SBC Update: Social Justice, Abuse Allegations, & the Law Amendment

The SBC in Recent Years

We are now live on the conversations that matter podcast. I'm your host John Harris. We're gonna talk about some Southern Baptist Convention related things today. I have covered the Southern Southern Baptist Convention since 2019.

When I started fall, I really before that I guess but no one was listening or paying attention to my blog. Not many people but since since the podcast has been around. The Southern Baptist Convention has been a topic of interest and it's not just because I graduated from Southeastern Which is one of the big Southern Baptist Seminaries, it's also just because it matters to the United States it matters for people who live in this country because it's the largest Protestant denomination and They've been a bellwether for years as they go.

So goes the rest of American evangelicalism often and so. With that in mind I'm gonna once again give you some information some of the latest updates concerning the Southern Baptist Convention. Knowing that some of you have left the SBC.

Some of you are not interested in being part of the SBC with good reason but there are still some who are in the Southern Baptist Convention trying to slow down the regression that is happening or With hope in their hearts some think that they can actually take back the Southern Baptist Convention for more of a theologically orthodox and conservative Understanding of public theology and so.

So I want to do this as sort of a service for you as well you're gonna be going to the convention in June if you're in the SBC and these are some of the things that are Going to be discussed leading up to the convention and it seems like every year at the Southern Baptist Convention.

In June, there's a different fight. There's a different struggle between the more conservative wing and the more they used to call them moderates, but I would say more progressive wing and the progressive wing is.

You know, they claim the mantle of the conservative resurgence. So it gets really confusing really quick, but those are probably the best terms I can use. I could maybe say the more pro-social justice leaning wing but for all in for our purposes we'll just say the more conservative wing the more progressive wing and the more Progressive wing tends to set the agenda this to me is One of the first times The last few years at least going into the convention that the agenda seems to be set actually by the more conservative wing, which is interesting because if you think about like 2019 it was critical race theory, right?

That was and that agenda was set by the more left-leaning wing in the Southern Baptist Convention and Of course, they didn't meet in 2020. And then 2021 it was that was the beginning I think of more the abuse stuff and and and that's been an ongoing theme for the last few years and Until last year there was kind of a change where it Began to be more about female pastors and that is the conservative setting the agenda now.

That doesn't mean the conservatives are winning or they're in charge. They have no institutional power hardly all at all I should say they have hardly any institutional power in the Southern Baptist Convention.

But the thing about this issue that that makes it stand apart from the me too issue which is really what I should call it and the social justice slash CRT issue is That on this issue. It has already been fought before during the conservative resurgence.

In other words this isn't a new issue for the Southern Baptist Convention and The layman and the people in the pews the people that are coming to vote many of them know this they're used to this they're familiar with this battle over female pastors and.

Because they're familiar with it there. There's a powerful weapon in this now I think I have my own opinions about you know. What ought to have been done years ago and what the right emphasis was but I will tell you this the conservatives in the SBC.

In my opinion from my conversations they've been waiting for a while to get to this issue. They knew this issue was eventually going to come to a head. They knew that the progressives if they continue their slide were eventually going to be kind of promoting female pastors or at least trying to promote the logic that would lead the convention into adopting female pastors and.

They they thought that this was a winning issue for years. I've heard this really the even conservatives who failed to really deliver on CRT and me to stuff and they kind of. Or immigration issues and so forth.

They decided to kind of pull back. They weren't gonna fight as hard. They didn't want to name names. They don't want to call people out. Many of those more timid conservatives were just waiting for their chance for this issue so we're gonna talk about that issue today because now it is an issue and It's gonna be interesting to see what happens with this the law amendment, of course being the amendment that would prohibit Churches with female pastors from friendly cooperation in the Southern Baptist Convention before we get there though.

There's a few things related stories that I want to share with you and. And then of course if you are on YouTube or on Facebook, please participate. Ask questions make statements in the live chat and I'll be sure to try to follow those.

