The Southern Baptist Convention messengers reject the so-called “Law Amendment”

  |  

Photo by Kate Shellnut, via Twitter

Today at their annual meeting in Indianapolis the Southern Baptist Convention rejected an amendment that would change the denomination’s constitution to clarify that the only kind of church in friendly cooperation with the convention is one that “affirms, appoints, or employs only men as any kind of pastor or elder as qualified by Scripture.” The majority of the Convention supported the amendment, but it did not reach the two-thirds vote needed to pass it.

As we noted last month, the Law Amendment was supported by Albert Mohler of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and opposed by Jeff Iorg, president and CEO of the SBC Executive Committee.

Here are what people are saying:

Kate Shellnut, reporting for Christianity Today, clarified things:

Here is Liam Adams of The Tennessean:

The Southern Baptist Convention rejected Wednesday a constitutional ban on women pastors, a major victory for those within the nation’s largest Protestant denomination seeking to maintain local church autonomy and soften what many considered a growing antagonism toward women in ministry.

The narrow outcome resolved a two-year political dispute about church policy, though it might not subdue the ensuing debate about women’s roles in the church. The proposed amendment was by far the most animating issue headed into this year’s SBC annual meeting, one that even colored other decision-making — including the election for SBC president.

If the measure passed, more churches were expected to voluntarily leave the Nashville-based denomination. For some, it would be due to a message downplaying women’s contributions to the church, while others saw the SBC becoming overbearing about certain doctrinal beliefs.

“Is this amendment necessary for the convention to respond when churches in our convention act in a way contrary to our complementarian doctrine?” North Carolina pastor Spence Shelton said in the only speech against the measure during a brief floor debate.

“We showed last year we have an effective mechanism,” Shelton said. “It allows us to act with conviction and unity when it comes to this issue.”

Had the measure succeeded, it would have allowed SBC leaders to more strictly enforce doctrinal beliefs surrounding the role of women in ministry by disfellowshipping churches that do not adhere to those standards. But even without the constitutional change, the SBC has disfellowshipped seven churches over these standards. The most high-profile cases were that of Southern California megachurch Saddleback Church and Louisville’s Fern Creek Baptist Church, which both unsuccessfully appealed their ouster at the 2023 SBC annual meeting.

Read the rest here.

Some other reactions: