In June 2023, the Southern Baptist Convention met for their annual meeting. Messengers at the annual meeting gave initial approval to a constitutional amendment that would limit the office of pastor to men. Specifically it says that an SBC church would affirms, appoint, or employ only men as any kind of pastor or elder as qualified by Scripture. (Their interpretation of Scripture.)

One day in the church I was attending, I felt like I was a pariah, a person hated and rejected by others. I am a woman. I do not live in the First Century, but what happened then still rules most church culture today. My soul cried out. Tears came to my eyes. I wanted to kick, scream and throw something.

All because of a skit of the woman at the well, where the presenter said, “Jews did not speak to women alone.” Alone out in public, a woman was not to be spoken to! Can you believe it? This was true then and it is true now for religious Jews and Muslims.

Go to bed with a woman, get her with child, eat the meals she cooks, tell her how wonderful she is, and then allow every man and male child to treat her as if she does not exist.

Use her. Unwrap yourself before her. And then clothe her from head to toe and silence her mouth.

Why? Why did Jews treat women that way? Women were their wives, their daughters and their mothers. Yet they felt they had a superiority that allowed this awful behavior before women. Sadly to say, Orthodox Jews still treat women this way and will not allow women to pray with men at the Wailing Wall, which is causing Jewish women to stand up and speak up. They are called “Women of the Wall.” More power to them.

Jesus showed them a new way. A way where women could be spoken to in public. A way where women could learn and spread the gospel like the woman at the well did.

What have we learned? What has the Civil Rights Movement or the Civil Rights Act of 1964 taught us? You would have thought that it forced by law the respect of all people. But it did not.

You see, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 exempted churches and religious organizations from treating black people and women with basic human kindness. In particular, it exempted churches, which allowed churches to mistreat women by limiting what they could and could not do in church.

Truth be told, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 should never have been necessary. But it was because men made those laws that treated black men and women disgracefully. Today the church badly needs a Christian Civil Rights Act. But do not hold your breath. As long as Christians can continue to keep women from preaching and in submission to all males, they will do so.

We saw that in June at the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention which is the largest protestant organization in America.