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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Welcome back into the CBMW podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Swan, and I am here with our president, Denny Burke. Out away on assignment is the executive director, Colin Smothers, known now as the Great Moeller Ally. Speaking of, we want to do a little review of the SBC last week. It was great to see you there. Denny, do you have.
- [00:32]
B
You should explain that Mueller ally comment.
- [00:35]
A
Okay. Yes. Well, we're going to get into it with the Truth and unity Amendment, which Dr. Moeller proposed and motioned and was approved. Colin was one of the messengers who spoke in favor of it in an article trying to, I think, negatively portray his involvement, referred to him as a molar Ally. And you can now find that title on Collins X account where he proudly displays it. So there's an explanation. We'll get further into that discussion. But, Denny, we were in Orlando. Do you have a favorite SBC location where we meet?
- [01:17]
B
You know, for me, it's usually the one that's closest to my home. So I'm totally a convenience guy when it comes to the convention. And, you know, most people, when they're going to the convention, they kind of. Well, I should. I say most people. I haven't done a survey on this. Okay. But a lot of people went. A lot of Southern Baptists, every year, they'll kind of try to pair up family vacation with going to the convention. So they want it to be a good destination. I, on the other hand, have a family who's not interested in going to the Southern Baptist Convention and are not trying to pair that up. So whenever I go to a convention, I just fly in and fly out, and I usually don't see anything. So I don't know if I, you know, I didn't see any of the theme parks, nothing like that in Orlando. I was just, you know, Ubered in and Ubered out to the convention site and was, you know, home and then back home. So one of my favorite ones that I did go to was one that I did one of the few times I took my family with me, and it was when we went to Dallas. People say, why you want to go to Dallas? Because I used to live there. And I love Dallas. I think it's a great city. It is. So that was one of my favorite times when my family came with me to Dallas.
- [02:30]
A
Man, we are so boring. Because I was going to say basically the exact same thing. Whenever it's in St. Louis, it's great because I'm from here, my family's here now I live here, and we'll be back in 2028. I can't wait. It'll be great. But between now and then, in 2027, we'll be back in Indianapolis, and that's a great city as well. Well, okay. What we want to do for the remainder of our show is a brief review of what happened at this Southern Baptist Convention that happened last week. We talked about it beforehand. There was a major vote on what was called the Truth and Unity Amendment, a proposed motioned amendment to our Constitution that was made. It was passed. But, Denny, could you give us just sort of a summary of what happened there at the convention with this vote, what it means and what else still needs to be done?
- [03:28]
B
Yeah. I'll just say this to our listeners. You may be wondering, why are we talking about the Southern Baptist Convention again, cbmw? Isn't that an interdenominational group? We are an interdenominational group. However, we do have particular representatives from particular denominations involved in our council and, you know, in the people who are on staff at cbmw, on our board. So, you know, next week we'll probably be talking about the pca, because the PCA General assembly is happening here in Louisville next week. But we talk about the Southern Baptist Convention both because some of us are Southern Baptists. So, Jonathan, you and I obviously are Southern Baptist, but also Southern Baptists are the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. And we've had that status for a while. It's probably going to change pretty soon, but we're just a lot of influence there. And where Southern Baptists go, so goes a lot of evangelicalism. And so what happened this week, and probably the biggest debate leading up to the convention last week was this debate over Albert Mueller's Truth and Unity amendment. He proposed the amendment to our denomination's Constitution, and it specified that the office of pastor is limited to men and that the function of preaching is also limited to men, whether or not you have the title of pastor. So it basically does those two things, and it's been really fascinating because really, you could kind of feel like the wind was at your back when you were in the convention hall because there wasn't a lot of people speaking against it leading up to it. There were some, but it wasn't, you know, major voices in the SBC speaking against it. In fact, Dr. Mohler made a change to it that a lot of people who were against it kind of came around for it. You know, a lot of people that I was really surprised that signed on there right before the convention started. So by the time we got in the convention hall there, I felt like there was a tremendous amount of support in favor of it. And so on Tuesday, he proposed the amendment last week. And then Wednesday a week ago today, a week ago, we had a vote on the floor of the convention. Vote went pretty short. Dr. Mohler, you know, according to our rules, Dr. Mohler got to speak first to his motion, and then someone spoke against Doug Mize, I think, from South Carolina. And then Colin spoke third.
- [05:57]
A
The Molar ally.
- [05:58]
B
The Molar ally. Rns called him. So the molar ally, Collins Smothers spoke four. And then at the end of his speech, he called the question and then that was the end of it. The, the body voted to end debate. And then, then it was over and we took a vote. And it was 75 to 25%, about which is pretty overwhelming, I'll be honest. It was a little less than I was hoping. I was thinking, I was hoping to be like, I was hoping it was going to be, you know, 80% or more, but 75% is nothing to sneeze at. So, so, so it passed. And so the question then becomes, what. What's the point of this? If you look at the, the reporting on this in the media over the last week, it's been really inaccurate. Most of the headlines say something to the effect of Southern Baptists clamp down on banning women from pastoral ministry or something.
