Can the Southern Baptist Convention Survive Without Women Pastors?

In a few weeks, members of Southern Baptist churches from across the country will convene in Dallas for their annual convention. These gatherings, which attract thousands of people each year, offer a snapshot of the issues that sharply divide the largest evangelical denomination in the U.S. In recent years, one of the most heated debates has been over the role of women in church leadership. Southern Baptists have repeatedly reaffirmed their theological opposition to women serving as pastors. But a group within the denomination has pushed to make that ban more all-encompassing, and to formalize it within the denomination’s legal documents. The debate over women in ministry has been so fraught because it touches so many sensitive topics: how churches try to reach people where they are, versus emphasizing Biblical scripture; shifting conceptions of gender roles in American life, including for women and transgender people; and a sense among conservatives that their understanding of the Bible is under legal and cultural assault.

In 2023, the New Yorker producers Daniel Lombroso and Devon Blackwell met with Tom Ascol, a pastor in Cape Coral, Florida, whose organization, Founders Ministries, has pushed for what Ascol describes as stricter adherence to Biblical teachings within the Southern Baptist Convention and among local churches. Violating “what the Bible teaches so simply and clearly here will embolden churches to say, ‘Well, we have adjusted on this. We can adjust on other things as well,’ ” Ascol said, on the issue of women pastors. “Somebody needs to be holding the line.” That year, Southern Baptist leaders voted to remove several churches from the denomination for allowing women in pastor roles, including Saddleback, the California megachurch founded by the prominent pastor Rick Warren. Ascol pointed out that the S.B.C. is aging and in decline. “It’s not really smart, when you’re losing a half million members a year, to intentionally kick out people who want to fellowship with you,” he said. “We continue to be the shrinking Baptist Convention.”

Fern Creek Baptist Church, in Louisville, Kentucky, was another congregation that was kicked out in 2023. The church’s pastor, Linda Barnes Popham, told the New Yorker staff writer Eliza Griswold last year that her church has thrived since parting ways with the S.B.C. Its membership has almost doubled, and several young families joined after seeing Popham on the news. The Southern Baptist Convention, meanwhile, may take up the issue of women pastors again this June. “There’s no doubt that the Convention is declining,” Ascol told Lombroso. “We need reformation. We need revival. And it needs to start with the household of God.”