Back during the last presidential election, questions were raised about the Southern Baptist Convention’s position that women are subservient to men, especially as it related to Mike Huckabee and his support for the belief that “a wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ.”
The issue came up again when John McCain named Sarah Palin as his running mate, with people like Tony Perkins and Richard Land saying it was perfectly acceptable for Palin to possible be VP, but not okay for a woman to serve in a leadership position within the church.
Well, the issue is coming up once more, as the Georgia Baptist Convention is considering cutting ties with a local church where a husaband and wife team have been serving as co-pastors:
A more than 95-year-old church in Atlanta may be ousted from the Southern Baptist Convention over a woman pastor.
The Rev. Mimi Walker has been serving as co-pastor at Druid Hills Baptist Church with her husband, the Rev. Graham Walker, since 2003. But earlier this month, leaders of the Georgia Baptist Convention recommended cutting ties with the local congregation.
…
Dr. Richard Land, president of The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said the Baptist Faith and Message does not state that “women are to be subservient to men.” They are of equal worth before God, he stated earlier.
And though women are gifted for service in the church, Land says the New Testament teaches that “a woman is not to usurp authority over the man” and thus women are not to serve as pastors.
It was just last year that Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, warned that the SBC risked dying out if it did not find a way to stop losing members.
Of course, that was said just weeks after the SBC had kicked out a church due to the fact that it was insufficiently hostile to gays.
It should also be noted that this would be the second time in a year that the Georgia Baptist Convention has severed ties with a local church over a female pastor.
