Why the New Elder Board Movement in the SBC Is Merely About Control and the Marginalization of Women in the Church. In Other Words, Nothing Changes.

Posted on by April 29, 2024avatar


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The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has captured the sharpest ever infrared images of the Horsehead Nebula!

“If you aren’t humble, whatever empathy you claim is false and probably results from some arrogance or the desire to control. But true empathy is rooted in humility and the understanding that there are many people with as much to contribute in life as you. Anand Mahindra

Most religion observers would agree that the SBC has entered a time of turmoil. Membership is declining at the same time the denomination is dealing with a sex abuse scandal compounded by the requisite and fully justified lawsuits. I agree that all denominations are seeing a decline in membership, but today, I am focusing on the SBC.

Mark Dever pushes his version of elder leadership: It’s called 9Marx for a reason.

Recently, a conference was held at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, during which a discussion ensued on the growing numbers of elder-led or directed elder boards in the SBC covered by Baptist Press: Elders in Baptist churches? The conference examined the idea. Whoever chose the picture at the top of the article nailed the entire discussion by posting a photo of Mark Dever looking his usual dour self while waving around a copy of his book A Display of God’s Glory.

Dever unfolds the biblical blueprint to find a leadership structure that blesses churches with peace, but doesn’t buckle under the pressures of corporate life.

It appears to be out of date. I wonder if he sold copies from his closet for the going used price of $2.77. From Baptist Press:

Dever offered a biblical argument for an elder-led form of congregationalism in which the congregation serves as a “final court of appeal” in the decision-making process.

I do agree that the elder model is discussed in Scripture.

“The best I can tell, the New Testament evidence seems to indicate that common, even expected practice was a plurality of elders in each local congregation,” Dever said.

I’m afraid I have to disagree with how it has been implemented in his church and many other venues.

The problem with Dever’s model in light of an overbearing “my way or the highway” congregationalism.

Todd Wilhelm, a recipient of the 2013 newly minted, retroactive, 9Marx church discipline, could discuss this far better. Why do I return to this matter? It is an example of Mark Dever’s interpretation of his 2001 book on what a Display of God’s glory looks like in practice. In a church like Dever’s, the congregation always votes in line with the authority’s recommendation. Can one imagine defying Dever and voting against a plan?

In Dever’s world, I believe the congregation’s makeup, those who stay beyond a year, has been subselected to reflect his opinions. His prolonged sermons, the small groups, etc., bring home the point that Dever and his friends are “doing it right.” Todd Wilhelm tried to disagree and realized that Dever would keep featuring CJ Mahaney’s books in the bookstore and flying Mahaney in for teaching opportunities.

In my own experience of living in different cities and watching how congregations vote, my congregations appeared to vote with the pastor and elders nearly 100% of the time.

Elders are selected to be the “yes men” and defenders of the pastors.

I covered this in a post: The Unaccountable Authority Given to Elders in Many Churches May Explain the Disasters We Are Watching.

Years ago, in my former Reformed SBC church, the senior pastor said to me:

My elders have only disagreed with me twice in 28 years.

Herein lies the problem. There should not be any pastor who has not gotten regular pushback from the elders. Why is that not happening? Here are some things I’ve observed in my decades of membership in churches.

  • Pastors choose *yes* men.
  • Many elders are *honored* to be chosen by the celebrity pastor.
  • Elders who are enthralled with the pastor are likely to give a pass to problems that all people, including pastors, have.
  • Current elders often choose future elders. So the process repeats itself. They choose men like themselves.
  • 9 Marks would say the congregation gave their approval for these elders. When was the last time you heard of a congregation refusing to vote for the slate?
  • Why are elders usually men of position in the community: businessmen, trustees of foundations, lawyers, doctors, etc.? Why don’t we see more blue collar workers become elders? Are they not as *spiritual* as well-known professionals?
  • Why do the elders hide the salaries and benefits of the celebrity pastor?
  • Why do these elders rubber stamp all activities of pastors, including paying them full salaries when they are involved in money-making on sabbaticals and at conferences?

