Ban on female pastors advanced by national Southern Baptists at convention
After three years of similar amendments facing narrow defeats, the national Southern Baptist Convention advanced a formal ban on female pastors in member churches, as reported by USA Today.
Newly elected SBC president Willy Rice had pledged his support to the proposed constitutional amendment, which passed on Wednesday with 75% of the vote after similar measures had failed to garner a supermajority the last three years, as reported by the Associated Press and USA Today
The Southern Baptist Convention claims 580,039 South Carolinian members, their eighth-largest statewide delegation, across 1,990 churches according to their research arm, Lifeway Research. According to the organization’s website, it has 29 member churches across Columbia, Cayce and West Columbia.
The SBC’s governing “Baptist and Faith Message” already prohibited women from serving as pastors, but a report presented at the convention indicated at least 44 Southern Baptist churches with women pastors in the last year, 20 which voluntarily withdrew and 10 which where recommended being removed from the denomination, as reported by the New York Times.
Some at the convention opposed the measure, such as Greer, SC pastor Doug Mize, who argued the church’s existing doctrine made the move unnecessary along with inviting concerns of national overreach, as reported by USA Today.
“This is over and beyond the reach that we need to have,” Mize said at the convention, as reported by USA Today.
Other criticism was more pointed. A Wednesday news release from Baptist Women in Ministry, a national organization with a South Carolina chapter that advocates in favor of women in ministry and church leadership, strongly commended the statement.
“Women in ministry deserve affirmation, respect, and the opportunity to follow God’s call. We are heartbroken that they have been denied those fundamental freedoms in the process of this vote,” the statement reads. “Even though patriarchal theology and its enforcement are not new to the SBC, we will not ignore acts of injustice. Every woman and girl is worthy of someone speaking up on her behalf.”
Representatives from BWIM and local SBC churches, including Columbia First Baptist Church and Shandon Baptist Church were not available for comment at the time of publication.
While the denomination has to the ability to dissociate with churches it deems uncooperative, it has no direct authority over member churches and the measure will be voted on a second time next year in accordance with SBC rules, as reported by USA Today.
Backlash to the amendment and a potential loss of member churches threatens to exacerbate an ongoing decline in national membership, which the organization reported as having dropped more than 3% from 2024-25 to 12,331,954.