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The SBC’s Genital Obsession is Idolatry

The SBC’s Genital Obsession is Idolatry

Last updated on: June 20, 2026 at 3:12 am by James Travis Young

The SBC’s Genital Obsession is Idolatry 2026-06-20T03:12:59-05:00 James Travis Young

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AI generated content created by James Travis Young of a church filled with men kneeling before the symbol for male (Mars).

The SBC’s obsession with genitalia is idolatry that places greater trust in the presence of a penis than in the presence of the Holy Spirit. AI generated image by James Travis Young.

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) calls its ban on women in ministry “doctrinal clarity,” but in reality it is a thinly veiled attack that stifles divine speech by dictating who should be allowed to speak for God. This policy assumes the voice of God only becomes trustworthy after institutional permission clears the way. It insists the Holy Spirit requires ecclesial authorization before speaking.

That assumption fundamentally poisons theological imagination. By limiting witness, the SBC is limiting God. Manipulating the work of the Spirit fabricates contrived, inauthentic experiences.

Jesus came to dismantle that framework.

What the SBC voted to enact betrays the gospel revealed in the theology and narrative of the New Testament. Such corruption is not a world I desire to live in, nor one I believe you and I should accept. Within reach of our hands, we must embrace every sacred moment that touches our present reality with open arms. And those messengers include not only women, but all whom the church has silenced or sidelined, like racial and ethnic minorities, survivors of sexual abuse, LGBTQ+ persons, and the many dissenting theologians and reformers whose voices have too often been pushed to the margins.

The ministry of Jesus Christ destroys worldly expectations of authority. Calling precedes recognition. Witness precedes validation. Theological speech erupts in spaces the religious orthodoxy has already condemned.

For example, Mary Magdalene stood as a supreme resurrection witness in the same moment the institutional disciples cowered in fear and disbelief. Jesus called fishermen without credential or authorization, and invited tax collectors to discipleship before moral repair. Across the biblical story, God consistently speaks first through those who are dismissed by religious authorities, meanwhile institutionalized religion always must scramble to catch up, usually much much later, if ever.

Beneath every complementarian argument lies a remarkably fragile theological claim. Because of the SBC vote, within the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, the decisive factor that determines whether someone may preach, pastor, teach, baptize, or exercise authority is not wisdom, calling, giftedness, faithfulness, character, theological depth, or evidence of spiritual fruit, but possession of particular reproductive organs. In the SBC, biology silences the life and witness of 56% who experience the divine call of the Holy Spirit. This is a contradiction that is unambiguous and reveals an institution that has, by policing bodies, manufactured a mechanism for conveniently preserving power.

The SBC claims to oppose identity politics while simultaneously organizing ecclesial authority around biological identity.

This obsession with genitalia is idolatry. It places greater trust in the presence of a penis than in the presence of the Holy Spirit.

The gospels refuse that logic at every turn.

Mary Magdalene and the Grammar of Rupture

The Appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene, Alexander Ivanov ca. 1836. Public domain.

Jesus entrusted Mary Magdalene with the message of Resurrection, but his disciples did not. The Appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene, Alexander Ivanov ca. 1836. Public domain.

In John 20, Mary Magdalene encounters the risen Christ in the garden. The first commission of resurrection arrives through her voice.

Jesus tells her:

“Do not touch me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” (John 20:17, NRSVue)

Two Greek imperatives carry the weight of commissioning.

πορεύου (“go”). This word commands movement as assignment. Christ sends Mary.

εἰπὲ (“tell” or “say”). This demands direct proclamation. Christ entrusts speech to Mary.

The gospel delivers the first proclamation of resurrection through Mary Magdalene. The text treats this as the founding moment of resurrection witness, yet leaves its raw tension entirely unresolved. The very first voice of resurrection belongs to none other than a woman the institutional leaders were not inclined to believe.

That conflict matters because it exposes a question the church still struggles to answer. If Mary’s eyewitness testimony requires any sort of institutional approval to become valid, then resurrection itself becomes dependent upon ecclesial permission.

And the gospel never granted the institution that authority.

