ORLANDO, Fla. (RNS) — In the first summer of this century, more than 11,000 Southern Baptists gathered in Florida to update their convention’s statement of faith by limiting the office of pastor to men only.
But that 2000 limit was not binding on local churches. Instead, it applied only to the denomination’s seminaries and mission boards.
“We don’t have the right, the authority or the power to limit anybody,” the Rev. Adrian Rogers, a famed Baptist preacher who chaired the committee that revamped the Baptist Faith and Message, told reporters at the time.
“We would resist that.”
Al Mohler, head of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, agreed.
“We would never presume to tell another church whom they may call as a pastor or tell another person whether or not they may serve as pastor,” Mohler, who also had served on the committee, told Baptist Press, an official SBC publication, in 2000. “We’re not trying to force our beliefs on someone else.”
Some churches left the SBC and joined groups such as the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which allows women to serve as pastors. A few churches were expelled by their local association — including Glendale Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee, which was kicked out not because its pastor was a woman, but because she was gay.
But there was no national action to expel churches with women pastors.
Al Mohler addresses the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, June 9, 2026, in Orlando. (RNS photo/Marty Jean-Louis)
For more than two decades, Mohler’s view was the status quo. While his seminary and other Baptist institutions taught that only men should be pastors, some churches believed the rule on male-only clergy applied just to the senior pastor. So they gave women in staff roles the title of pastor.
Then Mohler changed his mind and decided a …