So it's kind of weird to have as many people watching this as we are right now and have no one in the live chat. I hadn't seen this in a long time. So I guess everyone's kind of listening to what I have to say.

But you have questions along the way or have clarifications and things that would help me do a better job. Explaining what's going on then feel free to make use of the live chat there. And of course if you're listening to it on the recording later on you can put your comments on YouTube or Facebook, okay?

Or rumble. I should I should not forget about rumble. We are on rumble as well live streaming currently now. Let's start here. I Want to start we're gonna talk about SPC, but we're gonna talk about abuse reform we're gonna talk about the law amendments as I just talked about and.

But before we do I want to just talk about some general things going on. I thought Josh Abattoy from American reformer had a wonderful thread and I'm gonna read for you If not all of this thread a big part of it and just explain to you what his point is because I think he is Taking the temperature of the Southern Baptist Convention their leadership and he's showing that they there's a lot to be desired here.

So he says I had hoped that with dr. Moore's departure from the Southern Baptist Convention Dr. Russell Moore we started moving out of the era in which SPC leaders allowed their moral compasses to subject To be subject to dictates of the mainstream media.

Sadly it appears we still have some work to do and this is one of the things I've noticed. Really since I was a young seminary student the Southern Baptist Convention. The leadership at least has always been super aware of what the mainstream media is gonna say because the mainstream media Focuses on this denomination more than others because it's large it has influence so they're very aware of what the Washington Post and the New York Times and MSNBC and all these Media outlets on the left what they're gonna say and they want to see they don't want to be Misunderstood right and and so there's been many issues.

I've seen this on I've seen this on the whole electing Trump in 2016. There was this big effort to kind of distance themselves the leaders at least from The people that are in the pews voting for Trump.

And of course with the critical race theory issue and BLM there was the same thing now. We see it again on the Christian nationalism thing. And so Joshua abattoir says a couple weeks back Politico dropped a hit piece on Russ Voight American Renewal Center and William Wolfe because they're they purportedly Adopt or at least are Christian nationalists.

The same week on an embassy NBC segment pundits argued that merely believing that rights came From our Creator is a Christian nationalist belief. More recently Charlie Kirk reported that the Biden administration intends to fully lean into the scary Christian nationalists and Heritage Foundation's frightening 2025 project as key campaign issues true to form Russ Voight and William Wolfe, and I believe I know William Wolfe is a Southern Baptist.

I believe Russ Voight is so as well. I could be wrong, but I think he is they struck back with no apologies and Kevin Roberts president of Heritage gave a barnburner of a speech at the national. I think that's radio broadcasters sub Conservative radio organization subsequently publishing a revised manuscript with American reformers.

So he's saying they hit back. Meanwhile, what's been happening in the Baptist world leaders raced to the Baptist faith and message to call balls and strikes to distance themselves As quickly as possible from those scary Christian nationals and he's got examples.

You have Bart Barber the president of the Southern Baptist Convention saying I've seen some folks on here Demonstrating the inescapable truth that support for state religion contradicts the Baptist faith the message.

But making that case actually undersells the point beyond the complete history of the SBC. It contradicts more than four centuries of Baptist thought. He talks about Nathan kitchens. I'm not sure exactly what position Nathan kitchen has in the SBC, but.

And and Matthew Millsap, let's see. He talks about These guys who I guess work in the SBC and and how they're counter signaling this Christian nationalists. Attacked or or the people that are being attacked for being Christian nationalists, and he says leading the way.

The race away from Christian nationalism was Brent Leatherwood at the ERL see the head of the SBC's public policy think-tank. And he retweeted Ken Keithley. Ken Keithley is a professor at Southeastern where I went and Ken Keithley says Christian nationalism in a nutshell.

Welcome to the end of democracy. No Baptist can be a Christian nationalist. You can be one or the other but you can't be both. And then Joshua Habitoy goes on. I mean this thing keeps going. Keep in mind some of these folks can't for the life of them figure out what the Bible our tradition or our confessional documents.

