In one of the most anticipated votes at their annual convention on Wednesday, Southern Baptist delegates voted down a measure that would have enshrined a ban on churches with women pastors in the convention’s constitution.
“It failed to reach the two-thirds threshold that’s required to make it an amendment,” Dr. Ed Stetzer, Dean of Theology at Biola University, told CBN News.
Tuesday the SBC expelled First Baptist Church in Alexandria, VA. The church has a woman pastor over children and women but also believes women can serve as a senior pastor.
“Women have had a prominent role within the ministry and pastoral positions within the leadership of First Alexandria for over 44 years,” Pastor Robert Stephens of First Baptist Church Alexandria said on the floor of the convention.
The SBC deemed the church’s stance in conflict with the Baptist faith and message.
Stetzer said the narrow defeat of the measure called the Law Amendment sends a message.
“By the amendment failing, it means there’s not a new rule in place that, for example, you can’t use the word pastor at any term, like children’s pastor, that a woman might be in,” he explained.
Stetzer added, “That tells you that in the vast majority,
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