Does the SBC Oppose Women Pastors — or Culture? A Surprising History

In 1967, Watts Street Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina, made history as the first Southern Baptist Church to ordain a woman—Addie Davis—to pastoral ministry. This moment seemed to hint at a bright future for SBC women. Indeed, by the early 1980s the SBC had ordained around 200 women pastors.

SBC’s Forgotten History of Women Pastors

Which means that when Rick Warren ordained three Southern Baptist women to pastoral ministry at Saddleback Baptist church last week, he was adhering faithfully to an SBC tradition more than 50 years old.

Except that he wasn’t.

Ordaining women as SBC pastors is not an ordinary part of the SBC world—making Rick Warren’s actions extraordinary rather than ordinary. Within just a few years after Addie Davis’ ordination, the SBC had begun taking steps that would culminate in mandating female submission within marriage and declaring the pulpit off limits to SBC women.

In fact, the controversial author of Christianity & Wokeness, Owen Strachan (who’s at least for the moment still an SBC faculty member at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary) articulated on Twitter the current SBC stance on women preaching: “There is no exception to 1 Timothy 2:9-15. Not Mother’s Day, not when a woman has real gifting, not when the elders endorse women preaching. Based on his creation order, God only calls men to lead, preach, teach, & shepherd the flock. Find a church that stands for this truth.”

So, what happened? Why did the Southern Baptist world, when on the cusp of broadly accepting women in ministry, suddenly change its mind? Read More