- [06:57]
A
Everyone used the word bans women from,
- [06:59]
B
you know, bans women or clamping down. So if you're just reading the reports and the headlines, you, there's no way you could come away without getting the impression that we were doing something new like there's some brand new departure in the Southern Baptist Convention on how it, how we cooperate when it relates to women pastors. That's not true. There's nothing new here. We've, you know, for the entire history of the Southern Baptist Convention, the consistent practice of Southern Baptist has been that the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture. That's been the overwhelming practice of Southern Baptist, what, 26 years ago. We actually put it in writing in our doctrinal statement before it was kind of assumed. But in the year 2000, we put in our doctrinal statement that the office of pastors limited to men as qualified by scripture. So this is not a brand new teaching. It's not a brand new departure. What it is, is trying to put it in our Constitution. So our statement of faith is, has that as an article of faith that we supposedly base our cooperation on, but there's been some looseness in how the denomination. I know people don't like calling the SBC a denomination, but can we just.
- [08:20]
A
Our Convention of churches, you know what I mean?
- [08:22]
B
Okay, our Convention of churches, if you want to call it that. But even that's not right, right? There is no convention of churches. We have a convention of messengers sent by churches. But I digress. So the point is that the SBC cooperates together on the basis of a doctrinal statement. But there's been some looseness in how that doctrinal statement's been applied to enforcing the standards of our cooperation. So cooperation just defines our relationship as Baptists. It may sound strange to other denominations because you're used to kind of a top down model where, you know, the denomination more or less controls the churches that are underneath it or exercises some kind of authority over the churches that are underneath it. That is not how we operate. That's not our polity. We do have some centralized structures, but they don't tell us what to do. Our congregations tell them what to do. And it's just always been that way. And we're all independent. We can do like. There's no authority outside any of our individual churches that can tell any individual church what to do. And so what that means is, is that the nature of our association is totally voluntary. It's totally based on voluntary. Hey, we're going to cooperate together, pool our assets for evangelism and missions. So when we do that, though, we have to have like a stated basis for cooperating together, you know, before we, a given church, you know, starts throwing money at an effort. You want to make sure that, that you have enough of your beliefs in line in order that you can do that. And so we those our cooperation depends upon, you know, a common core of beliefs. Otherwise the divisions make it impossible for people to cooperate. And what happens is, is that usually churches don't make an announcement, hey, we're leaving the Southern Baptist Convention. What happens is if they don't like what the SBC is doing, they just start slowly moving their money elsewhere. Maybe gradually at first they give a little bit here and a little bit there, then they take a little away, take a little away, and then pretty soon they're totally invested in something else. So, you know, cooperation, you know, really matters for us and it has to be done on a sound doctrinal basis or else it causes division. So what do we do about the women pastor thing? Well, I actually don't think there's a rash of women pastors or a rash of egalitarianism or a rash of liberalism going across the convention. But we have had some cases where our denomination did not faithfully apply our doctrinal statement to our cooperative standards, and that's why we have this amendment. The amendment is an attempt to tell the leadership and to tell the people responsible for enforcing standards of cooperation that this really does matter and that this part of our confession should be enforced. And in particular, that the pastorate is limited to men. It's qualified by Scripture, and then also that the preaching function, the function of the pastorate we call preaching, should be limited to men as well.
- [11:29]
A
Denny, what you just described there, in articulating the way that churches cooperate voluntarily in their relationship with the convention, answers one of the key objections to this amendment, which is that it imposes some kind of authority. It tells churches, in other words, what to do. It violates their autonomy. But to say that is to actually misunderstand the way that we relate to one another, which is in a voluntary manner. If you don't like the SBC's theological basis of organization and of unity, you have every right and you should withdraw. But that's. You're totally within your power. No one's coming to your church business meeting and telling your pastors and your church what they can do. Okay, so, Denny, on this front, before we move into one other topic, there is another objection that we're seeing, and I think we're going to continue to see, and I want to give you the opportunity to speak to it, which is this. Hey, we're spending so much time and energy talking about this amendment and this issue when there are other issues going on, it's a distraction from our mission. But even another issue we've talked about in previous years, most recently the issue of abuse in the church. What do you say to that?