Tell us what to do about women pastors. In fact, there was so much confusion that we had to create a committee to figure it out and. Then he says but when they get a chance to join secular media hits on scary Christian nationalists, you know, they're all game.

There's there's where they are. And Christian nationalism has that many definitions and many proponents many of which are entirely compatible with the Baptist faith and message. And. And he goes on and so, you know, it's just an interesting.

It means that nothing's really changed is what I see here. Nothing's really changed when it comes to the elites running the denomination. They're still playing the same game when the media wants to go after white Nationalists, whatever they conceive that to be you see the SPC elites doing the same thing running away from it and You know and trying to say that that's incompatible with our Baptist faith and message.

Regardless of how the media how sloppy the media is applying this regardless of how the media is saying that every conservative Christian falls into this category just about and. The people who make up the Southern Baptist Convention are guilty of this because of their support for Trump or something.

You see this this shift away that we can't have that we can't be seen as an association with them and so we're gonna be very sure about this very confident that what our doctrine teaches and our doctrine definitely teaches that We're not Trump supporters.

We're not racists. We are not. We don't abuse women meaning and of course. These are all framed in more progressive settings of you're not on board with the me too movement. You're not on board with CRT, right?

So, you know, they try to act like they are on board with those things maybe halfway maybe a court however far they can go they'll go with those things to just and punch right and Make it seem like they're not the threat.

We have the blood is on our door. Please angel of death pass over us and go next door and get those Christians. So nothing has changed in the SPC and that's really the moral of this story. So We have Josh Abattoy saying that another general thing I just wanted to point it out people were pointing this out on Twitter and I thought or X I keep forgetting.

It's always gonna be Twitter to me, but people were pointing this out that the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, which is a local state Association the Southern Baptist Convention has a lot of associations they used to have I think more.

But the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board is one of them. If you want to work for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board some people were pointing out that This is on their website preference is given to qualified individuals who are Christ followers that have a discernible close walk with the Lord serve effectively in their local church and Demonstrate a commitment to the purposes of the Tennessee Baptist Convention.

Great. That makes sense. Preference is given to qualified individuals who will increase the ethnic gender and vocational diversity on boards and committees. So if you're a white man not as likely to get a job with the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board.

They are looking for minorities. They're looking for women. They're looking for people who increase the diversity and and this is something that I saw firsthand when I was at Southeastern. Which is one of the prominent Southern Baptist seminaries.

They had their Center for kingdom diversity. They did this with the student body. They're definitely trying to attract students by throwing money really that their direction who were going to be in certain demographics and.

And and white males were were in fact, it was it might still be seen as progress. The less percentage of the student body is made up of white males which again, it's you're not trying to train for spiritual gifts or qualified individuals at that point or.

Or people who are going to or necessarily Contributing to the seminary and the Southern Baptist Convention and their church. It's Etc. What you're doing at that point is you're trying to pick winners and losers.

You're trying to put your thumb on the balance and say we want a certain ethnic makeup here certain racial makeup, whatever and so. Or gender makeup and so you start Putting money in a particular direction so that you can look a certain way.

It's it's about The way you look the the exterior of it and and oftentimes Revelations brought up where every tribe tongue nation is in heaven. I just remember this so clearly and you know, we should look like that.

You know and just ignoring the fact that that's in heaven that that is something Christ does not we ourselves. And we're not ever commanded to do this and it's not even possible in certain regions. It's it's certainly outside the scope of the New Testament.

And so I just remind everyone I've talked about this many times before qualifications in Scripture for being a pastor are clear. We we're not supposed to be thinking in these terms. But the and it's not a like a Christian thing to do but this is what's happening in the Southern Baptist Convention.

So it's not. It's happening in little places. It's happening in big places. It's still happening in certain in places and so it hasn't gone away. I don't think the social justice issue has gone away. I think it's been institutionalized and I've said this for a while.

It's it's still there. It's just been institutionalized. So since we're talking about the Southern Baptist, I figured that I would bring that up as well. All right. Well, let's talk about abuse reform stuff the federal lawsuits Faults Southern Baptist Convention for covering up sexual abuse.

