Southern Baptists are on mission to make it official — churches with female pastors can not be part of the nation's largest Protestant denomination.

A formal ban on female pastors moved one step closer to being enshrined in the Southern Baptist Convention's constitution, after delegates approved an amendment at the faith group's annual meeting on Wednesday, June 10, in Orlando, Florida.

Delegates, called messengers, seemed to make it crystal clear that only men may serve as pastors in Southern Baptist churches, and churches with women in pastoral roles will not be in "cooperative fellowship" with the denomination.

A retired Southern Baptist pastor in Enid who had crusaded against the proposed amendment described his thoughts on the matter succinctly.

"Sad day in the SBC," the Rev. Wade Burleson said.

The vote on the Rev. Al Mohler's "Truth and Unity" amendment occurred with little debate and garnered more than the two-thirds majority needed for approval. The amendment must be approved by two-thirds majority vote next year before it goes into effect.

Mohler, a prominent and outspoken Southern Baptist who is the longtime president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, said his amendment is based on scripture and is in keeping with the Baptist Faith & Message, the denomination's statement of faith.

Mohler's amendment states that a church is not in fellowship with the denomination if it acts "to affirm, appoint or endorse a woman serving in the office or function of a pastor/elder/overseer, such as preaching to the assembled congregation."

Wednesday, Mohler said in the 26 years since the denomination adopted its revised Baptist Faith & Message, there has been a need for "constitutional clarity" on the issue of female pastors. He asked messengers to consider what has happened to more liberal denominations when they cast their ballots.

"This is an opportunity for Southern Baptists to speak in truth, in unity, consistent with our confession," he said.

"There's a great line that divides liberal and biblical evangelism, and you can see it on this every issue."

Burleson took to social media before the denomination's annual meeting to share his views on why the amendment should be rejected. The retired Southern Baptist minister said he wondered why Southern Baptist Convention leaders claimed for years that a sexual predator database couldn't be established due to the denomination's policy on church autonomy ― meaning every local congregation is completely independent and self-governing — but the denomination won't allow churches to make their own independent decisions regarding female pastors.

Wednesday, Burleson said he is holding onto the hope that messengers could vote differently next year.

"It's a sad day but there's one more chance for it to get defeated," he said.

Burleson said he's concerned that Mohler's amendment focuses on women being prevented from taking on the "function" of a pastor, which he said could keep them from serving in other leadership roles in Southern Baptist churches, or even from serving as missionaries.

"I think they should let churches make their own decisions and stop the top down dictations of what a church can and can't do," he said.

It marked the second time in the last several years that Southern Baptists have confronted the question of whether females pastors should be allowed to serve in the faith group's churches. In 2023, the denomination famously ousted the Rev. Rick  Warren's California megachurch from the denomination because a female pastor served the congregation. Then, in 2024, the faith group's messengers narrowly rejected an amendment similar to Mohler's.

That proposed amendment fell shy of the required two-thirds vote needed to change the denomination's constitution.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Southern Baptists seek to make ban on female pastors clear

Reporting by Carla Hinton, The Oklahoman / Oklahoman

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