I do not believe that Dever and friends would ever select an independent thinker as an elder, even if those individuals were faithful church members. Surely, that independent thinker would move on to other churches. I met one such thinker, formerly of Mark Dever’s church. He had been a long-time member and was being vetted for leadership. He wanted to get out, preferably not being treated like Todd Wilhelm or others who decided that their conscience could not abide such groupthink. He explained his successful exit strategy, which made me laugh. It was ingenious. I know you want to know what it was, but I share this with the many calls I get from people trying to get out of their churches, which have restrictive church covenants. By the way, it has been quite successful when tried in other venues. Call me. We’ll talk…

(Digression alert: Do not sign church covenants. They were invented to protect the church, not the members. They are legal documents, even if your pastor claims they are not. Read this for background. I’ve written extensively on this subject, so do a search.)

Elder boards are often composed of successful lawyers and businessmen. Few include blue-collar workers, local postal workers, or Amazon truck drivers.

My generation of church attendees made a mistake that will hurt churches in the United States for a long time to come. As the reader may know, I hold an MBA from the University of Rochester. In the 90s, churches suddenly discovered “business models” that could be applied to the church. At first, I thought this would help churches better manage their income and staff. Churches were reading tomes by Lee Iacocca, Steven Covey, or the infamous  In Search of Excellence. We screwed up, and I believe it is still hurting the church.

Here is a post which speaks to this. The Deep, Dark Secret Of Elders And Leadership Boards

We had some of the best business professionals as part of our Elder Team at nearly all of the churches that I served in. They were entrepreneurs who had figured out the successful business model. Each of them were familiar with marketing, analysis, engineering, and sales. All of them were savvy in a business sense, allowing for lively discussions when it came to money management and business decisions in the local church. They were the ‘cream of the crop’ in the business world. But, despite one of our elders adamantly arguing that it was, the church is not a business. It’s not God’s ‘business.’ Instead, the church is a collection of people that are following Jesus. And sometimes business decisions don’t make sense when following Jesus.

I specifically remember a business decision that we made as an elder team that involved helping those in need. We had the opportunity to feed homeless people and help clothe them in our city. We made the decision to not support the cause financially as a church, because the money that we would have spent needed to be spent on helping our church grow. The argument was that if we grew our church, we would be able to better support opportunities like this in the future. Looking back, I’m certain that we made the right business decision, but also certain that we offended God in the process. The Book of James is pretty clear about what true religion is.

…Imagine sitting in a room with several high capacity businessmen and trying to make a decision on how to handle a messy affair that was happening within your church. The men in the room have no biblical training in this area or in any area for that matter, and there only point of reference comes from the workplace. One of the leaders says that it would be best just to kick the offending party out of the church and move on. Another argues that we need to care for all involved. Another argues that we aren’t going to be able to communicate this to our church because it would be too ‘messy.’ Still another contends that this will cost far too much money for us to get involved personally with the situation and we should help pay for a professional counselor to step in. Our elders were never trained to make or ready for the types of decisions that they were forced to make in leading the church. Had they been, it could have been different.

I believe there has been a concerted effort not to find ways to receive counsel from women in the church, which is profoundly hurting both the church and women.

This is to the detriment of the church. I believe that if a complementarian church really wanted input from women, it would be easy to do so. Form an adjunct “Council of Women.” Adjunct is defined as:

something joined or added to another thing but not essentially a part of it

It would be simple to do this, and the fact that this has not been attempted in any real way appears to mean that these churches do not want women in any position to give advice. That is deeply troubling. My conservative Lutheran church does include women on the leadership team. The pastors are the only elders. Men and women who are actively involved in various ministries of the church are included. The makeup of this group changes from time to time. That means the church hears from a wide variety of people.

I do not believe that an elder board in the SBC will attempt to find creative ways to include women’s input. This will lead to more people running from the church.

It’s about control due to the success of integrating the Reformed theology into the SBC.

The Reformed movement stresses the need for elder boards, which I believe comes from a basic authoritarian streak in some churches. Keep in mind that the SBC is losing members. In 2005, the Restless, Young, and Reformed movement claimed that they and their theology would solve the church’s problems. They were young, and their interpretation of Reformed theology made the church members so restless that they began to look elsewhere. It is my opinion that many successful Reformed Baptist churches downplay their “Reformed” theology as well as hide their membership in. the SBC. They’ve been together for 19 years, and I am still looking forward to their promised successes. It has been underwhelming. (I expect to get pushback here, but I stand firm.)

