Woman-pastored church pushed out by Ga. Baptists [Addendum]

As expected, the Georgia Baptist Convention took the knife to its own throat by cutting out 148-year-old First Baptist Church of Decatur, Ga., because it chose Julie Pennington-Russel as pastor.

It was the formal conclusion of a process whose end was foreordained in February and driven by the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) descent to inquisitorial enforcement of the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message (BF&M).

Oklahoma pastor Wade Burleson has warned:

The FORCED acceptance of the BFM 2000, by threatening to “disfellowship” from those churches who don’t agree with every single one of its tenets, is patently absurd. Those who push “disfellowship” from churches that disagree with a portion of the BFM 2000 will destroy our convention if they are allowed to succeed. The SBC will have to eventually disfellowship from over 25,000 Southern Baptist churches. That is the number of SBC churches, at least according to one seminary professor, that have expressed disagreement with the BFM 2000 in either church practice or church doctrine in areas other than women pastors.

The number of Southern Baptist women known to be ordained has grown from less than 200 in 1982-83 to more than 2,000 by the end of 2007, according to Baptist Women in Ministry [.pdf] (BWIM).

The SBC is breaking the threads connecting it to women in the pew. That will in time be the ultimate SBC divorce.

Addendum

• Southern Baptist Convention disdain for women-pastored churches and failure to protect children from clerical predators is cult-like, suggests prominent pastor.