‘Not about to give up our female pastors’: Richmond First Baptist withdraws from Southern Baptist Convention over proposed male-only pastor, elder amendment

First Baptist Church of South Richmond

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Richmond’s First Baptist Church has voted to withdraw from the Southern Baptist Conference (SBC) over a proposed modification that will require all pastors and elders to be males, ending its almost 180-year membership.

In response to a press launch from First Baptist, this determination was made on Sunday, Might 19, throughout a particular enterprise assembly.

“The motion to withdraw was recommended by the church’s board of deacons in response to the SBC’s proposed constitutional amendment requiring pastors and elders of its cooperating churches to be men,” the discharge reads.

The choice to finish 179 years of membership with the SBC was not simply made, however accomplished in solidarity with the feminine pastors First Baptist stated it refused to lose.

First Baptist presently has two feminine pastors on employees: Pastors Lynn Turner and Allison Collier. This modification — if the SBC had been to cross it — would have required each of them to be faraway from their positions.

“What that meant for First Baptist is that the SBC didn’t want us anymore, because we are not about to give up our female pastors,” stated First Baptist Pastor Jim Somerville. “Lynn Turner and Allison Collier have those titles, but we have a number of other female ministers on our staff. We’re not giving them up either.”

Somerville stated the choice was not adopted by celebration nor tears — it was an advanced second for the church given its longstanding historical past with the SBC, however one made within the curiosity the “cherished Baptist principle” of native church autonomy.

“What I felt from the room was a mixture of quiet grief and gratitude, along with a sense that we had done the right thing,” he stated.

In response to Senior Pastor Heath Lambert of Jacksonville’s First Baptist Church, the proposed “Law Amendment” will not be “targeting churches who ignorantly and innocently give the title of pastor to a woman.” As a substitute, Lambert stated the SBC Credentials Committee, “which investigates constitutional violations like these, has the authority to engage erring churches and give them an opportunity to repent.”