Delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting had voted overwhelmingly to boot a Virginia church from its ranks because of its declaration that it believes women can serve in any pastoral ministry.

Even as they prepare to vote on a formal ban on churches with women pastors, delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to boot one such church from its ranks.

Messengers, as voting representatives are known, voted 6,759 to 563 to oust First Baptist Church of Alexandria, a historic Virginia congregation that affirms women can serve in any pastoral role, including as senior pastor. A similar scenario played out at last year’s meeting. Two congregations, including a well-known California megachurch, were ejected from the convention. Ninety-two percent of messengers approved this year’s ouster.

The Virginia congregation has been involved in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination since its 19th century founding and has contributed millions toward denominational causes. But it came under scrutiny after the pastor of a neighboring church reported it to denominational authorities over its having a woman as pastor for children and women.

  • Zombiepirate@lemmy.worldEnglish
    34·
    5 months ago

    But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

    -1 Timothy 2:12

    This is why I hate the “these aren’t real Christians” no-true-Scotsman dismissals.

    The Bible is a toxic book full of misogyny and racism. Sure it has some good stuff in there, but when the founder of Christianity* is so clear about his thoughts on the subjugation of women then these are Christians following the teachings of their religion.

    Christianity is only compatible with the modern world when it is so diluted by humanism that it would be unrecognizable by its founder; that’s why reactionaries are working to change the world instead of updating their morality. They want power over people, and enforcing their backwards ideology is their path forward.

    * And Paul was the founder of the religion; Jesus didn’t expect the world to last longer than the lives of his disciples

    • mkwt@lemmy.world
      13·
      5 months ago

      I’m gonna quote Wikipedia on 1 Timothy:

      Nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarship questioned the authenticity of the letter, with many scholars suggesting that First Timothy, along with Second Timothy and Titus, are not the work of Paul, but of an unidentified Christian writing some time in the late-first to mid-second centuries.[5]. Most scholars now affirm this view.[6][7]

      It turns out that most of the NT passages that have been used to repress women use grammar and vocab that suggest they did not actually come from Paul. And in fact they are a hundred years newer than the letters that do appear to be authentically from “Paul”.

      And Paul was the founder of the religion; Jesus didn’t expect the world to last longer than the lives of his disciples

      Paul expected the world to end too. That’s why he suggested that everyone should be celibate. No point in getting married and having children if the world is just going to end anyway.

      • Zombiepirate@lemmy.worldEnglish
        8·
        5 months ago

        That is a great point about pseudopaul. I had forgotten that this letter’s authenticity was questionable.

        However there are practically no evangelical groups who would agree with modern scholarship on the subject, so my larger point holds: they believe that Paul instructed women to be subservient and silent.

        Also, as far as I can tell, Paul was one of the ones who shifted Jesus’ prophecy about his coming kingdom from that of an imminent apocalypse to a prediction about the rise of the Christian church. While he did believe that the end of the world was near, so do a huge swath of Christians today.

        Thanks for the correction, it is appreciated.

      • HamsterRage@lemmy.ca
        2·
        5 months ago

        I’m not sure about the value of questioning the authenticity of something that has been canon for almost 2000 years. It’s like quibbling about how the Latin translation of the Old Testament doesn’t match Hebrew sources.

        Who cares which misogynistic jerk wrote that passage? It’s been part of the bedrock of the faith of countless generations of misogynists since then.