ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS
June 11, 2026
I don’t really know what to say about the Southern Baptist Church doubling down on its opposition to women in ministry. Of course, let’s be clear. There are other Baptist denominations, including the American Baptist Church, that celebrate women in ministry. So I want to be cautious about grouping all Baptists under a single umbrella. With that said, my heart breaks for all the women the Spirit of God has beckoned to preach the Gospel, yet their voices were silenced by a very fragile misogynistic institution calling into question the women’s faithfulness, integrity, or even their salvation. Though there are women’s voices standing on the fringe of the Southern Baptist Church who continue to try to bring change. Today, they released a statement that said in part,
Baptist Women in Ministry loudly proclaims that:
- Convention votes do not decide who is called to pastor, preach, or minister.
- Convention votes do not dictate whose callings churches can affirm.
- Convention votes do not determine women’s value to God or the church.
However, we are grieved that:
- Convention votes do amplify messages of inequality.
- Convention votes do cause congregational conflict.
- Convention votes do hurt women and girls.
On Sunday, I’ll be preaching a sermon on why I believe Cypress Creek Christian Church offers an essential voice in this moment. It’s intriguing that some churches and denominations have been demonstrating my point through almost caricature-like examples. Despite so many strong and so-called Biblically supported convictions about who God condemns, and what gender is deemed worthy of preaching, I find it fascinating that Jesus’ only condemnation was directed at the leadership of religious and political institutions that defined their world based on who was in and who was out. Jesus’ life, ministry, and even his execution revolutionized everything. He embodied an alternative story. And we are called to live in that alternative story where love is trusted instead of worldly power, mercy instead of bullying, and justice instead of fear-based scapegoating. I understand—it appears easier to grow a church using worldly power, bullying, and fear-based scapegoating. But guess what! At the end of the day, you can be incredibly successful in using those tools, but you are not creating the church of Jesus Christ. Instead, you are creating another unhealthy and dangerous institution that Jesus and his church will be attempting to redeem in the years to come. I don’t want to sound overly cocky, but I can almost hear Mordecai, from the Book of Esther, saying to us, “You have this sacred message of inclusion and unconditional love for just such a time as this.”
We ask for courage and a clarity for the convictions we believe come from you, O Merciful God. So much of Christianity looks exactly like the insecure religious powerbrokers that Jesus came to redeem and transform. They existed then for the same reason they exist today. People hunger for simple-sounding pious rhetoric that provides them full permission to continue to live in their greed, hatefulness, and self-centeredness. It is time to be bold, and we trust your Spirit to guide us in putting love first, last, and everywhere in-between. May it be so! Amen.