This is February 5th. We're going back over a month on this particular story. But the senior pastor of a prominent Mid-South megachurch has been named in a federal lawsuit pastor Steve Gaines a Bellevue Baptist Church was included in the federal lawsuit that was filed against the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention that stated that they have covered up instances of sexual abuse by church members and Employees as a strategy to denying the rights of sexual abuse survivors.

Now I'm gonna point out this is interesting to me Steve Gaines Who I believe he's got a terminal disease pray for him but his he's done a lot to push the needle to the left in the SBC and From my vantage point I remember one of the earliest things I saw from him was he was he was all about them taking down monuments and that kind of thing and you know throwing around his weight as a Pastor to try to do this and his son Grant Gaines was the one at I believe was SBC 2020 I want to say 2022.

I'm getting foggy. Was it 2021? I think it was 2022. When he had a an alleged Sexual abuse quote-unquote survivor with him at the microphone at the convention and Speaking on her behalf and and behalf.

I mean they went all-in on this me too stuff and Yet his dad now and his dad who was very supportive of that is named in this. Just goes to show you though. You get on board with these things. They'll eat you sometimes and so.

Anyways, I don't know the particulars of it, but the lawsuit mentioned that the investigation showed at least 35 church pastors employees and volunteers who exhibited predatory behavior. This is going all the way back to the Houston Chronicle story from 2019 if you remember that and I did a whole podcast on it at the time and Much could be said but you can go back and listen to that.

The lawsuit said that the investigation included 200 criminal cases and 700 victims over a 20-year period so this is just an attempt to Sort of bring this issue that we that nothing's new here that I can see but to bring bring it into court again to try to Blame the Southern Baptist somehow to try to squeeze money out of the Southern Baptist somehow that this was under their Jurisdiction and they failed and you know, these are again this gets back into what is the Southern Baptist Convention?

Is it an organization of autonomous churches or is it a top-down? Structure where you have people in the top of the denomination calling the shots and responsible for what happens in local churches. So this federal lawsuit is Has been filed, you know, meanwhile, though the federal investigators who were Investigating the Southern Baptist Convention closed the books on a year and a half long Investigation that sought to determine whether leaders were criminally responsible for mishandling an abuse crisis.

The DOJ concluded its probe last week without charging any SBC leaders. Let me say that again. They did not charge any Southern Baptist leaders abuse survivors and their allies celebrated news of the Department of Justice's Investigation in 2022 for its potential to hold denominational leaders accountable.

But on February 29th 2024 council was informed that the US Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York Concluded its investigation into the executive committee with no further action to be taken.

So It's done, you know, it's this was. Is this an embarrassment to guidepost? I would think so, but You don't have anyone changing their tune in that I can tell in the more me to crowd Rachel Dunn Hollander said the truth of this post still stands.

She's talking about a post where she Said that no one at MSU the USA G or the FBI were convicted of covering up Larry's abuse either. That's the person who abused Rachel Dunn Hollander. But cover up in unethical conduct and inexcusable silence that wounded hundreds still happened.

And so she's just saying that Hey, hey, this is still that this doesn't mean anything really the DOJ officials have confirmed to me that this investigation is not closed. And that information did not come from their office regardless of the end result our personal call-and-command to pursue justice remains.

So, you know, they're not slowing down at all that the me to stuff is still going to be going on. But you know for those who were skeptical about this This is somewhat of a vindication. And so that's the sexual abuse issue.

I'm sure that those who are on the me to train are gonna try to bring this up as we get into the Southern Baptist Convention. But that is not. That is not the hot topic right this second the hot topic is the law amendment.

The Law Amendment and Women Pastors in the SBC

Just yesterday Dwight McKissick a prominent I would say left-leaning Southern Baptist Convention pastor in the great state of Texas said the law amendment. Which again for those who don't know this is the amendment that if it adopted would prohibit churches with women pastors from being in the Southern Baptist Convention.

