By Amie Knowles
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is meeting from June 7-10, and one of the subjects attendees plan to discuss is women’s roles in church leadership. Down here in the Bible Belt of Southern Virginia, that topic is all but taking over my social media algorithms.
The debaters on one side claim that God will, or can, only call males into the role of pastor. Others believe that God has the power and authority to call anyone he so chooses to do any job he sees fit. I tend to fall in with the latter group.
Much of the current controversy has been spurred by Dr. R. Albert Mohler, a prominent American conservative within the evangelical movement and president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
However, the question of women in church leadership roles isn’t new and certainly isn’t unique to Southern Baptist circles. In fact, many Christian denominations and congregations bicker back and forth on biblical interpretation, cultural context, and whether the apostle Paul made blanket statements for all Christian churches forever or just to the congregations he addressed in specific letters.
I find great interest in those letters—and even more so, in what folks deem absolute and what they let slide.
A prime example of a verse used to dismiss women from church leadership, but is generally ignored in other areas, is found in the book of 1 Timothy. If you’ve got on rose-colored glasses, I’d gently suggest taking them off for this one.
