What Do Baptists Have to Do With My Ordination?

The Southern Baptist Convention has once again clarified its position regarding women in pastoral leadership. In the same season, comments emerged comparing women serving in preaching ministry to cancer. Whether that statement was a carefully considered theological judgment or an unfortunate attempt at rhetorical shock value, I will extend grace and assume the best intentions possible.

But I will also say plainly that I abhor the analogy.

I have buried too many people I love.

Cancer is not a metaphor to me.

Neither, for that matter, is disease.

Some years ago, in my former denomination, I watched a prominent leader speak during a contentious debate and listened as he likened fellow Christians to a virus infecting the church.

I didn’t appreciate image-bearers of God being called a virus then.

I don’t appreciate women being compared to cancer now.

Words matter.

Especially when spoken by people entrusted with shepherding the people of God.

Yet at this stage of my life, I find myself strangely uninterested in fighting about it.

Perhaps it is age.

Perhaps it is experience.

Perhaps it is the grace that comes from discovering that not every battle requires my enlistment.

My grandmother raised me to mind my own business. That wisdom has aged remarkably well.

I am not Southern Baptist.

I do not wish to become a Southern Baptist.

I also have no desire to convince Baptists that women should preach.

That is not a criticism of those who have chosen a different path and fight that good fight.

There are women within the Southern Baptist Convention who love their churches, love their tradition, and feel called to advocate for a different future. There are also men within the convention who are wrestling faithfully with these questions.

I respect their conviction.

Every tradition needs people willing to contend for what they believe is right.

This simply is not my fight.

I am not Southern Baptist, and I do not presume to tell Southern Baptists how they ought to govern themselves.

Others may feel called to that work. I feel called elsewhere.

Sure, I can discuss the handful of passages typically invoked in these debates. I can talk about Junia, Phoebe, Priscilla, linguistic nuances, historical contexts, and centuries of interpretation. I enjoy theological debate. I enjoy careful exegesis. I enjoy spirited disagreement.

But increasingly I find myself asking a different question.

To what end?

If a convention of churches does not recognize my ordination, my ordination remains unchanged.

If a denomination would never place me in one of its pulpits, I lose nothing because my calling was never theirs to bestow.

Tertullian famously asked, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”

I find myself asking, “What do Baptists have to do with my ordination?”

Not much, actually.

The Kingdom of God is larger than any one denomination.

The Body of Christ is larger than any one tradition.

And even if some believers regard me as an ecclesiastical mistake, a theological problem, an apostate, or perhaps even a cancerous limb, I remain convinced of something far more important: I, and all of my clergy colleagues, male and female alike, belong to Jesus Christ.

That reality ought to sober all of us.

Because the people with whom we disagree are not enemies to be eradicated. They are brothers and sisters for whom Christ died.

And if I am being completely honest, I owe the Baptists a debt of gratitude.

Long before I was ordained, before I attended seminary, before I could attempt to parse Greek verbs or debate ecclesiology, Baptist Christians helped introduce me to Jesus as a kid.

The Southern Baptist Convention may not recognize my ordination, but they are in part responsible for shaping my faith.

Some of my dearest friends are Baptists.

A few of them are pastors.

Some would agree with me on women in ministry. Some would not.

Yet we have prayed together, worshiped together, served together, and pointed one another toward Christ.

That matters more to me than winning an argument.

I refuse to forget the people God used in my own journey of faith simply because we now disagree about matters of church order.

Gratitude requires better memory than that.

So, I wish my Baptist brethren well.

I pray for their churches.

I pray for their pastors.

I pray for the women in their congregations who will navigate these decisions with faithfulness and grace.

And I pray that all of us, Wesleyan, Baptist, Reformed, Catholic, Pentecostal, Anglican, Lutheran, and everyone in between, might remember that there are people outside our church walls who do not know they are loved by God.

People are dying.

People are lonely.

People are addicted.

People are despairing.

People are wondering whether anyone sees them.

The world is not waiting breathlessly for another denominational skirmish.

The world is waiting for good news.

There are souls to shepherd.

There are wounds to bind.

There are hungry people to feed.

There are prisoners to visit.

There are prodigals to welcome home.

Ironically, the verse I selected for my own ordination comes from the Apostle Paul and poses a question that seems far more pressing to me than any denominational controversy:

That question concerns me far more than convention votes.

People are still waiting to hear.

People are still searching.

People are still wondering whether anyone will tell them that God loves them enough to take on flesh, bear a cross, and conquer a grave.

The world is not waiting for Christians to perfect our theological scorecards.

The world is waiting for good news.

So I will pray for the Southern Baptists as they continue to navigate these questions within their own tradition.

I will thank God for the role they played in bringing me to Christ.

And then I will get back to the work of proclaiming the gospel alongside every brother and sister who confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Because there are still people who have not heard.

And frankly, I have more important things to do than spend my life convincing people who have already made up their minds that God called me.

The Lord settled that question a long time ago.

I am content to leave it there.