The First Woman Mega-Church Pastor of an SBC Church?
- Posted by: Todd
- Posted on: Thu, May 31, 2007
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- (62) comments so far
According to a Decatur church member familiar with the process, the congregation reacted to the announcement with “solid approval.” Pennington-Russell, 46, is scheduled to preach June 17 in anticipation of election the same day.
First Baptist of Decatur—a 141-year-old church in the Atlanta suburb of Decatur—will immediately become a centerpiece in the effort to elevate and celebrate women in pastoral roles. But the congregation is not seeking that notoriety, said one church leader.
“Calling Julie was definitely not about ‘making a statement,’” the longtime member said. “Our committee and the deacon council really felt the leadership of the Holy Spirit as we navigated this decision-making process. And to have our entire congregation—minus five or six folks who are not happy about this—stand at the close of the service yesterday and applaud our committee was overwhelming to us.”
Calvary Baptist in Waco was the first church in the Baptist General Convention of Texas to call a woman as senior pastor. At the time, it also reportedly was the largest congregation of Southern Baptist heritage to be shepherded by a woman.
First Baptist of Decatur is affiliated with the moderate Cooperative Baptist Fellowship but also maintains ties with the Southern Baptist Convention.
In the past 30 years, the Southern Baptist Convention has taken an increasingly hard line on women in leadership. That move—which happened as part of an overall rightward shift in the denomination—culminated in 2000, when the denomination added a clause to its official confession of faith that said the Bible restricts the office of pastor to males.
However, the confession is not binding on local churches, and many congregations affiliated with the SBC have ordained women as ministers and deacons for years.
Nonetheless, several local associations and a handful of state conventions have dismissed churches that have called a woman as a pastor in recent years.
The Decatur congregation would be the third that Pennington-Russell has led. Prior to her tenure at Calvary, she served for five years as pastor of Nineteenth Avenue Baptist Church in San Francisco. She also served that church previously as an associate pastor.
During her time in San Francisco, fundamentalists in the California Southern Baptist Convention tried three times, unsuccessfully, to get the convention to withdraw fellowship from the Nineteenth Avenue congregation.
Pennington-Russell also faced protesters when she went to Waco. However, Calvary has—according to multiple accounts—experienced a significant renaissance under her leadership. What had been an aging, shrinking congregation in a troubled neighborhood has grown numerically and attracted many young adults, as well as faculty and students from nearby Baylor University and Truett Theological Seminary.
While records on Baptist women in ministry are hard to track, experts in the field said May 29 that the Decatur congregation would likely be by far the largest church of Southern Baptist heritage ever led by a woman.
You can read more here at the Associated Baptist Press website.
Any reactions?
A female pastor who broke the "stained-glass ceiling" in Texas Baptist life is expected to move to a historic church near Atlanta, making it by far the largest Southern Baptist church led by a woman. A search committee of the 2,696-member First Baptist Church of Decatur, Ga., presented Julie Pennington-Russell's name May 27 as its recommendation to fill the open office of pastor. Since 1998 Pennington-Russell has been pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Waco, Texas.
Comments
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Peter Hamm on Mon, June 04, 2007
Jerry A Maddock writes “...the bible is very clear on this subject.”
Sorry, Jerry, many people who love and follow Jesus do NOT find the Bible clear on the subject, or find it clear but disagree with what I guess your conclusions are. And I’m not sure that this church is all that “liberal” either.
Jerry A Maddock on Mon, June 04, 2007
I’m also sorry Peter, that you do not find 1Tim.2:12-14 clear. How can “I do not allow women to exercise authority over a man” be any clearer?
Peter Hamm on Mon, June 04, 2007
It could be clearer if it wasn’t a specific instruction to a pastor in a specific church who was facing specific problems with specific individuals. Always consider the source, the destination, and the context of any biblical passage. There are plenty of believers who do NOT think that that instruction to Timoth is a general admonition to all churches and all pastors everywhere.
It is also clear that men are to keep their heads covered in church, and yet in America we consider it impolite (or even sacrilegious) to wear a hat in church. Why? We recognize our cultural mores and we recognize those parts of scripture that are written to address the cultures of the times they were written.
I highly recommend the excellent NIV Application Commentary on this passage.
Jerry A Maddock on Mon, June 04, 2007
Peter, I’ve read them all and find that people see what they want. There is a hugh differance between this and wearing a hat. Maybe I’m older than you, but It scares me when I look at what is happening with churches like the Episcopal Church. They started with the same rational.
