By Mona Austin
(TSN): The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the largest organization for evangelical congregations, is on the verge of a purge of women pastors. In a vote set to take place Wednesday they are considering a full ban on women in power. The potentioal ban is based on their constitution, which says the "office of pastor is limited to men." At their annual convention, held this year in New Orleans, approximately 12,000 delegates voted on the issue.
SBC had already expelled five churches from its membership on Tuesday—including Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in Southern California, the second largest in the denomination.
Warren, who ordained 3 women pastors in his ministry that was ousted from the organization in February unsuccessfully appealed for re-entry at the convention. So did Pastor Linda Barnes Popham, who heads the Fern Creek Baptist Church in Kentucky. She asked, “Why would you want to silence the voices of the faithful churches? Why?"
Pastor Warren, the retired founder of the megachurch opined in a statement about the dismissal that the SBC is trying to turn back the hands of time: “There are people who want to take the SBC back to the 1950s when white men ruled supreme and when the woman’s place was in the home. There are others who want to take it back 500 years to the time of the Reformation,” he said. “I say we need to take the church back to the first century. The church at its birth was the church at its best.”