Prediction

Adding elder boards to SBC churches will not result in a “Display of God’s Glory.” It will be the same old, same old, with yes-men elder boards, controlling pastors, disrespected women, and discouraged members, leading to declining church membership. Yep, Calvinism made a comeback and has shaken up the church, not in the way that was imagined. I doubt anyone will see “God’s glory” in the increasing number of SBC elder boards.

Comments

Why the New Elder Board Movement in the SBC Is Merely About Control and the Marginalization of Women in the Church. In Other Words, Nothing Changes. — 89 Comments

  3. Luckyforward: The elder board movement is the death knell of a Baptist distinctive, the Priesthood of the Believer.

    Long-standing Baptist doctrines “Priesthood of The Believer” and “Soul Competency” were diminished in the 2000 revision of the Baptist Faith & Message, along with other changes which has trended the SBC toward Calvinism. The New Calvinists have successfully taken over all SBC entities and a growing number of traditional (non-Calvinist) churches. Changing church governance from congregational polity to elder-rule is just another nail in the SBC coffin. I say that sadly, as a former 70 year Southern Baptist (I’m a Done now … done with SBC, but not done with Jesus).

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  4. “The best I can tell, the New Testament evidence seems to indicate that common, even expected practice was a plurality of elders in each local congregation,” Dever said.

    I disagree. There are indications that there might have been a group of elders (presbyters, priests) running a “church” of some sort in some places, but the Biblical texts on this topic are very thin, and anybody, regardless of their favored church polity, can support it with some texts.

    In my opinion, a better line of argument would start from pragmatism – “We think this could work.” – and add, “From what we know of the church in the Apostolic and immediate post-Apostolic periods, some congregations did this.”

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  5. In my opinion, a better line of argument would start from pragmatism – “We think this could work.” – and add, “From what we know of the church in the Apostolic and immediate post-Apostolic periods, some congregations did this.”
    Cynthia W.,

    Bu, they would never accomplish their authoritarian male supremacist goals if they started with that line of thinking/presentation.

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  6. dee,

    Been there done that! In the spring of 2007, we adopted a Giant Great Pyrenees who had been abused(beaten and starved). (He was 9 mos. old when we adopted him – he had to go to doggie Heaven in autumn 2017).
    He was skin and bone (and hair, lots of hair!). He was very near dying of starvation when we took him. But, for the first three days, they only way he would eat was if I held the food for him in my cupped hands.
    And he was a sweetheart, so good natured…. little girl at the end of our road could push her face against his or roll all over him, and he loved it. I never heard him growl once, ever, for any reason.

    (Side note: never give G G Pyrenees a bath in the bath tub – not even if he gets sprayed by a skunk in February! No, he wasn’t any trouble… it just took me a year to get all of the hair out of everywhere in the bathroom!)

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  7. Good points. In my circles elders were installed to end a diaconate that had administrative authority in the church, a pastor’s idea of a workaround where he didn’t have to answer to the deacons. Probably bad for the congregation in the long haul.

    Incidentally, my old church had elders. All were blue collar males. The pastor tried to convey to them that they shared authority with him. Worked reasonably well.

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  9. Cynthia W.,

    Yeah that’s kind of what I’ve thought too. The NT writers didn’t seem very interested in the
    specifics of how the churches organized themselves. And it seems only natural that different churches would have developed different structures, based on the background, skills, and needs of their people. After all, a primarily working-class Jewish congregation in Jerusalem would have approached the project very differently than a largely wealthy, educated ekklesia of Corinthian Greeks.

    I don’t know much about 9 marks specifically, but imo anybody who concludes there is only one acceptable “biblical” way to do anything in the 21st century is imposing their own presuppositions on the text. This almost pathological need for certainty and “being right” drives people to argue to the death over things that would be better left flexible and open to pragmatic interpretation.