He says the law amendment enshrines into policy the devaluation of women above the affirmation of the gifts and calling of women. The law amendment is obsessed with the question of what a woman can't do rather Than with the question of what a woman can do.

The law amendment makes a political theological football over and about the subject of women in ministry rather than following in the biblical spiritual and Christlike realm of empowering and equipping women in Ministry and kingdom partnership with men and so for Southern Baptist, this shouldn't be controversial.

This has been. This has been the doctrine going back quite a ways that the pastoral office is for and a function of that office is for men and Dwight McKissick has been an egalitarian on this particular issue for quite some time as well.

He's even debated Tom Askell on this topic at the Southern Baptist Convention a few years ago during the founders breakout or however, they arranged that and so he's just signaling his. He's upset that this is Potentially going to move forward.

You have dr. James Merritt. I totally unequivocally agree with Bruce Frank. Bruce Frank another prominent Southern Baptist pastor. By the way, Bruce Frank for those who don't know. This is my first introduction to Bruce Frank.

He's a pastor at Biltmore Church, which is in a near Asheville, North Carolina. He was the guy who sent Marcus Hayes who Marcus Hayes I believe went to his church. He sent Marcus Hayes down to guess where first Baptist Naples and Marcus Hayes was woke on a number of issues thought, you know, same-sex attraction wasn't sin and you know pro critical race theory social justice type of postings and all of that and He wanted to make some very fundamental changes to the church.

And of course when he was Not voted in the people who the minority who voted against him were called racist. So there was a whole documentary on YouTube about it about first Baptist Church Naples. Just type it in.

Bruce Frank was the one who made this video that they showed at the church along with Kevin Eazell and others. Endorsing Marcus Hayes. Marcus Hayes is the right man for you. Well, that was my first introduction.

He's on the left more. That's Bruce Frank. He's also really big on the Enneagram. I don't know what his deal is with that. But. But you have James. Dr. James Merritt. James Merritt was previously a president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

So he holds he carries weight with him saying I totally unequivocally agree with Bruce Frank. When you try to fix something that isn't broken you break things even worse. So we don't have a problem with women pastors and don't if you try to fix it.

You're gonna come up you're gonna have worse problems. Now. I want to remind everyone. And that was an article by Bruce Frank. I had to haven't read and I probably won't but We have another article to read that's more recent.

I want to just remind everyone though what the Baptist Faith and Message actually says. Many of you know if you're Southern Baptist, but it it bears repeating it says in the Baptist Faith and Message that There are two scriptural offices the pastor elder slash overseer.

So you have a pastor slash elder slash overseer and deacon. There's two while both men and women are gifted for service in the church. The office of pastor slash elder slash overseer is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.

I Don't know if it gets much clearer, but as the progressives shift change definitions bring up Situations that they consider to be exceptions you have to be you have to use more words and you have to Bring more definition because people are trying to lawyer their way out of this kind of thing.

But that's what the Southern Baptist Conventions statement of faith essentially the Baptist Faith and Message says now this isn't forced on individual churches. They do not have to adopt this. They're not forced to adopt this if they want to be in cooperation with the Southern Baptist Convention.

But this is the statement that when churches do join to cooperate with the Southern Baptist Convention. They are expected to be in general agreement general cooperation with so this has been long-standing now.

You have a guy his name's Robb's Collingsworth, he's at Criswell College since 2015. He moved to his current position as director of strategic relationships in 2022. Let's see, he's Worked at Southwestern Seminary a major SBC seminary.

That's where he got his MDiv. He's also a member of the village church in Fort Worth. That's Matt Chandler's church I believe and so Robb Collingsworth wrote an article that got some traction For the Baptist Review about this law amendment the law amendments trying to fine-tune the language.

Already in the Baptist Faith and Message and the title of his article is five reasons to oppose the law amendment. I'm not gonna read the whole thing to you, but I'm gonna summarize what his points are.

