Southern Baptists renew their misogynistic attack on women pastors

The Southern Baptist Convention dug deeper into its hole of misogyny Wednesday when, after only a brief debate, the denomination voted to advance a formal ban on women pastors. The amendment, approved with a roughly 3-to-1 vote, says that Southern Baptist churches may not act “to affirm, appoint, or endorse a woman serving in the office or function of a pastor/elder/overseer, specifically preaching to the assembled congregation.”

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If you’ve been following the Southern Baptists, then you know the convention already has a statement of faith opposing women in ministry and has expelled individual churches, including the one founded by Rev. Rick Warren, that ordain women.  The convention’s seeming obsession with subjugating women and arguing their inherent unfitness for leadership may help explain a May report from Lifeway Research that 2025 marked the denomination’s “19th consecutive year of membership decline.” According to that Lifeway report, the denomination’s membership is consistent with “levels last seen in 1973.”

But the stronger argument against the Southern Baptists’ even louder declaration against churches with women pastors is that they’ve rejected the Baptist value of individual church autonomy and soul liberty. Baptists don’t have creeds. It is a cruel distortion of Baptist belief, then, to have a top-down process that targets individual churches and limits the pastors they may call.  

Consider the response by the Progressive National Baptist Convention, which is predominantly Black and has 2.5-million members. “The Progressive National Baptist Convention affirms that God calls whom God calls,” Rev. Dr. David R. Peoples, the PNBC president, said in a statement. “Throughout Scripture and throughout the history of the Black Church, women have preached, taught, organized, led, and transformed communities in the name of Jesus Christ. We celebrate their gifts and remain committed to creating space for all whom God has called into ministry.”

Rev. Dr. Jacqueline A. Thompson, second vice president of PNBC, added, “We celebrate the women who have gone before us and remain committed to opening doors for those who will follow.”

I became a Baptist as an adult after being turned off from the denomination in which I was raised for being too top-down in its approach to decision making. The Baptist commitment to local church autonomy means the local community of followers of Jesus makes decisions about who leads them in community, without rules imposed from far away. 

I joined a Baptist church in Louisville, Ky., that had already left the Southern Baptist Convention, and we had no issue calling Rev. Mary Alice Birdwhistell as our senior pastor. Though I’ve since moved away from Louisville, I asked her Friday how she’d reacted to Wednesday’s vote. 

Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons

Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons is vice president of programs and strategy at Interfaith Alliance and the author of “Just Faith: Reclaiming Progressive Christianity.”