Peter Hamm on Mon, June 04, 2007
Jerry,
I hear what you are saying, and the ECUSA scares me, too. (I used to be in the ECUSA and left before this whole situation their in started most recently…) But what you’re describing (difference of interpretation of scripture) is NOT the rationale they started with. The situation with the ordination of Robinson in New Hampshire is based on a refutation of that church’s basic articles of religion (which includes the authority of Scripture). Ronbinson for instance had this to say right about the time of his installation as bishop. (I quote EXACTLY.)
“Just simply to say that it goes against tradition and the teaching of the church and Scripture does not necessarily make it wrong,” he said. “We worship a living God, and that living God leads us into truth.”
That is a rejection of the teaching of the church and Scripture in his case, clearly, and directly. That is, imho, NOT what is happening in this case.
Melody on Mon, June 04, 2007
It was correctly noted above that each SBC congregation is autonomous. There was discussion at the time that she was called to her current church whether they should remain in the convention, but after listening to the meanspirited debate back and forth for a while, my eyes started rolling back in my head and I decided that it wasn’t edifying so ignored it all. I’m not sure what became of that but I don’t think that it resulted in cutting ties with the SBC or the BGCT. I expect this time as well to hear a lot of noise, and for the conventions to remain divided. Even those who are, in principle, opposed to women serving as pastors are hesitant to act because of their belief in autonomy. At the moment, they are distracted by the subject of private prayer language, which could potentially result in quite a few serving missionaries having to leave the cooperative on doctrinal grounds.
I get so weary of the “hat” argument though. We have a principle being given (in this case feminine modesty and giving no outward sign of disrespect for our husbands and our pastors) and practical advice on how to live it out in that culture. For example, if I wore a veil when praying or prophesying publicly today, many observers would understand me to be Muslim, in all likelihood. The underlying principle, voluntary submission, is identified with the creation and fall, so abides. The problem today is how to go about that. It’s not necessarily a sin vs. righteousness issue except the private motivations. For example, if I chose to keep my maiden name in my professional life, unrelated to my marriage relationship, and my husband didn’t feel disrespected or otherwise object, there is no sin. If I choose to keep my maiden name as a statement of my “liberation” and my husband is disrespected as a result, I have sinned. I know more than a few women who practice headcovering as a religious matter, yet are very disrespectful to and regarding their husbands. Their heads are covered, yet they are in violation of the principle.
We’d all do well to examine why we do various things, and what motivates us. Should my husband lose his mind and start insisting that I wear a hat in public (I look horrible in hats) I would, no doubt, vigorously object in private discussions with him. But, if like a good “daughter of Sarah” I had followed him into a church where women don’t pray bareheaded and it would serve as a distraction to worship or open sign of rebellion against him, I believe I should wear the hat.
The legalists want to cling to the letter and disregard principle; the more liberal tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And both are so angry all the time!
Peter Hamm on Mon, June 04, 2007
You’re missing the “hat” argument. It says clearly in scripture that a man is to worship with his head covered, and yet our cultural norms have dicated that a man must remove his hat when entering a church, a position that is clearly contrary to the “literally-understood” scriptures. My point was that in that case we have an understanding of the cultural context, but then we pick and choose which other scriptures we do that with.
Where we disagree, we must have charity. There is no indication in scripture that the issue of women in leadership is a key salvific argument. Some, however, attempt to make it one.
Wyeth Duncan on Mon, June 04, 2007
The anonymous church leader said, “Our committee and the deacon council really felt the leadership of the Holy Spirit as we navigated this decision-making process.”
It is interesting that the Holy Spirit would contradict Himself. Did not the Holy Spirit state, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man” (1 Tim. 2:12a)? Didn’t He also clearly state that “the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior”, and that “as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands” (Eph. 5:23, 24)?
Has the Holy Spirit become senile and forgotten what He already said? Of course not! Men and women simply elevate their ideas, feelings and sentiment above the word of God, and call it a “move” of the Holy Spirit in order to sanctify their rebellion.
Then, there is this statement by the quoted leader: “And to have our entire congregation—minus five or six folks who are not happy about this—stand at the close of the service yesterday and applaud our committee was overwhelming to us.”
I’m suspicious of this leader’s claim. My gut feeling is that there were far more than “five or six folks” who opposed this decision. What I “hear” this leader saying is “We leaders are happy about this and we couldn’t care less who disagreed, because they don’t matter anyway. We’re going to do what we want to do.”
Perhaps what these “five or six folks” are not happy about is their church’s disregard for what the word of God has clearly stated about the place of women in the church.
Wyeth Duncan
Jerry A Maddock on Mon, June 04, 2007
Peter, if I understand the culture correctly, why would women even have been mentioned? Women were not much more than property in that culture. The very fact that women were mentioned speaks volumes about how much God loves women. That does not mean He didn’t have seperate, but equally important roles for them.