The Samaritan Woman and Theological Witness

Christ and the Samaritan. Woman, panel by Duccio di Buoninsegna with tempera and gold, ca. 1311. Public domain.

Jesus never credentialed the Samaritan woman, yet his Spirit worked through her witness, and many in her community came to faith by her testimony. Christ and the Samaritan. Woman, panel by Duccio di Buoninsegna with tempera and gold, ca. 1311. Public domain.

In John 4, Jesus has a prolonged theological conversation with a Samaritan woman that sweeps far beyond cultural boundaries of gender, ethnicity, and moral stigma.

He tells her:

“But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.” (John 4:23, NRSVue)

The narrative then shifts outward into public witness.

“Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony…” (John 4:39, NRSVue)

The key term is μαρτυρούσης (“bearing witness” or “testifying”), from the root μαρτυρέω.

This is standard New Testament language for authoritative testimony.

The gospel frames her voice as theological witness itself. Many come to faith because of her proclamation. Jesus never established a credentialing process, he does not create any sort of hierarchy through which her testimony must pass or be validated. He simply allows witness to emerge where the Spirit has already been at work.

Mary of Bethany and Irreversible Formation

Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, painting by Johannes Vermeer, ca. 1656. Public domain. Image cropped.

Jesus made it clear that Mary of Bethany’s devotion was what qualified her discipleship. Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, painting by Johannes Vermeer, ca. 1656. Public domain. Image cropped.

The gospel of Luke presents another challenge to religious assumptions.

“Mary sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying.” (Luke 10:39, NRSVue)

The Greek expression παρακαθεσθεῖσα πρὸς τοὺς πόδας describes taking a seat at the feet of a teacher. This was the posture of a disciple receiving instruction.

Mary occupies a place many in her culture would have considered inappropriate.

And Jesus responds to the controversy directly.

“Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:42, NRSVue)

The phrase οὐκ ἀφαιρεθήσεται means “it will not be taken away.”

The future passive verb signals permanence. Jesus treats her access to discipleship and formation as a settled reality. Nobody gets to take that away. No religious expectation or human authority may overrule what Jesus has already established. The institution no longer has the last word.

Canonizing the Disciples’ Disbelief

Appearance on the Mountain in Galilee, painting by Duccio di Buoninsegna, ca. 1311. Public domain.

The gospels document how Jesus’s disciples refused to accept the resurrection, because they didn’t believe the eyewitness testimony of women. Why are churches repeating this failure? Appearance on the Mountain in Galilee, painting by Duccio di Buoninsegna, ca. 1311. Public domain.

The resurrection narratives become even more uncomfortable for defenders of patriarchal gatekeeping.

As shown in the gospel of John, Luke’s gospel also depicts how women brought news of the resurrection to the male disciples.

“But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” (Luke 24:11, NRSVue)

The Greek term ἠπίστουν means “they were not believing” or “they continued in disbelief.”

This imperfect tense suggests ongoing resistance rather than just a momentary uncertainty.

Here the text goes into even more detail than John 20. According to Luke’s gospel, the official leaders completely failed to recognize multiple resurrection witnesses if they were women.

The narrative preserves this failure without embarrassment. Scripture does not protect male authority, but introduces the astonishing truth how the women possessed resurrection testimony while the recognized leaders remained trapped in disbelief.

Take note: the church today continues to construct a religious orthopraxy that repeats the failures of the disciples and systemically rejects the resurrection witness of women.

The Spirit Obliterates Biological Gatekeeping

Sadly, the illogic of this argument extends far beyond women.

Once authority becomes grounded in biology rather than calling, institutions inevitably become invested in policing bodies. The same theological instinct that restricts women has largely failed to affirm LGBTQ+ believers. In both cases, anatomy has become a gatekeeper for participation in God’s work.

A wooden cross lies on a rainbow flag in Bonn, Germany, March 16, 2021.

Many evangelical churches refuse to affirm LGBTQ+ believers, but the Holy Spirit is not bound by institutional boundaries. A wooden cross lies on a rainbow flag in Bonn, Germany, March 16, 2021. Photo by OSV News/Julia Steinbrecht, KNA.

