Dr. Mohler opines on Women in the pastorate...

"Do SBC Moderates Really Believe Women Should Serve as Pastors? An Important Research Project"

Posted by: Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. at Conventionalthinking.net

"The controversy over women in the pastorate has been a part of Southern Baptist life for the last three decades. This is not to say that the controversy has itself reshaped the Baptist landscape at the congregational level. As is now clear, "moderate" churches historically identified with the Southern Baptist Convention are virtually as reluctant as conservative churches to call a woman as pastor. Instead, the question of women in the pastorate has become something of a symbolic issue for SBC moderates and their successors. In a very real sense, the question has become rather hypothetical, serving as an indicator of a theological trajectory rather than a genuine openness to having a woman serve as pastor.

The conclusive evidence for this is found in a report commissioned by Baptist Women in Ministry. "The State of Women in Baptist Life, 2005" by Eileen R. Campbell-Reed and Pamela R. Durso is a major research project that should reshape the conversation over women in ministry among Baptists.

The researchers acknowledge their own ideological commitments, but their analysis appears to be both comprehensive and fair. "The perspective of this report rests firmly in the moderate-to-progressive constellation of Baptist organizations in the southern United States," the authors state. "Institutions that make up this constellation are those that parted company with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), some gradually and others more abruptly beginning in the 1980s..." click here to read the rest