Prayers for 'spiritually gifted' Southern Baptist women

On behalf of gifted Southern Baptist women:

www.bWebaptist.com asks Southern Baptists to:

1. Pray for women pastors and for women who are being called into ministry.
2. Pray for a softening of the heart of the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention toward women in the United States.
3. Start an email cell group which would commit to pray and to enlist others.

Unusual (in our experience the email cells are) and sound strategy.

More about bWe

Shirley Taylor, who with her husband publishes bWe: Baptist Women for Equality email newsletter and Web site, told us via email:

I am just an ordinary woman who got fed up with the Southern Baptist Convention which holds sway over the local church, the local Baptist association, the state convention, and refuses to realize that the greater sin is not that women be allowed to serve, but that the greater sin is to keep women in their so-called place.

She explains, writing with the quiet tone of an after-church conversation, that the current disregard for women by the SBC can be cured, because it is a result of ignorance. The pastors "just don't know" how many of the women in their congregations believe women should be free to serve as deacons, and "even pastors."

She is helping inform them, and brings the summary force of a hammer blow to her convictions.

I wonder if that is in part because she has three granddaughters and would like a better future for them. In any case, she wrote:

Many of these church members have daughters and granddaughters who are feeling the call to go into ministry, and there is no option for them except to go on to the mission field. We are more than willing to ship our daughters off to a foreign land, but we allow our sons to stay home and preach. Doesn't anybody see the hypocrisy in this? Our bellies are full of camels that we have swallowed while straining out the gnat when it comes to women in authority. We stab those scriptures with our bony fingers and declare that women shall not have authority over men, and then we put them on every committee and give them every responsibility in a church, except as the office of a deacon. What makes the office of a deacon so sacred that we argue endlessly and heatedly about who should or should not be "scripturally allowed" to be one?

Women have been tainted with the sin of Eve long enough. If we truly believe that Jesus can wash away our sins, then why are we saying that Jesus cannot forgive women for something that Eve did, which was not even our sin. It is time we accepted the fact that Jesus makes both men and women whole through his saving grace.

She is a former employee of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, and knows most of her denomination's top leadership is moving away from rather than toward accepting women into its pulpits. But she is not alone. Enid, Okla., pastor Wade Burleson recently reprinted on his blog a persuasive account by Mimi Haddad explaining the role of women in the growth of South Korean churches.

Burleson, clearly aware of addressing himself to a church which is foundering on growth problems, then invites the theological debate which could lead to the changes bWe seeks. He includes with that invitation the example of a very effective Southern Baptist voice who, it is implied, would be far more effective if not barred from the pulpit:

I have two questions: What fault, if any, do you find in Mimi’s biblical reasoning? Has Beth Moore been released within the Southern Baptist Convention?

Some agree but are pessimistic. Some Baptist women raise other questions about Southern Baptist Church attitudes toward women. And there are some who see a failed an erroneous strategy.

Meanwhile, the volume of Southern Baptists asking their fundamentalist leaders to reconsider the theologies which led them to push women out of and away from a place in the pulpit, is rising.

(bWe) Baptist Women for Equality

Shirley Taylor, a former employee of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, has founded a group called bWe - Baptist Women for Equality, whose goal is to open Southern Baptist leadership roles to women.

Specifically, they "advocate for women deacons and women pastors in Baptist churches."

Their Web site offers An Open Letter to Baptists (.pdf) which introduces the group and includes brief discussions of scripture and the Southern Baptist Convention's 2000 Baptist Faith and Message.

It begins:

Even if you think everything is all right in your church, please consider those other churches where women can be Ministers to Children, Ministers to Youth, Ministers to Women, can be on all committees which make church policy and pertain to theology, and financial matters, but who cannot serve a piece of bread and cup of juice.

Do you know why your church does not have women deacons? It can be found in “the cold heart of the church” which is your church’s By-laws. Church By-laws can be changed. When women decide that enough is enough, the cold heart of the church will be changed to include women as Deacons and accept women as Pastors.

Closing the site home page is:

How often do you tell your daughter that she is scripturally inferior to your son?

You tell her every time you take her to church.

How often do you tell your son that he is scripturally superior to his sister?

You tell them every time you take them to church.

Unless your church recognizes women deacons and women pastors.

The site has been frequently updated with new materials, thus far all in .pdf format.

Southern Baptist policies appear to us to be the focus of the site and its literature, since there are other Baptist organizations whose policies with regard to women are far more inclusive.

We look forward to learning more about the group and following their progress.