June 12, 2000
Vestal rebuts SBC language on women
___ATLANTA--A proposal to make the Baptist Faith & Message include a prohibition against women serving as pastors is unbiblical, insensitive to the Holy Spirit and ignores God's work in the world today, according to Daniel Vestal.
___Vestal, former pastor of First Baptist Church in Midland and Tallowood Baptist Church in Houston, is coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
___Vestal's critique of one pivotal change proposed to the Baptist Faith & Message by an SBC committee was published as an opinion piece by Religion News Service June 5.
___Messengers to this week's SBC annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., will consider the proposed changes, including a line that declares "the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture."
___"This statement is based on an inadequate and inconsistent interpretation of Scripture," Vestal said. "If one interprets Scripture to forbid women as pastors, one should also interpret Scripture to instruct women to cover their heads for worship and for slaves to remain content as slaves. But I believe these biblical instructions, intended for a first century culture, were not meant to be normative or authoritative for the church in future generations and cultures.
___"What is normative--for the past, present and future--is that Jesus is Lord of the church, that he calls all believers for service and that he 'gifts' all believers with the Spirit."
___The New Testament references several offices of leadership in the church, including apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor/teacher, deacon, elder and bishop, Vestal said. "What is normative is that those in leadership are to be persons of impeccable integrity, wisdom and compassion. What is essential is not the gender, age, status or even title of the leader, but the character and commitment of the person who is the leader."
___Further, the proposed statement "reflects an insensitivity to the work of the Holy Spirit," Vestal said.
___"This new statement asserts that if the Spirit leads a woman to the pulpit and if a church is led to call a woman as its pastor, they are wrong," he declared. "Who are we to question the freedom of the Spirit to call whomever the Spirit chooses? Who are we to question the freedom of an individual or church to respond to the Spirit? I find this kind of closed-mindedness to be contrary to Scripture and to the spirit of Jesus.
___Also, the proposal "reveals an unwillingness to see what God is doing in our world today," he said. "God is increasingly using women in ways that even a hundred years ago were unthinkable. Women are now surgeons, scientists, prime ministers and presidents. They are leaders in government and business, in public and in private, in the church and in culture."
___Although it is happening slowly, some Baptists are beginning to open their eyes "to see the work of God in our world," Vestal reported. "God is calling women to ministry. They are responding. Churches are recognizing it and inviting women to exercise their gifts at all levels of leadership in the congregation."
___Rather than basing their proposal on sound biblical interpretation or the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the committee's proposed language "offers further evidence that the Southern Baptist Convention is firmly in the control of white, male, fundamentalist pastors bent on imposing their definitions of orthodoxy," Vestal said.
___Vestal explains in the column how his own view of the role of women in ministry has changed.
___"My desire to be faithful to Scripture and my lack of exposure to women in ministry contributed to a long-held belief that women shouldn't be pastors," he said. "Then I was challenged on several fronts.
___"First, I met some pious, humble women who not only told me they were called by God to preach and pastor, but were doing it with effectiveness. Second, I began to explore interpretations of Scripture different than my own. I found Bible scholars who loved and believed the Bible as much as I did offering different understandings of the disputed texts. This tempered my dogmatism.
___"Finally, a historical and global perspective challenged me. I learned of women in other cultures and countries who have been pastors for years."
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