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  10. IMO, the new breed of Southern Baptist pastors (New Calvinists) convert churches they take over to elder-rule polity so they won’t have deacon boards and congregations telling them what to do. Traditional Southern Baptist deacons wield a lot of clout – they can make or break a pastor even if he’s a holy man of God! During my 70-year tenure in SBC, I knew only a handful of deacons who had any spiritual sense. Yeah, there was a lot wrong with SBC before the New Calvinists showed up to finish it off.

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  11. Cynthia W.: “The best I can tell, the New Testament evidence seems to indicate that common, even expected practice was a plurality of elders in each local congregation,” Dever said.

    Of course he would say that! New Calvinists are famous for making Scripture say what they want it to say to support their theology. They twist the words of Paul, while they largely ignore the words of Jesus. They camp out in select passages of Paul’s epistles, but you seldom find them preaching from the Gospels.

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  12. CMT: anybody who concludes there is only one acceptable “biblical” way to do anything in the 21st century is imposing their own presuppositions on the text

    Ahhh, but the New Calvinists say there are no viable options to reformed theology! Al Mohler put it this way:

    “Where else are they gonna go? I mean, what options are there? If you’re a theologically minded, deeply convictional young evangelical, if you’re committed to the gospel and you want to see the nations rejoice in the name of Christ, if you want to see gospel-built and structured and committed churches, your theology is just gonna end up basically being Reformed, basically being something like this New Calvinism or you’re gonna have to invent some other label for what’s just gonna be the same thing. There just are not options out there. And that’s something that I think frustrates some people. But when I am asked about the New Calvinism, I will say just basically, where else are they gonna go? Who else is gonna answer the questions? Where else will they find the resources they need? And where else are they gonna connect? This is a generation that understands, they want to say the same thing Paul said. They want to stand with the Apostles. They want to stand with old, dead people. And they know they are going to have to if they are going to preach and teach the truth.” (Al Mohler, President, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary)

    The very pinnacle of “I’m right; you’re wrong” arrogance!

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  16. CMT: I don’t know much about 9 marks specifically, but imo anybody who concludes there is only one acceptable “biblical” way to do anything in the 21st century is imposing their own presuppositions on the text.

    Note that the “only one acceptable BIblical Way” is always “MY Way”.
    And the Universe cannot have two centers.

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  19. CMT: The NT writers didn’t seem very interested in the
    specifics of how the churches organized themselves.

    That’s what I have noticed. The Bible in general is full of variety, and practically anything can be called “Biblical” or “Scriptural” if someone feels like using that as an argument.

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  21. Dee, you summarized the situation well: “…yes-men elder boards, controlling pastors, disrespected women, and discouraged members…”

    That was me 4 years ago. I left a toxic church where Dever and Leeman have spoken from the pulpit and the senior pastor writes for 9Marx blog…

    There is no glory to God in a religion that twists scripture, worships pastors and controls (and demeans) its parishioners. I am so thankful my family has escaped, but make no mistake – we carry wounds that are slow to heal.

    I appreciate all that your team does to run this blog. Super happy to see Daffy in good hands as well!

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  23. Hey Dee, when I was getting my MBA in the 90’s, one of the Marketing professors made an offhand comment in class. He had apparently offered his professional marketing services to his local church, they politely declined, and he was lamenting how much he could have helped them. I was secretly cheering on that local church.

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  24. For years, Mark Dever has held “Weekender” training camps at his DC church for aspiring 9Marksists. Each man is sent home with a thick tactical ‘Notebook’. Among other things, it describes how, early in his pastorate Dever got the congregation to submit to his choice of elders, after each of the five men he’d selected lost in a congregational vote.

    Check out lowlights from his letter to congregants, that’s included in the 9Marks Weekender Notebook:

    Mark Dever: “Is it arrogant of me to nominate the same five again?…I do not understand this to be a matter of arrogance, but of integrity.”

    “Why vote on the same thing again?…Because we need elders…Because there must be a new election, therefore men must again be nominated. But the one [me] who must nominate has not changed…God has led me again to the same people.”

    “We must let leaders [me] lead…When I was a member at Eden [Roy Clements’ church, Cambridge, England], I voted with the eldership, unless I had expressly biblical reasons for not doing so.”

    “I have certainly been frustrated by not being more trusted”

    “Each member of the church should consider if they are making it easier or harder for the staff to do what God has called them here to do.”

