From its towering white steeple and red-brick facade to its Sunday services filled with rousing gospel hymns and evangelistic sermons, First Baptist Church of Alexandria, Virginia, bears many of the classic hallmarks of a Southern Baptist church.
On a recent Sunday, its pastor for women and children, Kim Eskridge, urged members to invite friends and neighbors to an upcoming vacation Bible school — a perennial Baptist activity — to help “reach families in the community with the gospel.”
But because that pastor is a woman, First Baptist’s days in the Southern Baptist Convention may be numbered.
At the SBC’s annual meeting June 11-12 in Indianapolis, representatives will vote on whether to amend the denomination’s constitution to essentially ban churches with any women pastors — and not just in the top job. That measure received overwhelming approval in a preliminary vote last year.
I’m surprised they didn’t already have a ban in place.
They already expelled Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church for having women pastors.
Only “some”. The rest appear to be just fine with it.
If your group is actively wondering if it’s a good idea to treat women like everyone else in the group… Maybe, just maybe, youre on the wrong side of history.
The wrong side of decency as well.
They’ll probably succeed in kicking out Churches that are too liberal but all the Southern Baptist Convention will accomplish is accelerating their speed run into irrelevancy.
I do want to point out that this isn’t universal among the Southern Baptist Churches and many of them are fighting it. This is coming from the Southern Baptist Convention which is a sort of supra-Church steering body.
The Southern Baptist convention is the largest protestant denomination, they’re hardly irrelevant.
As they continue to boot what they see as overly liberal Churches it won’t be long and neither of those statements will be true.
1 Timothy 2:12 is fairly clear on the matter.
But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
but the flip side is they can ignore that just like they ignore prohibitions on eating shrimp and wearing polycotton blends.
As an atheist I don’t have skin in the game either way.
Much of the laws in the epistles (letters that make up the bulk of the New Testament) are cultural, related to their time in the Roman Empire. This is why plenty of churches feel comfortable saying women can be pastors, gay people are totally fine, etc.
Just not the loud, shitty ones that make all the news and try to force their religious restrictions down the throats of others.
As an atheist I don’t have skin in the game either way.
You do, because religious extremists constantly use their texts as an excuse for why they have to support certain legislation.
Everyone that say they have to be against abortion or LGBT people existing because their Sky Daddy said to, also think other stuff like what you quoted needs to be law too.
They just know they don’t have the political power yet.
But if they could, they’d push for women to not be allowed to hold office, have a management position, or even vote.
This 100% effects all of us, regardless of if we believe in their Sky Daddy.
Why does that Bible have restrictions on textile blends? I can rationalize most of the others as generalized health restrictions but that one baffles me.
Someone once explained it to me like this:
The Ancient Hebrews really only had access to two types of fabric, linen and wool. A person could wear a garment made of one or the other or even wear two garments with one made of linen and the other of wool. The reason they couldn’t wear a single garment made of both was because the High Priests garment was made of Linen with a dyed Wool fringe and it was the only garment that was supposed to be made that way.
So anyone wearing a single garment made of both was trying to rise above their station by pretending to be something that they weren’t.
Back then having such clothes was a big luxury.
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
-Matthew 5:17
Christians interpret this as stating they don’t need to follow the Old Testament rules as Jesus has fulfilled them and has established a new covenant with his death on the cross.
Also explains why Christians work on the sabbath, because Jesus did
In my experience growing up southern baptist Christians only bring up that interpretation when convenient. The Old Testament is completely valid when they want it to be, and invalid when they don’t.
Yes. This. What was considered clean and unclean to eat was amended in Peter’s vision in acts 10. So was clothing and much else of levitical law during jesus’ gospel.
Even Paul’s writings about women speaking above men needs to take into context that the church in Ephesus (modern day turkey) was led by young Timothy. The theme was pretty strict to reestablish a baseline of roles and law to apply to Ephesus, which was seen as very immoral, murderous and rebellious. I mean Paul says people should stay celibate and not marry because this can complicate a person’s relationship with God.
Without going too deep, no, this doesn’t mean women shouldn’t teach because “god” demands women to be inferior/subjugated.
If that was so why did God use women as prophets and leaders?
What Paul supposedly wrote in Timothy, if he even wrote it, was meant to address a problem occurring in that specific Church. As I was told that Church was being hijacked by one or two particularly wealthy and influential Women donors. As you pointed out Timothy was young and new to the work so he wasn’t able to handle the situation and appealed to Paul for guidance.
Paul then supposedly attempted to smack down the troublemakers with some Doctrine in his response letter.
However there’s long been contention that Paul either didn’t actually write that line or that if he did the surrounding context was cut out in order to make it seem much farther reaching than it was meant to be.
While there’s no way to really know the truth I personally find it impossible to believe that after the long and involved history that women had in the OT that the NT would suddenly require their total subservience. It simply makes no sense.
