Southern Baptist Convention Continues to Exclude Churches with Women Pastors

The Southern Baptist Convention has voted to uphold the removal of Saddleback Church, a major southern California congregation founded by Rick Warren, due to its having women pastors. The representatives at the conference in New Orleans also voted to affirm the ousters of two other churches, including Fern Creek in Louisville, Kentucky, which has had a female pastor since 1993. The vote to uphold those removals came just a few hours before a two-thirds majority of the Southern Baptist Convention voted to approve an amendment to its constitution that would more broadly prohibit churches from having women hold any pastoral title.