Southern Baptist ban on women pastors is just more Christian nationalism and right wing extremism

[lees1975]

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2026/06/attempts-by-southern-baptists-to-amend.html

It's rooted in the unorthodox, distorted theology and doctrine that emerges from the combination of nineteenth century fundamentalism with the distorted interpretation of the sixty-six books of the Protestant Bible subjected to the doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy. It is complicated further by the push of Evangelical conservatives into right wing politics as a result of the pressures that come from white Christian nationalism creeping into the churches.

There's a power vacuum among Southern Baptists now, more than forty years after a movement tagged as the "Conservative Resurgence" was launched in 1979 with the dual purpose of bringing the denomination into full support of right wing Republican politics, using the theological and doctrinal claim that it was sliding down the "slippery slope" of liberalism, requiring restoration of the belief in the sixty-six books of the Protestant Bible as inerrant, and infallible, the sole authority for the faith and practice of the church.

The two men who used their personal connections, power and influence to orchestrate the political activity in order to bring about this resurgence, Dr. Paige Patterson, then president of broken down Criswell College, a fundamentalist school operated by First Baptist Church of Dallas, where the power-broker pastor W. A. Criswell still occupied the pulpit, and Paul Pressler, a Texas Appeals Court Justice and Republican Party community organizer and operative, revered among Southern Baptists as the "architects" of this movement, are both out of the picture, disgraced by their own involvement in the sexual abuse scandal that the denomination's leadership can't seem to resolve.

Patterson was involved in the negligent mishandling of abuse and rape accusations at both Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina and at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, under his presidency at both schools. He was ultimately dismissed from Southwestern for this reason, and not for his gross mismanagement of the seminary, leading to an almost 70% decline in enrollment and financial resources. Pressler passed away two years ago, after charges of sexually abusing young men in the churches where he served as a youth pastor and Sunday school teacher, and in association with his law firm. You can click this link to Baptist News Global to read about all of that scandal.

I'll say it here, because it's true. It's not possible to understand the Christian gospel revealed by God through Jesus, if all that's available is a King James Bible and a man with a 6th grade education who has been taught to read, and interprets it literally, verse by verse. It's a disadvantage to start Bible study without even a basic understanding that verses and chapters are reference points and not the outline of the original text.

[Permanut]

1. And somewhere the ghost of Jerry Falwell is lurking.

[everyonematters]

2. There are countless Christian denominations in the US all with different interpretations.

You might disagree with theirs, but the first amendment gives them the right to it. You have the right to not become a member. I choose to be an atheist.