I agree that it doesn’t make sense. There was nothing in Jesus’s gospel that would imply such standards to take place in the church. It’s even written that there is no man or woman, but all are followers of Christ. Equality.
Which is a really weird interpretation considering the very next sentence in Matthew 5:18:
“18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”
Christians interpret this as stating they don’t need to follow the Old Testament rules
Except for stuff like Leviticus 18:22 (the oft quoted anti-gay one) ofc.
Religious hypocrites will say the bible says X about things and pick some vaguely related verse or story to justify it. From the Curse of Ham justifying slavery to Leviticus 19:19 being used to justify miscegenation laws.
Not all branches have a hard on for Old Testament stuff that validates their regressive ideas, but yeah you’re right that many do, especially the evangelical thumpers
I don’t care what they do as long as it doesn’t affect me or people who don’t believe as they do.
but the flip side is they can ignore that just like they ignore prohibitions on eating shrimp and wearing polycotton blends.
Because Paul threw out the rules but added in a few of his own. Also to be fair this isn’t really Paul this is a guy pretending to be Paul.
It’s funny rereading all his tiresome letters and remembering that all the arguments he is presenting he claims to have gotten in one blinding vision.
Paul, or rather the amalgamation of Paul and the various authors of the texts canonized as the Pauline epistles, was a
fuckin’ dickman of his place and time, and including the letters in the Bible really fucked up Christianity over the long-term.Except the rest of the Bible is just a reflection of his work so not sure what would even be left.
Fun fact, Southern Baptists are a thing because they split off from the Baptists so they could support slavery.
Funner fact, they won’t let women be lead pastors for men, but they will allow women to be missionaries to other men around the world.
Basically a woman can’t be a pastor to white Christian men, but those other men out there? That’s fine.
Racism is thoroughly baked into their theology and worldview.
Funner fact, they won’t let women be lead pastors for men
As a point of fact some Southern Baptists Churches do allow, and have, Women as Lead Pastors.
Did you forget what the article is about? Those churches are likely getting kicked out.
I think I read an article about that…
Just let them. Religion has no place in the world today.
The Alabama Taliban strikes again.
The Talibama, if you will.
Y’all-Qaeda doing what it does.
“The caucus that lost their minds over the suggestion that they should wear masks during a pandemic … is now spending its time focusing on the fine details of what women have to wear (specifically how to cover their arms) to show respect here,” state Rep. Peter Meredith tweeted.
Under his eye 🤦♂️
So Baptists are becoming atheists?
Hardly.
They’re becoming extremists - even more so than thwy already were.
…say what? Are you claiming atheists have something against women? Please, enlighten us.
“Baptists are poised to ba churches”
Thanks for the quote, it at least helps to understand your context.
To clear things up, however, atheists couldn’t care less about churches. Anti-theists perhaps do. Atheists I know just don’t want any religion or church to encroach on their rights and freedoms. The problem is that religionists are quite responsible for getting books banned in schools, trying to remove sex education in schools, are very anti-LGBTQ, have succeeded in the removal of women’s rights that have been precedent for decades, and are the most militant about their so-called beliefs in all of these matters, including believing in a fairy grandpa in the sky, that anyone who challenges them in any way, even simply intellectually, effectively constitutes a declaration of war.
So if you want to be concerned about a specific group or groups of people, take a long hard look at the Mormon Church, the Catholic Church, and Muslims and how they view women. And those are just a few examples. Atheists are the least of anyone’s problems in this world.
One of my favorite pieces of the Bible is the Parable of the Talents where Jesus tells a story about three men who are given different sums of money. The first two are given more. They do stuff with it and are rewarded. The guy who gets the least buries it in a field and is punished.
It’s often used an an example of stewardship, and regularly used as an excuse to not give drug addicts and homeless people money. They might use the money for drugs. That’s a sin and a “bad investment.” It ignores the fact that nobody looses money in the parable. The point of the story is that any good thing you do in good faith with the gifts you’re given is commendable.
I don’t understand telling 50% of your church that the most important thing they can do is be a PreK Sunday school teacher or nursery volunteer. That’s burying talents in a field.
obviously that third guy didn’t use the right manure.
Wait, so the guy got punishment for opening a savings account?
I was going to explain it to you, but then I realized what you meant.
Of course they are.
As a side note, how in the fuck are you supposed to feel any spiritual connection in a space like the one pictured? It looks like a goddamned Costco. I’m not religious, but I absolutely get the vibe when I’m in a proper church. This is not that.
You underestimate the effect of feeling like you’re a part of a movement. When you sit in that room, you’re a winner.
I believe that is a convention center for their meeting.
I believe you’re correct. I’ve never been in a megachurch. I was thinking this might be one, but a convention center makes way more sense.
It’s all in the suspended chords
Bigots and misogynists act like bigots and misogynists.
America adaptation of Vicar of Dibley
