A Letter to the SBC, Regarding Female Pastors

Last updated on: June 29, 2023 at 3:16 am by Gregory T. Smith

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A Letter to the SBC, Regarding Female Pastors 2023-06-27T19:31:38-08:00 Gregory T. Smith

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A former Southern Baptist Pastor congratulates the SBC for its decision against female pastors. (Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.)

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Dear Southern Baptist Convention,

I want to congratulate you on your recent decision to ban all women from being called pastors.

This goes a long way toward ensuring that your people will not go through that menacing deconstruction process where many people evaluate their own faith and decide for themselves what they believe. I know firsthand what a bother that is, so I’m sure you had your people’s well-being in mind when you made this decision.

In my far too liberal seminary, I was subjected to many women who claimed that they felt a call to ministry.

Their call stories were just as powerful and sincere as mine—but should I allow that to sway my belief that leadership must always be male? Their spiritual giftings were like my own—yet is that really evidence that women are equal to serve? Believing this might be a slippery slope toward abandoning other important doctrines.

Once we allow women to be pastors, what then?

Female preachers would likely season their teaching with gentleness and compassion, qualities unbecoming of a Christian minister who believes in a violent, retributive God. Women are far less likely to teach that God plays favorites. You can forget about women teaching that God commands nations to wage war, and commit genocide, and enslave other groups of peoples. With women in our pulpits, pretty soon we would tear out hymns like “Onward Christian Soldiers” and replace them with choruses about God’s unconditional love.

And another thing—female pastors are prone to allowing their affection for their own children to influence their views on how God sees his own human offspring.

They are therefore less apt to teach that an unconditionally loving God would torture those who disbelieve in a fiery hell of eternal conscious torment. If we lose the threats of war and hell, how will the church progress? How will the gospel of Jesus win converts? By emphasizing things like love and grace?

It is possible, you know, to have too much of a good thing.

By overemphasizing love and grace, a deceived Church might start to believe that all are welcome. Our pews might be filled with tax collectors, sex workers, adulterers, fornicators, and the like! We wouldn’t want that, would we? No—it’s better to keep leadership masculine!

When male leadership demands its own way, everything works out for the best.

Unyielding clergymen who insist on infallible scriptures can themselves become inerrant, ensuring the perfect obedience of the laity. This will keep wives and daughters in their place, under the headship and covering of their husbands/fathers.

Yes, SBC, you’ve done just what you need to do, to ensure the purity of your doctrine.

I’m positive it will have the results that you intend. Sure, you’ve seen a massive decline in your membership over the last decades–and you lost almost half a million people in 2022 alone. But I’m positive that your recent decision to ban female pastors will reverse that trend. This world that is growing more woke every year will see you doubling down on your fundamentalism, and it will recognize the error of its ways. With this decision, the SBC will single-handedly start the revival we’ve all been praying for!

Or at least, in the worst-case scenario, as your membership continues to fade you can rest satisfied in your own righteousness.

You can sleep well at night, knowing that you have been faithful. If your denomination suffers because of this decision, you will tell yourself that it isn’t because you decided to eliminate half of your potential leaders. The decline in your membership most certainly would be evidence of persecution from an increasingly pagan world. So, congratulations, SBC! You certainly have shown your priorities by your recent vote. Excluding thousands of female pastors will certainly go well for you! Well done, good, and faithful servants!

Wishing You the Best,

-A Former Southern Baptist Pastor

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