nudge” to “some kind of ministry vocation” and the struggle with understanding what that meant.
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She explains her church “experiences” set her on a path of discovery to “ministry calling.” The senior adults asked a fifth or sixth grade girl to give a devotion to their group in a church classroom setting on several occasions. They would cheer her on, “affirming” her, and she would “soak it in.”
This experience imprinted on her mind the right of exemption from pertinent biblical texts using an embryonic postmodern point of view: “That may be true for you, but not for me.” And it solidified a course of action she would never let go of for the rest of her life.
From there, we are taken to her sophomore year in college. She shares an experience she claims was God giving her clarity for her lifelong calling.
In her Bible study, she read Ephesians 4:11-12. She claimed it was as if a “light shone down on the page” in which she read about how God calls people to serve in certain capacities. Her conclusion was she wanted to be a “pastor and teacher, to prepare God’s people for works of service.”
She shared she had not ever met another female pastor, and people were telling her she had not heard from God because of the qualifications mentioned in the Bible, for a pastor did not include females.
She considered this to be a time of “rocks in her stream,” and regardless of what others said, she was certain she was unique, as she had been conditioned to believe from her childhood experiences.
From this point, she summarizes in a quasi-gnostic approach that regardless of what others said and the “significant human made barriers” she endured, it was “God” who enabled her to do so. From there, she eventually went into pastoral ministry and served as a professor.
All these transpired based on desire and experiences strung together to reinforce her unchallengeable belief God had revealed special exemptive knowledge to her that she was unique and the plain reading of the text did not apply.
Critique of the op-ed
This is troubling for many reasons. Not once did she discuss the reading and exegeting of the pertinent biblical texts. Neither did she talk about how, in direct contradiction to her Southern Baptist upbringing and denominationally wide practice and understanding, she concluded the text nor the 500 years of Baptist practice does not apply in her situation.
Everything in her life, according to her narrative, is predicated on her as a struggler who faced obstacles in doing what she wanted to do regardless of anything else. Desire and experience are placed above the plain reading of the text or the counsel others tried to give.
The rest of the op-ed continues this theme of struggles and difficulties brought on by other people who dared to challenge her desire to be in pastoral ministry. One of her statements is that people who don’t agree with her stance are guilty of “denigrating” or “limiting” the “gifts” of others.
She concludes by declaring she will encourage other women to do as she has done.
The op-ed leans heavily on the emotive aspect of the subject with a penchant to place desire and experiences above the biblical text.
The author possesses three advanced degrees from reputable institutions and has even served as a professor for a time. We commend her for such accomplishments. However, in this op-ed, she places desire and experiences over careful examination of the biblical text.
She sends a subliminal message to others that if you get a certain emotional response, you too can extrapolate a text out of context and make it anything you need to.
It also demonstrates that apparently the pastors in her life abdicated their God-given responsibility to correct her errant thinking, to their own accountable shame.
Questioning the Baptist Standard
What about the Baptist Standard publishing such an op-ed? It is clear this op-ed intends to be an advocate of experience and desire over the plain meaning of the relevant biblical text, using emotionally charged stories and examples to distract from the truth.
Furthermore, in light of the Southern Baptist Convention voting on this very matter of men only serving as ordained ministers, it is patently obvious the Baptist Standard is trying to influence the outcome of that vote. We do not blame them for trying to be an influence; we just disagree with the kind of influence they have chosen to be.
The influence yielded by this op-ed will continue to bring harm and confusion to the local church for years to come. It is a well-crafted opinion piece written to undermine the traditional view in the local church and the upcoming vote on this subject in the SBC.
For those who would like to explore this matter further, consider these excellent sources:
- Women and Men in Ministry by Robert Saucy and Judith TenElshof.
- Women in the Church, 3rd Edition, by Andreas Köstenberger and Thomas Schreiner.
- New International Greek Testament Commentary: The Pastoral Epistles by George W. Knight III.
- The Pastoral Epistles: A Commentary on the Greek Text by Stanley E. Porter.
Marc Burnett Sr., pastor of First Baptist Church in Covington, holds a degree from Mission University, and a Master of Theological Studies Advanced and a Doctor of Educational Ministry from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has been a pastor and teacher for 37 years. The views expressed in this opinion article are those of the author.
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