Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
Women in Religion
What 3 Conservative Denominations Decided About Women

What 3 Conservative Denominations Decided About Women

Last updated on: July 24, 2024 at 2:31 am by Andrea L. Turpin

0 Comments

What 3 Conservative Denominations Decided About Women 2024-07-24T02:31:01-04:00 Andrea L. Turpin

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

This summer three theologically conservative Protestant denominations held their annual conventions. All three made news for their decisions regarding women. But the three have radically different polity, which is to say they govern themselves differently. I’m fascinated by how polity seems to affect deliberations on the role of women in the church, even among churches that share a similar belief in the veracity of the Bible.

All three denominations believe the Bible to be accurate according to what they understand to be a plain reading. And all three believe that the Bible teaches that some church roles are reserved for men. The Baptist Faith and Message 2000, the statement of faith with which SBC member churches must be in substantial agreement, limits the role of “pastor” to men. The PCA limits the role of “elder” to men, and specifies that it entails both teaching elders (all pastors) and governing elders (the elder board). The ACNA limits the role of bishop to men.

But this summer, all three denominations faced attempts to push their stance on women in a more conservative direction. Their polity affected the outcome. Let me explain.

Messengers cast ballots at SBC annual meeting, Photo by Eric Brown via Flickr. Licensed under Creative Commons.

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is congregational. That means each local congregation is autonomous. It can do what it wants. The national convention is a voluntary association of local congregations for the purpose of mutual support and united efforts in missions and service. The national convention can set the parameters for participation, but it can’t instruct a local church on what to do. It can only disfellowship one. The annual meeting of the SBC is conducted by lay delegates, known as “messengers,” of member churches.

The Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) is organized differently. Local churches are governed by a board of elders known as a session. Sessions in turn are accountable to a regional presbytery. Finally, the whole denomination is governed by the General Assembly. Membership in each of these bodies is restricted to ordained elders. (I like to joke that historians love Presbyterians because they are perfectly designed to generate the maximum amount of paperwork.)

The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) operates on an episcopal (bishop-based) system that combines elements of both the Baptist and Presbyterian approaches. The ACNA is split into dioceses. Each diocese is headed by a bishop. The council of bishops in turn selects an archbishop for the whole province. Meanwhile, each church in a diocese is served by a priest or priests accountable to the diocesan bishop in spiritual matters. Each church also has a vestry consisting of elected lay members who conduct the temporal business of the church, largely involving the distribution of funds. Each diocese conducts business in a meeting consisting of both clergy and lay delegates and each diocese likewise sends clergy and lay delegates to conduct business at the provincial assembly.

Here’s how these different systems get fun when it comes to women’s roles in the church. A local Southern Baptist church can do whatever it wants. But it can get kicked out of the SBC if enough messengers decide its stance is not in substantial agreement with the SBC’s take on the issue. PCA churches have to toe the PCA line and there is accountability at every step of the hierarchy. ACNA churches have to keep in step with their diocesan bishop’s policies, but other bishops in the province can maintain different policies.

The extent to which women speak into denominational politics also differs by polity. SBC messengers and ACNA lay delegates are not ordained. They therefore consist of both women and men regardless of the churches’ stances on women’s ordination. The PCA by contrast is governed solely by elders at every level. Because the denomination does not ordain women, all denominational business is therefore conducted by men.

Changing the SBC constitution requires 2/3 of the messengers to the annual meeting to vote to do so two years in a row. This summer constituted the second vote on what was called the Law Amendment, after Pastor Mike Law, who proposed it. The amendment sought to define the “pastor” that could only be male quite expansively: not only what we would think of as the “senior” pastor, but also any associate pastors or staff members operating in a pastoral role without the title. It got more than 50% of votes, but less than the required 2/3. Too many SBC churches had female associate pastors, typically women’s or children’s pastors, or simply a commitment to local church autonomy within broad agreement.

Meanwhile, the PCA requires a passing vote by the General Assembly two years in a row plus approval of 2/3 of the presbyteries to change its regulations. This year, it faced two questions about women’s roles in the church. Its General Assembly held the second vote on a motion forbidding PCA churches from ordaining women even as deacons (a position involved in official service to the church but not church governance)—and it passed. The denomination also held a first vote on whether PCA churches should be forbidden from having a woman preach, as distinct from serving as an elder. It failed. It seems that ordaining a deacon is easily defined but nailing down the definition of preaching made the latter motion too cumbersome.

