At the recent annual
meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention approximately seventy-five percent
of votes cast were to ban women as pastors. That means that approximately
twenty-five percent thought otherwise.
I imagine much political
campaigning having been done to achieve that particular outcome, fully
anticipated though it may have been.
But please note that
their political campaigning and maneuvering took place within their religious
community. I find no record of them making an appeal to Congress or President
to achieve such a ban.
Likewise, Jesus and his
disciples can be described as having been political within their religious and
cultural community. But there is no record in the New Testament of them
traveling to Rome to make appeal to Emperor or Roman Senate toward any public
law or policy.
The context of Jesus
being political was within his religious and cultural community. Not what we
today understand as government.
My words are not meant to
discourage people of the Church, Mosque, Temple, or Synagogue from exercising
influence upon government. One point I make is that it is our Constitution that
enables the exercise of influence rather than any example of Jesus or his
disciples who were never politically engaged with what we would understand as government.
About now I presume many
readers to offer “But Peter said We must obey God rather than men.”
And this opens the door
to my immediate argument regarding women in the pulpit.
Please note that Peter was
speaking to the Sanhedrin, the religious establishment, not the Roman
government.
Just as the Sanhedrin was
trying to silence the voice of those God had called to speak of Jesus, the
Southern Baptist Convention is trying to keep from the pulpit people that God
has called to be there.
Perhaps those women would
find an affirming home in the United Methodist Church which recently celebrated
seventy years of full participation of women in the church, including the pulpit,
with these words in our official law “Women are included in all provisions of
the discipline referring to the ministry.”
To keep women from the pulpit
is tantamount to the Sanhedrin telling Peter to “Shut up about Jesus”.