    “Me leaving…find another pastor…[This is] a confidence vote on my pastorate.”

    [insists that members meet individually with him if they intend to vote “no” again]

    Dever’s antics worked…he got his way:

    The 9Marksist trainees are told in the notebook that, one month later “Elder nominations passed on second try”.

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  25. “They were young, and their interpretation of Reformed theology made the church members so restless that they began to look elsewhere.”

    Classic!

    – I have met and been blessed by Reformed Christians who are decidedly anti-authoritarian. However, I think one MUST reflect upon whether or not a view of God as meticulously determining everything that comes to pass is a view of God that is decidedly controlling and authoritarian. How can that not affect how Christians interact with each other in their communities?
    – When Paul writes about church leadership structures he’s writing to specific people in specific situations 2000 years ago. I think it’s interpretative malpractice to try to present his writing on this topic as prescriptive to church structures today. His letters aren’t a constitution. I think it takes wisdom for a Christian community to search Scripture and create structures that work for them while also aligning with the most important tenets of Jesus’ kingdom. The way Dever presents this topic is insane to me even when many of his suggestions (ie, shared leadership) are agreeable to me.

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  27. Rapid Roy: There is no glory to God in a religion that twists scripture, worships pastors and controls (and demeans) its parishioners. I am so thankful my family has escaped, but make no mistake – we carry wounds that are slow to heal.

    Many who comment on TWW know the pain of being wounded in the house of friends … not by friends, but by wolves who came in the back door. The New Calvinist movement has done great harm to the American church and churchgoers.

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  32. Jerome: Among other things, it describes how, early in his pastorate Dever got the congregation to submit to his choice of elders, after each of the five men he’d selected lost in a congregational vote.

    His buddy Andy Davis followed that manifesto at FBC Durham. My friends were hurt in that incident. I may need to do a post based on your comment. As always, you add so much to the discussion.

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  34. Paul K:
    “They were young, and their interpretation of Reformed theology made the church members so restless that they began to look elsewhere.”

    Classic!

    – I have met and been blessed by Reformed Christians who are decidedly anti-authoritarian.However, I think one MUST reflect upon whether or not a view of God as meticulously determining everything that comes to pass is a view of God that is decidedly controlling and authoritarian.How can that not affect how Christians interact with each other in their communities?
    – When Paul writes about church leadership structures he’s writing to specific people in specific situations 2000 years ago.I think it’s interpretative malpractice to try to present his writing on this topic as prescriptive to church structures today.His letters aren’t a constitution.I think it takes wisdom for a Christian community to search Scripture and create structures that work for them while also aligning with the most important tenets of Jesus’ kingdom.The way Dever presents this topic is insane to me even when many of his suggestions (ie, shared leadership) are agreeable to me.

    Well said. And Iwould love a copy of that notebook!

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  36. Women, as I’ve noted before, there is absolutely NOTHING stopping you from starting a church. If you want to start one you will have loud support, people yelling “you go girl, you can do this” etc.
    *
    Yet, look around. These churches Do Not Exist despite the power of the feminist narrative in our westernized culture. So instead of trying to establish your own church, you take pot-shots at churches who think Elders are males and the spiritual headship of a church should be male.
    *
    I believe, predicated upon Scripture, that God in his creative order of men and women did not intend for women to be the spiritual leaders. AND what we do not see is successful churches founded by and pastored by females.
    *
    Complementary roles; men will be men, women will be women and they are differently but uniquely gifted.
    *

    Paraphrasing C.S. Lewis, all jobs are to serve the primary job, the birthing of and raising of the next generation. Only women can bring that about.
    *
    Finally, why the hell would women want a man’s life? I start my 60 year of paid employment in a couple of months. For me, retirement is not on the immediate horizon.

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  38. linda: we had an SBC pastor who told us his job was to listen to God and our job was to listen to him … we left soon after that

    I would say you decided to listen to the Holy Spirit instead!

    This is the stuff that cults are made of … of course, the SBC is largely a New Calvinist cult now.