He talks about first the law amendment prioritizes title, but inconsistently so he says the reason for this is that Pastors semantically challenged in ways elder and Bishop slash overseer aren't and not all Southern Baptists use it in the same way.

So because not all Southern Baptists use it in the same way you could have a children's pastor. He gives this example that You that's the first problem with it. Number two, it excludes people who hold to our confession.

So there's people who hold to the Baptist Faith and Message, but they You have he gives an example of a church. That That there's egalitarian churches that you know have women in this pastoral office.

But there's also churches that use the term pastor of women, but they aren't actually egalitarian. So they're just using this right now. I would say they're using it incorrectly then they're just using the phrase in a wrong way.

They would genuinely believe scripture though He says and the gender distinctions and they're complementarian in practice. But the only thing they would need to do in order to not run afoul of the amended Language would be to change the title of their children's or women's pastor, which I would think why is that a big deal?

You know That that should be an easy fix then, right? The third thing is it is out of step the law amendment with how we have existed as a convention for nearly two centuries he says so. How do you say that?

How does he say 200 year period? We've not existed that way. Well, you see he thinks that what's happening is that there's a tightening and a force forcing Churches to adopt basically in their belief system something that they don't Necessarily subscribe to and so they can be in general cooperation with the Southern Baptist Convention.

And they shouldn't have to Necessarily have every jot and tittle Part of their belief at their church, they don't have to have that. Here's the interesting part to me. He says in 2015 we amended our Constitution to include the phrase.

We are now contending with that cooperating churches must have a faith and practice which closely identifies with the conventions adopted statement of faith. So aside from here, here we go three fairly egregious examples.

Okay. These are the egregious examples. In other words, these are the exceptions. These are the things you can force on the churches, right and you can police for affirmation of homosexuality. Racism and abuse.

These are three things that Southern Baptist Convention has said we're gonna police this. Specifically we're defining the what it means to be out of cooperation on these particular issues and these are the egregious examples but apparently women pastors aren't now this is interesting to me because You look at this and you think and I've gone through this on shows before I've read the language.

You think that that would be just as important if not More important than some of these issues as far as insofar as I'm talking about. What scripture clearly defines scripture talks about this issue? More than it talks about our modern conception of quote-unquote racism, for example.

And it's very loose language. They use about racism. You don't really even know what they're talking about and it could be applied loosely, but this is something that's very Set in scripture the definitions are clear and what he's saying is that that issue is not it doesn't fall into this category if it's not an egregious example of being out of step with the SBC.

There's the implied Presupposition there's the assumption that It's really not that big of a deal guys the whole woman pastor thing really not that big of it. You know, it's a big deal racism is a big deal.

But that the whole woman pastor thing not really that's the assumption. That's behind this whole thing and so This is going to it's gonna from the top down force these churches, right? But he's okay with churches being forced on these other issue other issues.

Number four. He says the law amendment would invite unintended consequences so He talks about what's his example here by instituting language into our Constitution that requires not only that pastors and elders be men.

But that they be biblically qualified. We are constitutionally requiring our credentials committee to respond to reports involving subjective criteria. Gender is objective hospitality respectability. Not so much.

So he's saying like you're gonna put all pastors on trial if someone in their church or enough people think that they're not Meeting scriptural qualifications for being pastors number five the law amendment sets a dangerous precedent for future cooperation.

So basically this is the who's next what's next? What issue are we gonna come up with next to police our churches on and and so that's basically the gist of Rob's Collingsworth Statement now there was a great response to this from the Center for Baptist leadership.

If you are in the Southern Baptist Convention, and you don't know about the Center for Baptist leadership. Then you need to know about it. You go to Center for Baptist leadership org. Center for Baptist leadership org and this is the group the more prominent group from what I understand now that is Producing materials to try to combat the leftward drift in the SPC and they put out a story by I Apologize if I'm not pronouncing this name correctly.

Garrett Bell is the name I believe or I Think it's Garrett. I don't know me. Am I I'm wondering now if I'm if I don't see a lot of people named Gerard. But I don't think that's how you spell Gerard. So my apologies to mr. Bell.

