When Women in the Pulpit Are a Bigger Problem Than Men Who Abuse
The Southern Baptist Convention just voted to formally ban churches with women pastors. They moved fast and decisively when the “threat” was women preaching.
Where was that urgency when the crisis was men abusing?
For years, survivors and reporters have documented widespread sexual abuse inside SBC churches and a leadership culture that protected the institution instead of the vulnerable. Hundreds of cases, decades of warnings, and only when the topic is women in the pulpit do we suddenly see this kind of clarity and enforcement.
That’s the tell.
When an institution is more determined to police women’s authority than men’s violence, it is not defending holiness. It is defending hierarchy. It is saying, out loud through its actions, that the greatest danger it can imagine is not predators in positions of power, but women sharing that power at all.
You can call that “biblical” if you want. But let’s tell the truth about what’s really being protected there: not safety, not justice, not the vulnerable. What’s being protected is a world where certain men stay on top, no matter what they’ve done.
That isn’t faithfulness. That’s a cover story.