US Southern Baptist expelled churches with female pastors

RELIGIOUS NEWS AGENCY (REDNA) – The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in the United States has voted to confirm the expulsion of two churches over the presence of female pastors, in what critics see as part of a conservative shift within the denomination.

Aljazeera reported at the group’s annual meeting in New Orleans on Wednesday, an overwhelming majority of delegates upheld the expulsion of Saddleback Church in southern California and Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky.

The vote was 9,437 to 1,212 to reject Saddleback’s appeal, and 9,700 to 806 against Fern Creek.

Wednesday’s vote, however, underscores the Southern Baptist Convention’s unwillingness to soften its stance on women as pastors, a role that it maintains is exclusively reserved for men.

Saddleback, the second-largest Southern Baptist congregation in the country, had named a husband-wife team to its leadership after Warren announced his retirement in 2021. Three other women were also ordained as ministers that year.

The smaller church Fern Creek, meanwhile, had been led by female pastor Linda Barnes Popham for nearly 30 years.

The Southern Baptist Convention had largely turned a blind eye to female pastors until recently, when its executive committee expelled five churches in February for having female leaders.

The committee explained that those five institutions were out of “friendly cooperation” with the convention and its rules.