Faith Works 6-16-23

Faith Works 6-16-23
Jeff Gill

Methodists and Baptists and Disciples, oh my
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My second big church fight (you do not even want to hear about my first) was in the 1970s, when I was a sort of ministry intern at my home Disciples of Christ church for the summer, and we were putting together a directory. I was the stalking horse, as it were, for a question a number of church leaders had been asking.

If you're 60 or older you'll nod, I think; if you're much younger you may not believe it. But the battle was over women's names. Apparently a few years earlier the step had been taken, but not without controversy, to go from Mr. & Mrs. John Smith, to Mr. & Mrs. John Smith (Jane). A great many older women, mostly widows, were listed as Mrs. John Smith, period, and they wanted to keep it that way.

The goal was to list everyone with their own name, with couples as Mr. & Mrs. John and Jane Smith. The result was chaos. A faction wanted to go back to Mr. & Mrs. John Smith let alone adding (Jane), and a few wanted to put all names in on separate lines: Mr. John Smith, Mrs. Jane Smith, etc.

I smiled one day and asked "what about using Ms. for adult single women?" It was not a smile I got in return. It would not be until 1983 that women would be allowed to serve as elders in that congregation.

Southern Baptists are in conflict this June at their annual meeting over women in leadership; the interesting thing to me is that while some frame this as a test of ancient tested principles, in 1960s there were as many women in Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) seminaries as there were in mainline Protestant seminaries.

It wasn't until 1984 the SBC passed a resolution asserting "women are not in public worship to assume a role of authority over men." In 1998 an official teaching passed saying a woman should "submit herself graciously" to her husband's leadership, as "the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ."

And then in 2000, SBC teaching was amended to say "the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture."

Some will argue the new statements were because among 47,000 SBC churches, there had been by that point just a few hundred that had women serving in a pastor's role, so the issue had not been a public problem before. The rule was understood, and unstated; now it needs to be stated. I'd qualify that by noting there are many hundreds more women in the SBC serving as youth pastors or women's pastor positions. But the import seems to be when it was a .5% occurrence it was okay, but if it looks like it's heading towards 2%, it must be stopped.

As I've said in this space before, I'm the result of the powerful witness and work of women in pulpit ministry. I won't recount the whole story, but for me to agree that women shouldn't preach or be parish ministers would be to erase my own faith history. Rick Warren, the SBC minister in the middle of this debate, is using many such stories out of his tradition to make a similar point: when there weren't too many of them, we didn't really care. It was only when enough women came into those roles there was pressure to put up hard barriers across the board.

What Southern Baptists and United Methodists and my own Disciples have been dealing with are complex issues with common roots. I'll try to get to some of those in my next column.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's thankful for Rev. Myrtle Park Storm, ordained in 1908 to preach the gospel, who baptized his mother & married his parents. Tell him who indirectly shaped your faith at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.