The Tennessee Baptists have overturned the welcome mat for a Baptist church which called a female pastor.
A 15-member committee tasked with credentialing messengers for the upcoming annual gathering of the statewide Southern Baptist Convention affiliate agreed Oct. 18 that a church with a woman serving as senior pastor does not fit the definition of a “cooperating church” as defined by convention bylaws.
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“This is in essence the state convention saying that we are no longer welcome,” she said in her Sunday morning sermon. “They have taken this action because our congregation has a female senior pastor. To these institutions, our commitment to equal treatment of women and men in the church is the sum of what makes us ‘us.’”
Yeah, well — ho-hum. This has happened so often in the past that it isn’t believable that the church didn’t know what would happen when they hired a woman to preach. Personally, I think there is probably a lot to like about people who aren’t morally fit to belong to a club that includes Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress, Perry Noble, Jerry Falwell, Jr., Albert the Pious … I could probably sit in that church without feeling that I had soiled myself by the bald fact of being there.