    Unfortunately, too many churchgoers fall for this sort of stuff because they don’t read Scripture and pray as they ought in order to hear God. In the slam-dunk fast-food church of today, folks want someone else to interpret Scripture for them so they don’t have to dig their own spiritual well. And that is a mistake waiting to happen.

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  39. senecagriggs: all jobs are to serve the primary job, the birthing of and raising of the next generation. Only women can bring that about

    Only women? Do humans reproduce by parthenogenesis now??

    (And that’s a pretty loose paraphrase. If I recall correctly, the line you’re mangling is from a letter CS Lewis wrote to a woman who was a housewife, praising the value of caregiving in general, not of having babies)

    strong>senecagriggs:Finally, why the hell would women want a man’s life? I start my 60 year of paid employment in a couple of months. For me, retirement is not on the immediate horizon.

    Because women get compensation and retirement benefits for all the domestic labor and caregiving work they do. And statistically, most women aren’t stuck doing this work ON TOP of holding employment outside the home. And women aren’t held back from career advancement and therefore retirement security by the undue proportion of family responsibilities they hold.

    I have to stop rolling my eyes now or they’ll get stuck.

    It really is unfortunate that our society is set up in such a way that retirement is out of reach for so many people. But men don’t have a unique grievance here. This is a transparent attempt to turn a conversation about authoritarian spiritual leadership into an excuse to criticize women.

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  41. I’ve been in two elder-led churches where the elders were responsible to the congregation and representative of the people in it. Church #1 was in a college town, so most of elders were highly educated, but there were one or two blue-collar guys. That elder board actually censored the senior pastor when he tried to fire the co-pastor because he didn’t like him (everyone loved the co-pastor). Only the elder board as a whole could hire/fire. The senior pastor found another job shortly after that. (This church was not SBC).

    My current church also has elders, again not SBC. It has always had elders, and I think it’s a congregational distinctive. Again, elected from the congregation. The senior pastor is a voting member, but he does not “run” the board. The board is responsible to the elder board “chairman.” We had a senior pastor 10 years ago who had severe psychological problems. The board got him to a counselor,formed a treatment plan, and things improved for a bit. However, the pastor refused to follow the plan, so they fired him (but he resigned instead). The elders seem to govern well. We just had a 90 minute quarterly meeting where there were different reports on finances, our building program, the preschool, future plans, etc.

    The one SBC church I attended for six months had elders and it was a disaster. They bickered with each other all the time, nothing was confidential, two of the wives had public fights in the church parking lot over the respective positions their elder husbands held…I left as soon as I could.

    So, I don’t think elders are the problem as much as how the church chooses to govern them (which, is obviously not the point in the Dever model). Elders, deacons, board…if they’re not well-organized, responsible to the congregation, and ethical, they will only bring harm to a church.

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  43. Linn: Elders, deacons, board…if they’re not well-organized, responsible to the congregation, and ethical, they will only bring harm to a church.

    Not to mention that church leaders should meet the Biblical qualifications for those sacred offices! I’ve been doing church in America for over 70 years; I’ve experienced various forms of church governance during my long tenure. I can count on one hand the number of elders/deacons who were spiritual men, truly qualified to hold that title. They are typically appointed because they are buds with the pastor, prominent local businessmen, wealthy donors, were star high school/college athletes, handsome and popular, from a ruling family of the church, etc.

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  44. Cynthia W.: There are indications that there might have been a group of elders (presbyters, priests) running a “church” of some sort in some places, but the Biblical texts on this topic are very thin, and anybody, regardless of their favored church polity, can support it with some texts.

    This rhetoric I always find alarming, regardless of the topic. When ‘some scriptures’ aren’t enough scriptures… If we hold that position, we may throw out or nullify many commands and references which help us understand the way. Such as, ‘we probably don’t need to be ‘born again’. Well, maybe that is supported by similar-enough scriptures to be scripture, ie authoritative.

    A bit worse is when folks argue about the two sides of a position and the arguers ignore their opponent’s scriptural references when making their case. Both sides may indeed have merit, but ignoring how scripture informs us to win an argument merely diminishes or understanding of the Lord.

    We see through a glass darkly, but if scripture isn’t enough, cause there wasn’t enough, then we are truly blind.