Finally, the ACNA selects a new archbishop every 5 or 10 years (to a 5-year term, renewable once). The “College of Bishops” (all of them) gathered in a closed “conclave” to select the bishop for this role. There was a considerable amount of hoopla leading up to the conclave centered on the question of women’s ordination, not as bishops but as priests. Some ACNA dioceses ordain only men to both the diaconate and the priesthood, some ordain women to the diaconate but only men to the priesthood, and some ordain women to both the diaconate and the priesthood. In other words, each diocese makes its own policy on the issue, considered secondary, while all must agree on things considered primary, like biblical authority, the Nicene Creed, and the episcopacy.

One entire diocese and one group of priests from various dioceses sent petitions to the College of Bishops asking them to undo this compromise and limit ordination to the priesthood to men. Their rationale was greater unity: some members of dioceses that ordain only men to the priesthood cannot receive the Eucharist from a female priest as a matter of conscience. The selection of the next archbishop was understood to take the pulse of the College of Bishops on this issue.

The bishops selected Steve Wood, Bishop of the Diocese of the Carolinas, to be the next ACNA archbishop. Wood and his diocese believe in ordaining women to both the diaconate and the priesthood, but, interestingly, not in appointing a woman as “rector” (senior pastor) of a local church, as occurs in some other dioceses. Their rationale is that the Bible says nothing about who celebrates the Eucharist (the defining role of a priest in the Anglican tradition) but does make statements they interpret to limit ultimate governing authority to men. Wood is thus a moderate candidate of sorts on this issue. More importantly, it seems, Wood’s diocese focuses on evangelism and church planting. His selection appears to indicate that the ACNA continues to believe women’s ordination to be a secondary issue worth compromising on for the sake of cooperation in what it judges to be more important activities of the Christian faith.

All three denominations exhibited some nuance around the question of women’s roles in the church. But the grace and space around the question was larger in the Anglican and Baptist denominations than in the Presbyterian one. This fact suggests that when lay women have an official channel for speaking into the denomination, their perspectives change the perspective of the denomination as a whole. By contrast, when there is no official channel for lay women to voice their experiences, denominations seem more likely to double down on restricting them.

Women in Religion

Previous Post

July 23, 2024

The Catholic Conversion of J. D. Vance

Next Post

July 25, 2024 How The American Empire Created Prophets and Messiahs

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"Life Force is a guilty pleasure of mine! Not a great film, but a fun ..."

philipjenkins

Fairies, Witches, Folk Horror, and the ..."

"I love horror but would have to acclimate back to Lovecraft and especially Machen. Have ..."

Terry

Fairies, Witches, Folk Horror, and the ..."

"Very good point about MacDonald.I am certainly a Machen fan!"

philipjenkins

Fairies, Witches, Folk Horror, and the ..."

"The Scottish author George MacDonald integrated fairy world into his fiction in a way that ..."

Terry

Fairies, Witches, Folk Horror, and the ..."