I hope you were not referring to me, in making this a condition of salvation. I understand that salvation is by grace alone. My point is that this is a slippery slope. Several denominations have taken this course and in almost every case the word gets watered down and more of God’s word is changed to meet mans needs.
This is an important discussion, but I have get back to my work. You need to talk to John MacArthur or Andy Stanley.
Thanks for taking your time to debate an old saint.
Jerry
Peter Hamm on Mon, June 04, 2007
Jerry,
No, I didn’t mean you. And thank you for debating so graciously. It is important to guard our understanding of the Word of God. I love tha fact that the Bible makes it clear that women are not property even though the cultures of that time basically believed that.
However, I might stress (I have listened to John Macarthur and Andy Stanley) that those of us who feel that women have a place in leadership might tell you that we feel that way not “despite” certain interpretations of certain passages, but BECAUSE of what we feel is a clear scriptural mandate, with examples of people like Junia, Deborah, Priscilla, and a handful of others who led in a time and culture where that was a pretty new idea.
Again, thanks for your grace and humility!
Wendi on Tue, June 05, 2007
This is an old post now, and probably most are done reading. But having just checked back, I need to comment one more time to those who claim we egalitarians are twisting scripture to fit our desires . . .
I’m afraid that position is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black (on this issue). Even the most conservative churches on this issue have a woman as the Children’s Director (not Children’s Pastor, that’s a title reserved for men). The reason, they say, is because she is leading children and that protects them from allowing a woman to have authority over a man. Most make the cut off 6th grade, after which some biblical marker has been met and the 7th grader must be in a ministry led by a man. But this doesn’t hold water.
If the Children’s Director is leading biblically, she isn’t leading children, but rather the adults who lead the children. If there is even one male volunteer, she has pastoral authority over him (regardless of the job title). She recruits him, trains him, coaches him, equips him and perhaps even disciplines him. When the families within the scope of her ministry need pastoral care, they (husbands and wives) call her.
I have complete respect for a church if they decide that a woman cannot fill a pastoral role, and then live with the consequences. I’m not aware of many who have put their money where their mouth is on this issue. I have little respect for those who claim that they interpret scripture this way, and then make what scripture “clearly says” fit their context by changing a job title and claiming her work is with children . . . when it clearly is with adults (male and female).
Done ranting . . .
Wendi
nora on Tue, June 05, 2007
I agree, Wendi, but I think we can even take it a step further. Any time you have a woman leading in any context (lay or paid) where a man may possibly be even involved, then that woman, by definition, “has authority” over a man, and that interpretation of Scripture has been violated. So as you say, if those churches really want to put their money where their mouth is, they should not have women leading the greeting team, the choir, or any committees for a specific event or issue unless said groups are 100 percent male. Aw, the awful burden our Lord has put on the men. What was He thinking?
Jerry A Maddock on Tue, June 05, 2007
After reading all these comments, I feel blessed to be part of a body that celebrates Christ in harmony. I guess you could call me an old egalitarian even b-4 it was fashionable, but I still believe the Lord intended certain equal but differant roles for men and women. Our church has many women in positions of authority and of teaching, but just like everyone else in the church, they are under the authority of the senior pastor and the elders,who are men. All curriculums are approved by them and final authority rests with them.Our church is run exactly how we are to run our families.When I look at the problems in the church today, I’m not surprised that many of the problems parallel the family. Both are getting away from God’s defined structure. You can argue theology all day, but all the wonderful so called freedoms of this day seem to have really messed up both. Oh well, what do I know? God bless youall!
Wyeth Duncan on Tue, June 05, 2007
I believe this post (and 1Tim. 2:12) was about a woman serving in the office of pastor/elder. This is not about Children’s ministry, greeting team, choir, or anything like that. This church claims the “leadership of the Holy Spirit” in making a decision that is in direct conflict with Scripture that the Holy Spirit inspired. That’s the point. They claim the leadership of the Holy Spirit, when it is obvious and evident that they are, in fact, being led by their own ideas and opinions. Whenever we depart from Scripture, we are definitely NOT being led by the Holy Spirit (another spirit, perhaps, but not the Holy Spirit).
Wyeth Duncan
PS: Incidentally, my church’s children’s ministry is led by our male “Pastor of Children’s Ministries”.
Daniel on Tue, June 05, 2007
Oooh, I have an idea! Let’s quote Scripture at each other! The complementarians can give us all the passages which supposedly support complementarianism, and the egalitarians can give us all the passages which supposedly support egalitarianism!! Then after that, we can appeal to our favorite biblical scholars who agree with us, and start an argument about which one of them is more credible, Christ-like, and good-looking!!
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