- [12:45]
B
Yeah, that's. I think it's an important objection. And, you know, there's a part of me that agrees with it in this sense. You know, I'm the president. I've said this before. I'm the president of cbmw, and even I'm tired of talking about this at the convention every year. The problem we're having is. Yeah, I think it is a waste of time for us to be talking about this on the floor of the convention as much as we have, and we shouldn't have to. We have a body called the Credentials Committee that's supposed to be considering these cases in between conventions on behalf of the convention, so that we don't have to take up precious time on the floor. The problem is, is if they don't apply consistently our doctrinal basis to our standards of cooperation, then it comes up on the floor, and then you have people like us who are supporting an amendment to get them to apply it more faithfully. So, but hopefully, if this amendment, you know, we just. It passed for the first vote this last time, but everybody needs to know it needs to pass two years in a row to actually become a part of our Constitution.
- [13:45]
A
So we buy two thirds once again.
- [13:47]
B
Yeah, we got to get two thirds super majority again next year. And so we got to keep talking about it, you know. You know, until we're through with the next next convention. My hope is, though, is that once it becomes a part of the Constitution, we don't have to be talking about this all the time.
- [14:02]
A
Right.
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B
And this doesn't become a matter of controversy on the floor all the time. The credentials committee will be properly instructed and will, you know, enforce our doctrinal standards when it comes to cooperation. So that. That's the hope is that you don't really have to. To talk about this anymore. Now, having said that, so there's a part of me that's sympathetic to that because I don't think that we should be spending all this time on this. The amendment effort is an effort to get us to not have to do that anymore.
- [14:31]
A
Exactly.
- [14:32]
B
So we can kind of move on to other things. And, you know, everybody's getting fatigued about it, and I totally get it. I am, too. So hopefully this will be coming to an end soon. Having said that, it is really important for people to understand that it's not the people who are insisting on the integrity of our doctrine who are causing division. It's those who are departing from our doctrine that are causing the division. If you look. Just look in the New Testament, when it comes to, like, the way that doctrine in a church functions, the Apostle Paul is never accusing the people who are being faithful to our. To biblical doctrine of being the divisive ones. He always is accusing the ones who are departing from biblical doctrine of being the divisive ones. And so what we have to a certain extent is not a mainstream thing, not a big, you know, wave or movement within the sbc. But there are on the fringes, some folks that are departing from our doctrine, and they're. They're giving the title or the function of a pastor to women. And so you can see that because you'll have, like, a pastor of discipleship who's a woman sometimes you'll see, like with Saddleback, you had a. I think they had a teaching pastor, have a lead pastor, a senior pastor at Fern Creek that we removed a few years ago. You'll have examples of women who have the title pastor in some associate sense, but then who are also preaching like you saw with the church in South Carolina last year. And they got referred to the credentials committee and they removed themselves. But the issue is that you do have these aberrant practices that pop up amongst our churches. And whenever people who care about biblical doctrine and care about what the Bible says about this, whenever they bring that up, those people bringing that up are not being divisive. It's the people who are departing from the doctrine who are. And they're causing controversy amongst our churches. And so whenever there is a problem, my hope for those churches is that they would say, you know what, we've gotten sloppy here with our titles and the way we're doing our ministry. Let's, let's tighten up here and get more in line with scripture. That's what I hope would happen with most thief churches. I'm not trigger happy on trying to kick them out. I'd like to see the credentials committee say, hey, why don't you bring yourself in line with what our denomination statement of faith is? And if they say, you know what we think you're right, we want to do that. I say, give them time to do that. I'm all for that. But where you've got people who have a settled conviction against what we believe who say, no, we think the Bible allows for women pastors. We think that pastoring is a gift, it's not an office. And they present you a long explanation biblically for why they believe that. Well, they've departed at that point from our confessional basis, the basis that we cooperate on. And they either need to remove themselves or we need to remove them, you know, and so that if we don't have that, then we're going to end up with a con over time. Not tomorrow, not next year, but over time, you're going to end up adding a bunch of churches with female pastors and you're going to have a big portion of churches sending messengers every year who don't believe what we believe right now. And so if you don't maintain the integrity of our doctrinal basis for cooperation, it's just going to erode over time. And we're not going to receive the Lord's blessing. The Lord's not going to bless. Departure scriptures from his word. He's going to bless people who are being faithful to his, to His Word. And so we need to walk in that. We need to walk in faithfulness to what the Bible says when it comes to the basis for cooperation. You mentioned the abuse thing. Some people are saying, well, this is not. We need to focus on the Great Commission and we need to focus on more important issues like abuse. We don't need to be focusing on this. This isn't important. Well, doctrinal integrity is important for the Great Commission. Otherwise we're going to splinter apart into a thousand different pieces. So you have unity. Truth brings unity to God's people. Jesus says in John 10, my sheep hear my voice. They won't listen to another. In other words, we believe that we, that Jesus has spoken and we're rallying to his voice on this issue. And the people who are not rallying to his voice on this issue are not, are going to be able to remain with us. So it is important for the Great Commission that we have unity on this issue. Because the churches, the whole reason we're together is to plant churches either internationally or at home. Those churches will either have female pastors or they won't. There's not an in between view there.