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abolitionism Abortion Abraham Joshua Heschel Abraham Kuyper Abraham Lincoln Academia Activism Adam Renberg Advent Adventist africa African American Religion Agnes Howard Albert Camus American History American Religious History American Revolution American West Anabaptists Ancient History Andrea Turpin Andrei Tarkovsky Anglicanism Annales Ansley Lillian Quiros anti-Catholicism Antisemitism Anxious Bench apologetics Apparitions Arash Azizi Archaeology archives art Artificial Intelligence Asia Asian Americans Augustine Authors Bad Bunny Baptism Baptists Barack Obama Battle of Hastings Benjamin Franklin Bernard-Henri Levy Beth Allison Barr Beth Moore Bethany Mannon Bible Bill Cunningham Billy Graham Black Music Bob Dylan Body Boenhoffer Books Breastfeeding Bruce Springsteen C.S. Lewis Calvinism Cancel Culture Capitalism Carmelites Catholicism Cedric Robinson Cesar Chavez Charismaticism charity Charles Dickens Charles Lindbergh Che Guevara Chicago Children Chinese Christianity Chris Gehrz Christ Christian death Christian Higher Education Christian life Christian Nation Christian Nationalism Christianity Today Christmas Church life Church Practice cinema Civil Religion Civil Rights Movement Civil War civility Classics Climate Change Cold War Colonial Mexico colonialism Comer Communism community complementarianism Conference on Faith and History Congregationalism Conspiracies Conspiracy Conversion Narratives Coronavirus Costa Rica Council of Nicaea Covid-19 Creation Critical Race Theory Crusades Culture culture wars Daniel K. Williams David Barton David Swartz Death Ways death with dignity DEI democracy Democratic Party Devotion Digital Age Diplomacy discipleship diversity Donald Trump Drama Dua Lipa Early Church early modern Early modern Catholicism Easter Eastern Christianity economic exploitation Education elections Elie Wiesel Elizabeth II Elizabeth Taylor emotions Empire Engineering England enslavement Entertainment Episcopal Church Erica Ramirez eschatology Eurocentrism Evangelicalism Evangelicals Exegesis Family Feminism Film Flannery O'Connor folk music Food Foreign Policy founding fathers Franciscans Franciscus Junius fundamentalism Funerals G.K. Chesterton Gender Genocide genre geography George W. Bush George Washington George Whitefield Global Christianity Global church Grief Guadalupe Guest Post guest post gun control gun violence Gustavo Gutierrez Hamid Dabashi Harold John Ockenga Harvest Hate Hawaiian Christianity Healing health care Heather Cox Richardson Hell Heresy Hermeneutics Higher Education Hinduism Hippocratic oath Historical Fiction Historical Methodology Historical Profession Historical Profession Historical Theology Historical Thinking historiography Holidays Holocaust horror movies Human rights Humanitarian Work humanities Hummingbirds Hungary hymns Imago Dei Immigration Injustice Interviews Iran Islam Islamophobia Israel Ivan's Childhood Jacob Randolph James Bratt Janine Giordano Drake Japanese history Japanese Literature Jean Paul Sartre Jesse Miranda Jesus Jesus Christ Jimmy Carter Joan Baez Joan Didion Joanne Freeman João B. Chaves Joao Chaves Joey Cochran John Calvin John Fea John Tillotson John Turner Johnny Cash Jonathan Edwards Jonathan Tran Joseph Smith Josh Howerton Journalism Jr. Judaism Jürgen Moltmann Just War Justice Justin Brierley Karl Barth Katelyn Beaty koi ponds Kris Kristofferson Kristin Kobes Du Mez Latin American Religious History Latino Americans Lectio Divina Leisure Lent Leonard Cohen liberal arts liberalism Liberation Theology Linda Ronstadt Lisa Clark Diller Literature Lou Reed Lynchings Lynneth Miller Renberg Mainline Protestantism Malcolm Foley Marilyn Monroe Maritime history Mark Noll Marriage Martin Luther Martin Luther King Martyrdom Marxism Mary Masih Alinejad mass shootings material culture medieval Christianity Medieval Ethiopia Melissa Borja memory Mennonites Mental Health Mental Illness Methodism Mexican Americans Mexicans Mike Madrid Miles Mullin Min Jin Lee Miscarriage Missionaries Mister Rogers Mitt Romney modernity Monasticism Mormonism Motherhood Mothers of the Church Moving Music Musicals Nadya Williams Nahua Christianity Native Americans Natsume Sōseki New Contributor New England New Year New York Nico Non-Violent Protest Orthodoxy pacifism Paleo Evangelicals Palestinians Parenting Patti Smith Paul Kingsnorth Pedro Calderón de la Barca Pentecostalism Philip Jenkins Phillis Wheatley physician-assisted suicide pilgrimage Pilgrims pluralism Plutocracy Poetry Politics Pope Francis Pope Leo XIV post-modernism prayer preaching Presbyterians prosperity gospel Protest Public history Publishing Puritans purity culture Quakers race Race Massacres Racial Capitalism racial reconciliation racialization Racism Raha Bahloulipour Re-Enchantment reading Reformation Refugees religion and the university religion and war Religious Freedom Religious Nones Religious Pluralism Religious Symbols religious violence Republican Party Revival Rita Coolidge Ritual Roger Williams Roman Catholic church Royalty Russell Moore same-sex marriage Sarah Irving-Stonebraker Scandinavia Science Science and Technology Scopes trial Scriptural Interpretation secularism Selena Quintanilla seminary Seventh-Day Adventists sexual morality Sexuality Sikhs Silence slaveholders theology Slavery Slavoj Zizek social justice Social Media Southern Baptist Convention Southern Religion Spain Spiritual Autobiography Spiritual but not religious Spiritual Discipline Sports Stanley Hauerwas Suffering Summer Camps Sunday Night Odds and Ends Supernatural Supreme Court Syriac Christianity Tal Howard Taylor Swift Teaching Technology Television Thanksgiving The Beatles The Mission theater TheoBros Theology Thomas Dixon Thomas Jefferson Thomas Kidd Thomas Merton Tim Gloege Tim Walz Tom Holland Tourism tradition Tragedy Translation Transnationalism Travel Trump Ukraine Uncategorized Unitarians United Methodist Church US History Vanessa Chan Velvet Underground Verónica A. Gutiérrez Veronica Gutierrez Vikings Violence Virgin Mary Virtue Virtue ethics Visions Voting War WCTU Wendell Berry Westminster Assembly White Evangelicalism Wildfires Winnie the Pooh Witches women Women in Ministry Women's and Gender Studies Work Worship writing Yasunari Kawabata Zena Hitz

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What city did Jesus grow up in?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Bethlehem Nazareth Capernaum Jericho