I'm sorry. But you did write an excellent piece. So here is the the title of it five reasons to support the law amendment and He this is a response directly to Rob's Collingsworth and he says reason one it prioritizes title.

But inconsistently, so he's going through the reasons that I just described to you and just kind of dismantling them. One by one. He says that Collingsworth's entire first argument works against him and for the law amendment because he admits There was a spreading semantic carelessness.

So he's saying hey, there's a problem. People are just using this name this word pastor all over the place. So we can't have a law amendment. We can't define what a pastor is. Um, but he's like that's the reason you should have the law amendment.

I think that's absolutely true. He says on the reason to it excludes people who hold to our confession um he talks about uh that. If we already agree on excluding unapologetic egalitarians as collinsworth tries to claim.

How can bart barber's elevation of parities to the cooperation group be explained? I mean for those who don't know the president of the southern baptist convention elevated someone who Is for women pastors explicitly so to a group?

Designed to kind of examine this issue and present their findings at the southern baptist convention this june. So he's saying, you know, this whole thing happened and uh, you know. How how this is happening under our noses?

If the sbc function is collingsworth tries to assure us that it does feel their church would be removed and not rewarded so you know, this has been said for a long time that. Um, we already have language we've dealt with rick warren.

We don't need extra language on this, but he's saying how is that possible when you have a church? That unapologetically is for women pastors serving in the southern baptist convention. It obviously there's a problem there and the law amendment would help rectify that.

Reason three it is out of step with how we have existed as a convention for nearly two centuries um. He says this gives you whiplash because in the immediate point above collingsworth makes a plea for not excluding churches who hold to our confession.

And even defended the enforcement mechanism of removing churches that violate our confession. So in other words, we we have the baptist faith and message 2000. We can enforce this. Uh, so we don't need the law amendment, but then turning around and saying well enforcing this Uh through the law amendment is innovative somehow.

Well, you can't have it both ways really so obviously, you know, it's a mess of an article and Um, I don't even know if I need to go through the rest of it. These are just sort of self. Uh self-revealing it invites unintended consequences.

I mean he talks about it, you know, okay like if you have a massive problem with churches with pastors who aren't qualified, you know, maybe maybe you you could have a mechanism for. You know bringing some of this stuff up.

He doesn't say that i'm saying that you know you could bring them up on like if you have a pastor i'm thinking of like who who's like, you know, hopefully the church should be dealing with this but you know, they're uh.

They're just not qualified because they're stealing money or something. I don't know you know, this is that that might be a reason if the church supports this kind of thing and you have this pastor who's Egregiously violating what scripture says the pastor is supposed to be then, you know.

Could you bring that up at the convention? He's kind of like, yeah, why not? Um. It was wise of law and sanchez to adhere as closely to possible to baptist faith message on this point because they use the language.

Uh, they use scriptural language they talk about. Um. If I can find the exact language here. Uh, while both men and women are gifted for the service in the church. The office of pastor elder overseer is limited to men as qualified by scripture.

That's what the baptist faith and message says and the law amendment echoes that language Of as qualified by scripture, so this isn't bringing anything that's not in scripture is his point and so. Yeah, really that's all there is to say about that.

I suppose uh reason five it sets a dangerous precedent for future cooperation. He says Um, finally collingsworth asks where we will stop or rather he asked enforcing sound doctrine is good, but where do we stop?

He says if I had been an editor for his article, I would have asked him To read that sentence again very slowly. Where do we stop enforcing sound doctrine? It's like really we don't ever we we should always enforce sound doctrine, right?

So, um, so that's pretty much the conclusion and uh. And that's uh from the like I said the center for baptist leadership if you want to check them out. They're a great organization that's out there doing good work.

So. Um, so let's switch gears here or no, I guess we're not quite switching gears yet. Uh, I wanted to point out one more thing the imb the international mission board for the southern baptist convention Handles the issue of women pastors as well.