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  46. I have long, painful experience as an elder and on search committees. Looking at it now, it was always a “Cuban election”. The pastor answers to the elder board. Except that the elders are all volunteers and are typically chosen and/or ‘nominated’ by the pastor. As others point out, they are often quite honored to “be among the chosen for their integrity and wisdom”. Except that they’re invariably chosen for their willingness to be shaped and pushed to agree with the pastor. Sometimes, the congregation would do the nominating for elders and this is nominally better, but never have I seen a congregation able to have an “at-large nomination” who did NOT meet with the pre-approval of the pastor or the existing elders. It’s really a recipe for disaster and as Americans, we should all know better.

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  48. Not to mention that church leaders should meet the Biblical qualifications for those sacred offices!
    Max,

    The SBC’s proposed Mike Law amendment…… It seems that THE most important Biblical qualification is that church leaders are males. No gurlz allowed, period. Kick out the churches that have female pastors of any kind!!!!!! Those churches with sexually abusive male pastors are no big deal, so they keep quiet about those. None of the churches with abusive men in powerful positions have been kicked out. They’ll take a serially abusive man any time over a righteous woman.

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  49. I’ve only read this far in the comments….I wanted reply before continuing my reading… 🙂

    Nancy2(aka Kevlar): Been there done that! In the spring of 2007, we adopted a Giant Great Pyrenees who had been abused(beaten and starved). (He was 9 mos. old when we adopted him – he had to go to doggie Heaven in autumn 2017).
    He was skin and bone (and hair, lots of hair!). He was very near dying of starvation when we took him. But, for the first three days, they only way he would eat was if I held the food for him in my cupped hands.
    And he was a sweetheart, so good natured…. little girl at the end of our road could push her face against his or roll all over him, and he loved it. I never heard him growl once, ever, for any reason.

    (Side note: never give G G Pyrenees a bath in the bath tub – not even if he gets sprayed by a skunk in February! No, he wasn’t any trouble…. it just took me a year to get all of the hair out of everywhere in the bathroom!)

    Thank you for sharing your story, Nancy2(aka Kevlar), 🙂 ….what you wrote touched my heart. 🙂

    After reading your comment, I did a quick Google Search on Giant Great Pyrenees dogs. One of the pages I read was interesting and informative, with a neat (positive) sense of humour….I thought of including the link here, but decided not to….and copying-and-pasting the parts that I found humorous would have made my comment WAY too long. 🙂

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  51. researcher,

    We are up 6 dogs, now that we gradually acquired over the past 11.5 years……One pitbull and 5 mutts. 3 we adopted, and then 3 more that no one wanted. When 2 of them (mama and baby) got dumped on or dead end road, we tried to find another home for them – no luck. Another ran away from home because of lack of attention, aside from sort of mild abuse….. owner said we could keep him. They’re happy. We’re happy. Whew, the dogs are lucky we live on a farm!
    But, I still want another GGP! (The one we had was never any trouble, and they don’t eat as much as most people think they do.) ….. and another horse. Horses are trouble, but I love’em anyway.

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  52. Believer: elders are all volunteers and are typically chosen and/or ‘nominated’ by the pastor. As others point out, they are often quite honored to “be among the chosen for their integrity and wisdom” … chosen for their willingness to be shaped and pushed to agree with the pastor

    the lure of The Inner Ring … yes-men at any cost to be able to sit next to “Pastor” … God sends leanness to their souls

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  56. senecagriggs,

    Good grief. There are women who have worked as long as you in the home and on the job, concurrently. There are women in complementary churches and homes who are the “actual” spiritual leaders, while men take the credit because, well, male body parts.

    Get a grip, Senneca. You don’t have it any harder than women doing the same thing. You may actually have it easier because of male body parts.

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  58. Max: Muff Potter: Why do they hate women so?

    Mama made them do chores? … neighborhood girls beat them in bike races? … couldn’t get any dates in high school?

    Got burned bad, got stuck in the Rage Phase, and are taking it out on anything with a XX chromosome? I suspect that’s behind a lot of the PUA Manosphere attitudes.

    Though “couldn’t get any dates in high school” is probably a factor. Womb Tomb Swanson always struck me as a High School Dork in appearance and voice who’s now in a position of Power (by Divine Right) and going all-out for Revenge.

