DALLAS (RNS) — For the second year in a row, a move to bar churches with women pastors from the nation’s largest Protestant denomination failed.
A proposed amendment to the Southern Baptist Convention’s constitution, which would have kept any church that affirms, appoints or employs a woman “as a pastor of any kind” from belonging to the SBC, got 60.74% of the vote Wednesday (June 11), just shy of the two-thirds majority needed to move forward.
A similar proposal failed last year on a second vote.
Since 2020, the SBC’s statement of faith has limited the office of pastor to men. But a number of churches have given women in supporting roles a ministerial title — such as children’s pastor, women’s pastor or worship pastor. Those churches have often interpreted the ban on women pastors as applying only to the senior pastor role.
The ban on women pastors was rarely enforced on a national level until two years ago, when Saddleback Church, one of the largest churches in the SBC, was expelled for having women pastors on staff.
If it passed, the amendment would have made the statement of faith’s rule against women pastors binding on churches that want to be part of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
SBC President Clint Pressley, a North Carolina pastor, said he wasn’t sure why the measure fell short, saying he believes the SBC’s statement of faith is clear that only men can be pastors.
He also said the debate on the amendment was a “family discussion” and that Southern Baptists remain unified.
“I’m not sure as to why messengers vote the way that they do, but there was a sense that we’re in this together,” Pressley told reporters after the vote.
Juan Sanchez of High Pointe Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, who brought the proposed amendment to the convention floor, said earlier in the week that some Southern Baptists have misinterpreted the Bible when it comes to the role of pastor. He told a gathering of pastors on Monday that some evangelicals cite Ephesians 4:11 in saying that women can be pastors.
“Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers,” that passage reads.
But Sanchez said other passages of the Bible clearly define the role of pastor in a local church — which, he said, is different than a gift.
“The concern that I have is that there are brothers and there are churches, and there are messengers and members that are buying the idea that pastor can be a gift,” he said during a meeting of Baptist 21, a group that appeals to younger pastors.
Sanchez also called the debate a family discussion rather than a conflict.
A vote to abolish the SBC’s public policy arm, known as the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, also failed on Wednesday afternoon, with 42.84% of the messengers voting to abolish and 56.89% voting against abolishing. It was the fourth failed attempt to shut down or defund the ERLC during the Trump era. Leaders of the ERLC have clashed with supporters of President Donald Trump over issues such as immigration, and the agency has been accused of causing division in the denomination.
“Why bring a motion to abolish the ERLC?” said Willy Rice, who made the motion to do so. “Because this is how we save it.”
Rice, the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Clearwater, Florida, called his motion a wake-up call to the ERLC, giving it time to reform. A vote to shut down an SBC agency requires approval two years in a row.
Brent Leatherwood, the ERLC’s current president, defended his agency during his annual report on Wednesday, noting that for more than 40 years it has opposed abortion, which he called a “wicked scheme.”
He spoke of ERLC’s advocacy for Israel and its resources opposing “predatory gambling” and supporting religious liberty.
Before he took questions from messengers, or local church delegates, Leatherwood acknowledged the pending vote on his agency’s existence.
“It would put an end to our legal efforts on some of the most consequential cases for our churches,” he said. “It means the public square would be abandoned by the SBC, losing a powerful voice for the truth of the gospel and, in effect, rewarding secular efforts to push religion out.”
“I lament that once more this is before our convention,” he added. “I realize that even as your smallest institution, we attract outsized attention and scrutiny.”
Leatherwood — like leaders of other evangelical groups that oppose abortion— has objected to proposed laws that would jail women who have an abortion. That has earned him the ire of abortion abolitionists within the SBC, who support such laws.
After the vote, Leatherwood thanked messengers for their support of the ERLC.
“We are committed to continually listening to Southern Baptists on ways to better serve our convention in the public square,” he said in an email after the vote was announced.
Scott Foshie, chair of the ERLC board of trustees, also thanked messengers and said the board was listening to the agency’s critics.
“We are committed to listening well to pastors and lay leaders — both those who support and those who question — as we work together to best serve Southern Baptists and advocate for their priorities in the public square,” Foshie said in an email.
William Wolfe of the Center for Baptist Leadership, who has been a vocal critic of the ERLC, said the vote showed Southern Baptists are divided about the agency. He said the vote shows the ERLC needs new leaders.
“If any pastor of a local church was put to a referendum, and over 40% of his congregants essentially voted no confidence in him, he would resign the next day,” he said.
Slideshow: SBC annual meeting in Dallas
Earlier in the day, messengers approved a $190 million budget, which included a $3 million priority allocation to pay the denomination’s legal bills. Messengers also approved a new business and financial plan but rejected a call for more financial transparency from the SBC’s entities.
During the meeting, the messengers also paused to note the death last week of sexual-abuse whistleblower Jen Lyell. Paul Cooper, a messenger from Marshall, Illinois, asked Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, to pray for Lyell’s family and friends.
Cooper said that he had met Lyell while a student at Southern and described her as kind and gracious, and that he was saddened to hear of her death. Lyell, a former publishing executive at Lifeway, a Southern Baptist publisher, was also a Southern graduate.
“We pray with broken hearts in the death of our sister, Jennifer Lyell,” Mohler prayed.
The 12.7 million-member denomination will hold its 2026 annual meeting in Orlando, Florida. It’s unclear whether the ban on women pastors or the ERLC will be up for debate in the future.
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