(RNS) — Over the past two weeks, Christian leaders and commentators have been setting news outlets and social media ablaze with arguments over women’s ordination, women as pastors, and women’s callings. It’s a long-running, on-again, off-again debate in Southern Baptist and other evangelical circles. The arguments rarely change, largely because the point of the blaze is not the light it gives, but the heat and, most of all, the smoke.

This month’s revived debate was provoked by two Southern Baptist seminary leaders. One was Owen Strachan, who left Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and the Southern Baptist Convention itself for a provost position at a church-run Bible seminary in Arkansas and promptly began promoting his new school by making it clear that in his opinion and when under his control, theological education and all forms of ministry are for men only.

Messengers vote on motions during the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention on June 11, 2019, in Birmingham, Alabama. (Butch Dill/Religion News Service).

Read the full article here: https://wordandway.org/2021/05/14/the-debate-over-women-pastors-is-a-southern-baptist-smoke-screen/

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This