Southern Baptist Convention messengers voted June 9 to move Albert Mohler’s proposed constitutional amendment forward, setting up a Wednesday debate over whether cooperating churches can affirm women as pastors, elders or overseers. The vote came after messengers suspended a standing rule that had threatened to stall the measure.
The procedural fight matters because Mohler’s amendment would make clear that a cooperating Southern Baptist church does not affirm, appoint or endorse a woman serving in the office or function of a pastor, elder or overseer, including women preaching to the assembled congregation. It was scheduled for debate at 8:45 a.m. Wednesday, June 10, in Orlando, where the denomination’s annual meeting is under way.
Mohler’s move started Tuesday afternoon with two requests: one to amend Article 3 of the SBC Constitution and another to suspend SBC Standing Rule 6. The Committee on Order of Business had recommended sending the constitutional amendment to the Executive Committee, but messengers voted by raised ballot to suspend the rule and bring it forward instead. That kept the proposal alive for Wednesday consideration rather than letting it die in committee.
Benjamin Cole led a separate push that showed how much of the day was being spent on what one messenger called housekeeping and what another called unnecessary detours. He succeeded in defeating five motions seeking task forces by pressing messengers not to refer them to the Executive Committee and then voting to indefinitely postpone them. Cole argued against what he called “extraneous tasks and ongoing studies that are far afield from its ministry assignment,” and warned that the Executive Committee had become like the Israelites under Pharaoh, with more bricks demanded and no straw supplied.
One of those task force proposals would have created a committee to study why some evangelicals convert to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, but it was rejected after a referral motion failed and the matter was indefinitely postponed. Another motion, asking the SBC president to appoint a task force on transparency and accountability, was sent to all entities and the Executive Committee. Two other motions made Tuesday afternoon were automatically referred because they dealt with changes to the convention’s governing documents.
The morning vote leaves Mohler’s amendment as the main unresolved issue from Tuesday’s procedural fights. If messengers approve it on Wednesday, the SBC would move closer to drawing a formal constitutional line against churches that affirm women in pastoral leadership; if they do not, the proposal will have fallen short despite clearing the first hurdle. Either way, the next vote will test how much support remains for making the denomination’s rules explicit on women serving as pastors.
