Southern Baptists expel churches with women pastors – but the debate’s not just about gender

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Andrew Gardner, Baylor University

(THE CONVERSATION) The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant group in the United States, overwhelmingly voted to expel two congregations with women pastors on June 14, 2023, during their annual convention.

SBC messengers, as convention delegates are called, also put forward an amendment to make churches’ membership within the denomination contingent upon prohibiting women pastors, which will be voted on next year.

Media coverage of this debate has focused on gender. However, as a scholar of Baptists in the U.S., I believe an underlying conversation about sexuality has also shaped the church’s opposition to women preaching.

A denomination’s decisions about one social issue often influence its position on others, as I have written about with sociologist Gerardo Marti. We argue that the SBC’s stance on issues of gender...