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.”
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.”
The convention’s obsession with subjugating women may help explain a May report that 2025 marked the denomination’s “19th consecutive year of membership decline.”
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.
She said:
As a young girl growing up Southern Baptist, I felt what I can only describe as a holy nudge toward ministry. The problem was that I never saw anyone who looked like me doing it. For years, I was told women were “too emotional” and not suited for pastoral leadership. Nevertheless, like so many women before me, I persisted.
It took years to uproot that theology. Ironically, one of the strongest tools I used to do so came from the Baptist tradition itself. Baptists have long championed “soul liberty” — the belief that each person can discern the voice of God speaking to them. My job was to filter out all the other noise and listen. Thankfully, that “still, small voice” proved stronger than the Southern Baptist voices telling me who I could never become.
Today, after nearly 17 years in ministry outside the SBC, this week’s vote has no bearing on my own call. What grieves me is that it will continue telling millions of women and girls something about theirs.
I now belong to Riverside Church in New York City, which has a woman pastor and is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches (and United Church of Christ). The distinction between the American Baptists and Southern Baptists, is that the second is a splinter group that supported keeping Black people enslaved. American Baptists have ordained women since the late 19th century.
Though the Southern Baptists represent the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., it should be noted that fewer than half of the Baptists in the United States belong to the SBC.
So don’t assume that the Southern Baptists rallying together to reiterate its opposition to women in ministry represents Baptists broadly. To the contrary, Wednesday’s decision by the SBC ought to teach us why Baptists have historically rejected creeds: Decisions on conscience and local church leadership should be left up to the local church.
As my former pastor demonstrates, there is a way for girls and women who grow up Southern Baptist to affirmatively respond to their call to church leadership. But it’s just as clear that, in order to do that, they’ll have to leave the denomination behind.
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."