Juneteenth: The Misogynistic Calculation of Amoral Proportions,The Southern Baptist Convention and Performative Nonsense

This is ridiculous. The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has banned female pastors, barred women from any leadership position in the church and ejected 2 churches from it’s membership. The leaders argued they acted on biblical authority⁰, the bible restricts the role of pastor to men only,¹ Eve tempted Adam with the apple shows women are not fit to lead and women in leadership is theological transgenderism. Huh? I kid you not.

Is this a long game, a redirection strategy or both? In 2019, an investigative report by the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express revealed 380 leaders in the SBC have pled guilty or been convicted of sexual abuse charges against more than 700 victims. While the abuse may have been a surprise to the public, it was not to the executive committee of the SBC. The leadership kept track and covered up the crimes. The Southern Baptist refused to act, despite a list of pastors as to to cause an “evangelical distraction.”² North Carolina lawyer Joe Knott said the SBC should focus on fighting sin rather than addressing issues like abuse.³

Legally, the SBC claims they are a group of autonomous churches therefore, not responsible for the abuse. The SBC response to the sexual abuse was to create a task force which had several recommendation that included a website to track abuse.⁴  Sounds like performative nonsense. How does the SBC justify taking action to ban women in its 47,000 churches and expel 2 churches? Is this some  kind of misogynistic calculation of amoral proportions? Or history repeating itself, second verse, same as the first?

There are over 13 million members of the Southern Baptist Convention n the US. The SBC was organized in 1845, because, this group of Christians supported and endorsed the “institution of slavery,” unlike those Yankee Baptists in the American Baptist Convention. They preached and believed  that the enslaved should accept their fate and obey their masters. Furthermore, any black church had to have white oversight. In 1995, 28 years ago, the Convention adopted a “resolution” to renounce its racists roots and defense of slavery, segregation and white supremacy. This sounds like performative nonsense since in 2012, a couple was prevented for hosting a wedding at their church because they were black^.5

I read in several articles that the SBC started the effort to ban women in the1970s. In 2000, former president Jimmy Carter walked away from the SBC  because of it’s stance on equality for women. Is this a precursor to force women out of any position of power and leadership? With SBC’s deep roots of white supremacy, do they issue statements for performative nonsensewhile committed to the status quo of 1845 when women could not vote and African Americans were enslaved? ⁶

Queue Juneteenth. The Emancipation Proclamation freed the enslaved effective January 1, 1863. However, the enslaved in Texas were not told until June 19, 1866. This Monday is Juneteenth. Texas kept slaves and not tell people the enslaved they were free by law. Can you imagine? They just decided, we won’t tell them?  The first woman to be ordained as a pastor in the Southern Baptist Convention was Addie Davis  in 1964. She graduated from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. This institute was created by the SBC in 1950. The SBC churches rejected Reverend Davis and she eventually became of member of the American Baptist Convention. This is where it gets interesting. If this was going on in the late 1960’s, it then makes sense the the SBC started the reduction of women in leadership in the 1970’s.

It may have taken over 40 years, but, the SBC have now successfully barred women from leadership. It’s not that I think now is the worse time in history. But it is because of history, the SBC action is alarming.  While some churches and members are leaving, 13 million is a lot of congregation and mindshare. The equal rights amendment in the US has still not passed. We’re not all guaranteed equal protection under the law. Why is this important? Women in Iran prior to 1979 were free.  There was no mandate to wear black, to keep the face covered, to wear the hijab. Then came the Islamic revolution. It all changed, for women. It can’t happen here now, but what of the future? One woman said, in support of the SBC’s ban.⁶

Sarah Clatworthy, member of Lifepoint Baptist Church in San Angelo, Texas, advocated for the amendment, urging the SBC “to shut the door to feminism and liberalism.” “In a culture that is unclear about the role of men and women, we have to be crystal clear,” she said. “We should leave no room for our daughters or granddaughters to have confusion on where the SBC stands.”

Freedom, biblical proportions, and slavery in America. The SBC used the Bible to justify slavery and white supremacy⁶. The SBC banned women under biblical authority (keep in mind – there is no place in the Bible that bans women from leadership in the church.)¹ This week consider, one of the founding principles of the United States is religious freedom; what happens when discriminatory practices and beliefs are justified by religious lies.

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⁰ https://apnews.com/article/southern-baptists-saddleback-vote-women-pastors-new-orleans-7ee6606b57d0bf0c4c7ed91316af12b1

¹ Why single out the SBC? Don’t other religions ban women? Rick Warren:

The best-selling Christian author said, “People will say, ‘Show me in the Scripture where there’s a woman called pastor.’ I can’t, because there’s no man in the Scriptures called pastor, either. So that’s a moot question. While there’s no women called pastors, there is not a single man in Scripture called a pastor [either].”

² https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2022/may/southern-baptist-abuse-investigation-sbc-ec-legal-survivors.html

³ https://religionnews.com/2022/06/02/sbc-leader-warns-that-trying-to-prevent-abuse-will-destroy-the-mission-joe-knott-executive-committee/

⁴ They were already secretly tracking abuse. Website all you want, but without action, it’s not a solution.

⁵ So, the SBC said they denounced their racists root and white supremacy, but would not let an African American couple wed in the church in 2012. For sexual abuse, they will track and “credible’ report. Which should give pause, since credible reports and convictions have been occurring, what has changed?

⁶ Rick Warren (founder of Saddleback Mega Church and Author of A Purpose Driven Life) said “There are people who want to take the SBC back to the 1950s when white men ruled supreme and when the woman’s place was in the home. There are others who want to take it back 500 years to the time of the Reformation,” he said. “I say we need to take the church back to the first century. The church at its birth was the church at its best.”