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  62. Max: problem is “garbage in … garbage out”

    Yeah, but I think there’s a deeper problem.

    This seems like the same impulse as the desire to codify scripture down to a clear set of rules. As though black and white answers, whether from a hermeneutic, an AI model, or a dead prophet called up by a medium, would solve all our problems. But that’s not how scriptures, or life, actually work. The drive to get “the answer” and escape debate, negotiation and the messiness of being human is just flat out futile.

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  67. senecagriggs: I believe, predicated upon Scripture, that God in his creative order of men and women did not intend for women to be the spiritual leaders. AND what we do not see is successful churches founded by and pastored by females.

    Nowhere in the Bible does it say any such thing.
    There is no gender based hierarchy, it has to be manufactured.
    Believe want you want from what others say Scripture mandates, but in the end, it’s only an extrapolated ideology based on derived inference from Scripture.

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  73. Nancy2(aka Kevlar): We are up 6 dogs, now that we gradually acquired over the past 11.5 years….One pitbull and 5 mutts. 3 we adopted, and then 3 more that no one wanted. When 2 of them (mama and baby) got dumped on or dead end road, we tried to find another home for them — no luck. Another ran away from home because of lack of attention, aside from sort of mild abuse…. owner said we could keep him. They’re happy. We’re happy. Whew, the dogs are lucky we live on a farm!

    But, I still want another GGP! (The one we had was never any trouble, and they don’t eat as much as most people think they do.) …. and another horse. Horses are trouble, but I love’em anyway.

    Your dogs are lucky they have you. 🙂

    And the same can be said of any of your future pets….GGP, horse, or, perhaps, more dogs that have been abused or are unwanted by other people. 🙂

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  75. Jerome: Seneca Griggs wants to put as church’s head: elders, males. But the Word of God teaches that it’s to be Jesus Christ (Colossians 1:18) …

    … who distributes spiritual gifts to each believer as He alone decides (1 Corinthians 12:11 … without distinction in race, class or gender (Galatians 3:28).

    The Body of Christ is the Church … every institutional church is not necessarily ‘the’ Church. The Body of Christ operates in the order God intended, with gifts manifested as He distributes … institutional churches which do not allow Him to do so are not ‘the’ Church.

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  76. Pingback: 'Change from within' is a cruel evangelical lie - Roll to Disbelieve

  80. dee,

    I’ll give you mine – my dad was an unskilled “engine borer”, his best friends and fellow elders were an accountant, a store man in a brickworks, a fruit seller, a labourer, a teacher …”. And there was nothing more inspiring than seeing them “”march” to the communion table in their best suits to honour their Saviour.
    Bonkle Church of Scotland, Covenanter, Seceder, Faithful.

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  82. Paul K: However, I think one MUST reflect upon whether or not a view of God as meticulously determining everything that comes to pass is a view of God that is decidedly controlling and authoritarian.

    Long ago, I used to believe that God only operated as a strict determinist.
    Nowadays I think that He (God) likes to roll the dice more often than not.

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  83. When Timothy goes off on his own, Paul has words, but doesn’t discipline him. People should have autonomy over their choices, as long as they don’t harm others.

    That’s not what the SBC elder rule theology believes.

    I actually don’t think the push for elder rule has anything to do with God, except that the men who really want this kind of polity want to be God themselves. I’m sure that some of them that I have known didn’t care about God at all, they just found Christians naive and easy to manipulate. It made them wealthy and powerful, and they liked that.

    Jesus was nowhere to be found in those churches or in the words of those leaders. They just talk about themselves. A lot.

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  86. Peter Montgomery:
    dee,

    please advise about abuses of Andy Davis as I recently left a congregation when they promoted his book on contentment against my concerns
    noticed FBC Durham is listed as 9Marx

    Peter,
    I have written quite a bit on Andy Davis since Durham is the next town over, and I know many people wounded in FBC. Put his name into my search for more, but this will get you going. I’ve written about him off and on for @13 years.

    https://thewartburgwatch.com/2017/06/05/andy-davis-and-first-baptist-durham-i-wonder-if-wormwood-grinned/

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