In the past 30 years, churches that traditionally had women pastors, Assemblies of God and United Pentecostal, are now dominated by male pastors.  They, too, have resorted to teaching that the husband has authority over his wife.  As one Pentecostal wife told me “My husband is the ruler in our home.” Their children were grown, but she still need a ruler over her. I see this as a direct influence of the Southern Baptist Convention fundamentalist takeover.

The non-denominational churches that have a husband/wife pastor team say that they allow women to preach (and we see they do because the wife preaches), but those churches do not have a woman as a senior pastor.  In many of those husband/wife pastored churches they teach that wives are to submit to their husbands. Equality just flew out the window.

A Methodist minister in England emailed me that the complementarian view is prevalent in their churches.  He said that they watch what we do over here, and are influenced by it. In our own country, even though Methodists embrace women as pastors, not all are on board with women’s equality in the home.  I attended a wedding where the Methodist minister of a very large church near here told the husband, “James, remember that you have the greater responsibility in the marriage. If she wants to go shopping, even though you would rather go to a ballgame, you must go with her.”  In those words, he gave the couple’s marriage to the husband.

There are a handful of religious denominations that accept women as equals, but ultimately, they have become the stumbling block against women pastors instead of being the standard.  These churches that have accepted women as pastors have also recognized that within their congregations there might be homosexuals. Of course there are homosexuals in other churches, but they are closeted.

Fundamentalists tell us that churches will be full of homosexuals if they allow women as pastors. They lead us to believe that any woman who feels called to preach is a homosexual. So, with that reasoning, both the pulpits and the pews will be filled up with homosexuals. Fundamentalists have bound themselves to homosexuality and many have bought into it. United Methodists split in 2020 over this issue and the new denomination is Global Methodists which was formed on the basis of being against homosexuality.

But, look at the Catholic Church. They do not accept women as priests, and yet we have been made aware that there are many priests who are homosexual. What is the connection there? They officially do not accept homosexuality.  In 2019, The New York Times estimated that as many as 75 percent of Catholics priests may be gay, with only ten of them formally “out.” And those who do come out – or are rooted out – may lose their livelihood, their housing, and their community.  (The Disappearance of the Closeted Clergyman by Kimberly Winston, April 15, 2025.) https://arcmag.org/the-disappearance-of-the-closeted-clergyman

Evangelicals completely ignore what Catholics do because in many minds, Catholics worship graven images, and eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood, and do other strange things. So, is it just the Protestant denominations that accept women pastors that will have women lesbians as pastors? Why does that reasoning apply only to women? Why wouldn’t the same reasoning apply to men and make it a possibility that we would have male homosexuals as pastors? In other words, if you allow women to preach and it opens the doors to women homosexual preachers, wouldn’t it stand to reason that it would also open the door to male homosexual preachers?

Because if evangelicals taught that, there would be NO pastors.

Personally, I do not know a homosexual woman pastor. But what about the male pastors who are adulterers, homosexuals, pedophiles, child molesters, wife beaters, murderers, abusers, and sexual deviants? One of my SBC pastors molested his grandchildren and died in prison. Another one of my SBC pastors was heavily into porn and now has a website “helping other pastors turn from porn.”

Much has recently been uncovered about male sex abusers within the leadership of Southern Baptist Convention churches. Nobody says that because some men are these things that we should deny all men from service in the church.

These churches that have allowed women equality in the pulpit and leadership positions cannot carry enough weight to pull women into equality. As I said, they have become a de facto deterrent.

See Shirley Taylor in Baptizing Feminism Documentary Trailer.

Books by Shirley Taylor available in Print and Kindle on Amazon

The Biblical Marriage Myth: The Devil Comes Calling
The Power of a Book: The Street Evangelist
From Wife to Widow: What I know Now
Beyond the Grave:  A Christian Dilemma
Raising the Hood: A Christian Look at Manhood and Womanhood
Women Equal – No Buts: Powered by the same Source
Dethroning Male Headship: 2nd Edition