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The conservative Christian movement in the United States solidified a victory against women on Wednesday when the Southern Baptist Convention voted by a “9-to-1 ratio” to expel California’s Saddleback Church and the much smaller Fern Creek Baptist Church of Louisville, Kentucky. Their infraction? Female pastors.
Saddleback, a megachurch founded by Rick Warren, is led by three female pastors: Liz Puffer, Cynthia Petty, and Katie Edwards. Fern Creek has been led for the past three decades by the Rev. Linda Barnes Popham. Popham spoke at the convention, saying, “We have a faith and practice that identifies more closely with the Baptist Faith and Message than many other Southern Baptist churches, and I am personally more conservative than the most Southern Baptist pastors I know.”
Former Saddleback pastor Rick Warren made a personal plea for the church to embrace diversity. But almost 13,000 convention participants didn’t agree. The Rev. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, argued, “The issue of women serving in the pastorate is an issue of fundamental Biblical authority that does violate both the doctrine and the order of the Southern Baptist Convention.”
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The “scriptures” cited here are the most misogynistic passages from Paul’s Epistles, specifically 1 Timothy 2:11, which begins with the classic, “Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent;” and Titus 1, which asserts that in appointing “elders,” one should appoint a man “faithful to his wife.” Like most things taught by Santa Claus-like spiritual leaders, it just so happens that the consensus among biblical scholars is that Timothy (1 and 2) and Titus (1 and 2), collectively known as the “pastoral epistles,” were not authored by Paul. There is some debate as to whether these documents should be considered forgeries or pseudepigrapha. Bottom line: They ain’t Paul. But whatever, right?
Mohler and his brand of Christian conservatism have been around for decades, and as the country’s right-wing becomes smaller and more desperate to hold on to power, these conservatives are at the height of their influence with the Republican Party. Mohler has said he hopes the Republican Party nominates someone other than Donald Trump—but that’s a political calculation, as the Southern Baptist Convention supported the reelection of dirtbag Trump in 2020 after hedging against him in 2016.
Warren held a press conference after the vote, lamenting the results. “Messengers voted for conformity and uniformity rather than unity. The only way you will have unity is to love diversity. We made this effort knowing we were not going to win,” he said.
Like the fake Pauline epistles they rely on, the nature of the American Christian nationalist movement is fundamentally a political one of misogynistic control and bigotry, all wrapped up in a spiritual disguise. Christian conservative organizations like the Southern Baptist Convention support attacks on women and LGBTQ+ folks, claiming they are protecting women and children from sexually deviant predators. And yet, just one year ago, a 288-page investigative report of its leadership detailed its own protection of sex abusers among its clergy. The contradictions that church leaders are unwilling to wrestle with mean the Southern Baptist Convention will continue to be nothing more than a political interest group with very weak morals.
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Donald Trump is facing even more legal jeopardy and the sharks in the Republican Party seem to sense there is some blood in the water. Chris Christie has made his campaign all about going directly at Trump, and Ron DeSantis seems to be closer and closer to becoming completely isolated from the field.