- [19:16]
A
You have to answer the question.
- [19:17]
B
You have to answer the question, what are you going to do with this? And if you think that you should have female pastors, women who are taking the function of the pastor through preaching, if you think that Southern Baptist Convention is not a good place for you and for you to try to stay and manipulate our doctrine and manipulate our churches into thinking that it is a place for female pastors and where women should be preaching, that's a wrong view of the Southern Baptist Convention. Don't be surprised if you meet some resistance. Now, I wish you'd change your views and align with the Scripture, but if you don't, you probably, you're going to have to leave one way or the other. So having said that, well, other people will say, well, what about the issue of abuse? Why are you focusing all this attention on women in ministry? Make passing an amendment and you're not spending that kind of energy on abuse. I just want to say, have you been paying attention for the last five, six years? We passed an amendment on abuse in 2019 saying that any church that doesn't align with our doctrinal statement on the issue of abuse is to be removed. Like, we already did that on abuse seven years ago. So, and then our, our denomination had been really focused on that issue for several years now. And it's become very controversial because there's a lot of mistakes made along the way in that. But to say that we haven't given any attention to that is just not. It just shows you're not paying attention to what's been going on in the convention for the last seven years.
- [20:45]
A
Well, we've given attention time and quite a lot of money. Tithe dollars as well. Denny, I want to get to one other topic. There was a resolution. I don't remember which number it was, but it is titled on the Office and Function of Pastor Elder Overseer. What are your general thoughts about the message of it and its utility for Southern Baptist moving forward?
- [21:08]
B
Okay, this one was a bit of a sleeper because everybody was paying attention to the amendment and the fortunes of this amendment. But this resolution is actually really good. And the way these resolutions, resolutions are non binding. Anything that we do is non binding to churches because churches don't have to obey anything that the Convention says. They can do their own thing if they want and separate even churches. We've removed like saddleback for female pastors. They still have female pastors. We can't change. We can't stop them from having female pastors. So nothing the Convention does can exercise authority over any church. However, the Convention does operate entities of the Convention like seminaries, mission boards, Guidestone Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. And whenever the Convention expresses itself in a resolution and articulates a clear theological position, it's typically the, the, the heads of those entities of the convention know that they need to be in line with that and that they're teaching. And what they're advocating needs to be in line with what the messengers are expressing when they come to these conventions. And so I think that this resolution already is going to have a salutary effect just on our entities.
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A
Sure.
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B
And the people who are teaching at our seminaries, the people who are training the next generation of pastors are going to need to be in line with what the messengers. Messengers are saying in these resolutions. And so I think this is, you know, wonderful. This one is, in my view, this resolution. And I have to, you know, give props to Hunter Baker and his whole group because I felt like this resolution touched on every hot topic contested issue in the sbc. It addressed it, you know, very clearly says the office and function of pastors limited to men is qualified by Scripture. It also affirms the necessary valuable ministries of women. It Sundays in its fourth whereas. Whereas Scripture teaches that women are equally created in the image of God, gifted by the Holy Spirit for meaningful service and valuable in the work of the church. Then it says. Then it points to our previous resolutions to this effect. Like the one from 2023 on the legacy and responsibility of women fulfilling the Great Commission. We all agree with that. Or the one from 2018 on the dignity and worth of women. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of women as messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention, we have women who come up, show up as messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention. They're involved in the process. Southern Baptists have been saying in every way that the ministry of women is vital to our churches. We need women. They're a part of the body of Christ. Go read First Corinthians 12. You know, you can't have one member of the body saying to another member of the body that, I don't need you, or that I'm more important than you. No, that's not how this thing works at all. We believe that the whole body fits together and the gifts are deployed within the church for the mutual edification and building up of the church. That includes the gifts of that women have to offer within the church. So that's. Southern Baptists believe that, and they're not backing away from that. I know that some people think that, oh, there's this amendment and, you know, things like this resolution, they're trying to clamp down on women and excise them from the ministries of the churches in the Southern Baptist Convention. That's not true. That's not true at all. We still expect women to be serving in a variety of capacities, just not as pastor and just not taking up the functions of a pastor, and particularly with preaching. But this resolution stipulates that it articulates that in such a wonderful way while affirming the wonderful contribution that women make in all of our churches and that we still expect them to make that contribution. So I think the resolution is fantastic. It's going to do well for Southern Baptists.
- [25:11]
A
Absolutely. Well, Denny, it was good to see you in Orlando. Good to see you here. Thank you to everyone listening. For more resources on human sexuality and gender, please visit cbmw.org.