Southern Baptist MegaChurch Ordains Female Pastor

A Southern Baptist Megachurch, Brentwood Baptist Church, ordained a woman to the pastorate over the weekend. The church, located in Brentwood, Tennessee, changed the ordination announcement from ‘pastor’ to ‘minister’ after complaints from members of the congregation. Although the title is different, the office is the same, and the terms within context are synonymous.

Pulpit & Pen was notified of the ordination by those connected with the congregation who were concerned by the clear departure from Southern Baptist doctrine and Christian orthodoxy.

Gayle Haywood was ordained at a service earlier on Sunday as a minister to Senior Adults. Although she had previously served in various other capacities within the church since 1981, had not yet received ordination.

Although ordination is sometimes practiced for the deaconate, ordination into so-called “ministry” as a vocational function has historically been reserved for men in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. Other mainstream denominations like the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the American Baptist Convention, and the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America have ordained women to the clergy for many years and the liberal-progressive drift in those denominations have been obvious.

A growing movement to ordain women in Southern Baptist circles has grown rapidly in recent years as SBC seminaries like Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary have aggressively pursued female enrollees. A number of seminaries, including those mentioned, now offer pastoral degrees to women in spite of what is widely understood as a prohibition against female clergy in the Southern Baptist Faith and Message 2000 (and the Holy Bible).

Although many Southern Baptist Churches call women to serve in functions related to other women and children (a practice we believe to be biblically untenable if it carries a pastoral function, a ministerial title, or the rite of ordination), it is a fairly new practice to ordain women to service that would place them in authority over men.

Gayle Haywood will serve as a minister to senior adults, which – of course – includes men.

In the video provided on the church’s FB page, the pastor introduces the ordination of Mrs. Haywood and mentions that she is a “pastor,” and then corrects himself to say, “minister” at the 41.39 mark. Again, there is zero discernible difference between the two terms. You can find the video here.

At approximately the 42.00 mark the pastor says that Gayle has been “given the gifts of pastoral care.”

Of course, she has not.

The pastoral epistles of Timothy and Titus clarify that pastors must be men. Church history demonstrates that this is the traditional understanding of these passages. Likewise, Paul clarifies in Ephesians 5 that men must lead their homes and there is no way a husband can spiritually lead his home if his wife is his pastor.

After announcing the female ordination, the pastor then immediately launched into a celebration of Black History Month.

Wokeness. God help the SBC.