Today, institutional churches like the SBC demand biology as a prerequisite for legitimacy. In contrast, the gospel demands openness to divine calling wherever it appears.

This is why debates about women in ministry and LGBTQ+ inclusion share a common foundation. Both ultimately ask whether biological categories possess the authority to determine who may bear witness, lead, teach, serve, or proclaim.

Paul writes:

“There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28, NRSVue)

Paul is not erasing embodiment. He is defeating the use of biological and social categories to sort people into winners and losers within the new creation.

Again and again, the gospel takes authority away from those with status or privilege and hands it to the marginalized. God calls as witnesses people the institutional church today would reject.

That trajectory creates profound implications for LGBTQ+ Christians today. Queer and Trans believers often occupy the same position women occupied in earlier generations. Institutional churches insistently use ridiculous, ungrounded policies to disqualify them, but the Spirit continues producing gifts, faithfulness, wisdom, and witness anyway.

Today, the church faces the same choice it has always faced: it can trust undeniable evidence of God’s calling and affirmation, or it can defend artificial systems designed to clobber it.

Refusing women because they are women and refusing LGBTQ+ believers because they are LGBTQ+ arise from the same stupid impulse: Both attempt to restrict a living God to a myopic understanding of human biology.

And by the way, the Spirit has never respected those boundaries.

The Idolatry of a Managed God

Institutions need all of their fragmented, redundant parts to feel stable. They survive by controlling who gets to speak, what counts as “legitimate,” and how authority is recognized. So when God’s people who don’t fit within their committee ratified categories, their reflex is sad but predictable. Tighten the rules. Draw sharper lines. Push people out.

But the Spirit doesn’t behave according to rules, procedure, or policy. A genuinely relational God refuses to be confined to just traditions and sacraments. Divine life overflows, flooding past the boundaries we attempt to build around it. Daily, you and I encounter the Spirit in shared participatory reality. In our everyday lives, in ordinary relationships and experiences, we engage with God through his creation without asking permission first.

Gender bans in ministry assume something simple but heavy: that a call from God is not enough on its own. It only becomes “real” once an institution recognizes it.

A visible majority of Southern Baptist men voting on June 10, 2026 to ban women from participating in pastoral ministry. Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack, courtesy of the Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

A visible majority of Southern Baptist men voting on June 10, 2026 to ban women from participating in pastoral ministry. Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack, courtesy of the Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

That transition matters. It removes agency from those who actually experience and respond to God, and passes it over into artificial systems that decide who does and does not have the authority to speak.

It also repeats an old failure. As I explored above, in Luke 24, the male disciples dismiss the women’s testimony about the resurrection. What should have been received as witness is treated as unreliable because of who is speaking.

If Mary’s testimony needs institutional approval before it counts, then the resurrection is no longer something that confronts the world on its own terms. It becomes something the church can control or even reject.

Authority becomes regulation instead of revelation.

The church has traded the living witness of the Holy Spirit for a manufactured counterfeit system.

The gospel demonstrates over and over how God moves and loves through those the system actively dismisses. The question is not whether God continues doing this, but whether the church can recognize people it never authorized.

The women at the tomb did not possess ecclesial authority. Yet they possessed resurrection truth.

The male disciples had institutional legitimacy. And they possessed disbelief in equal shares.

All of this is preserved in multiple gospels without embarrassment. It embodies the heritage of our faith: God shares his love with us relationally, often through those the church would cast out.

Today, the church must decide whether it will continue to imitate unbelieving apostles, or embrace those Jesus entrusted with messages of truth greater than any system can comprehend.

The Spirit speaks. The institution scoffs. And God moves anyway.

A gender-limited Spirit produces idolatry. Constricted theology produces a compromised Gospel. That impaired, weak Gospel always feels safer to gatekeepers.

And it ceases to be the Gospel.

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About James Travis Young

James Travis Young is an ordained minister with decades of experience as a pastor, church planter, and teacher. Alongside his spouse, Travis devotes his time to making Christlike disciples in Galveston, Texas, USA. His writing has been featured in numerous books and publications. You can read more about the author here.

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