Here’s some big news today–especially for the three of us as we have all been Southern Baptist at some point, though I am now Episcopalian.  Jimmy Carter has declared he’s leaving the Southern Baptist Convention after 60 years of membership, because of the SBC’s treatment of women and stance on wives being submissive to their husbands.  Amen, brother, was of course my first response.  I only left the SBC 7 years ago when we moved overseas and there was no nearby Baptist church, but I’d grown estranged from Southern Baptist fundamentalism long before.

Then I found this Politics Daily article (found via Episcopal Cafe) and read this:

The question for Carter — and for others who find themselves at odds with leadership — is, when a group you’re deeply involved in starts to move away from your own core beliefs, do you stay and try to change from within or, at some point, do you have to look for the exit? Carter did give the former a shot — in recent years publicly criticizing and distancing himself from church leadership, while staying involved with his church. Now, he’s seeing if absence might do what presence did not.

I knew immediately this is something we needed to discuss here, as it’s the kind of thing Anne, Judith, and I have discussed before–to stay or go in our conservative churches.  I went, but originally out of geography rather than because I was taking some stand.  I believe both Anne and Judith are still Baptists, though Anne is in a more moderate church.  Am I right about this?  What do you all think about leaving instead of sticking it out and changing the church from within?

1. Anne Says:
   July 20th, 2009 at 11:18 pm

   My church is dually Southern Baptist and Cooperative Baptist. I asked about this when I first started attending, our pastor told me that we were sticking with SBC until they decided they didn’t want us. Why they wouldn’t want us? We ordain women deacons and have more female ministers on staff than male. Given this, I wonder what the statement really means by Jimmy Carter? Leave his beloved church? Perhaps his church is leaving the SBC?

   When I was in college, I attended a church that ordained women deacons and was removed from the Southern Baptist Association of the county. It was big news there. Somehow, my current church has ordained women from it’s beginning (20 years) without press. This issue has seemed to follow me. I support women in ministry and have since those college days. I don’t argue with those who feel God’s calling. I believe God calls people beyond consideration to gender.

   In my heart, I am a Baptist. I feel I am a true Baptists who loves the local church. I don’t want to be regulated by whatever belief is in fashion in the SBC. Leadership changes and power struggles within the SBC are commonplace. Sadly, in my opinion this recent leadership wants to take away the local church’s right to do what is best for them. I firmly believe that what works for one church won’t be a perfect fit for another. What works for my Baptist church is women in ministry. We have ordained women in many aspects of the church. It works for us.

2. Rosemary Says:
   July 20th, 2009 at 11:35 pm

   Beautifully said, Anne. I had the impression your church was more progressive than most. I never felt that attachment to one denomination the way you feel like a true Baptist (probably because I’ve been to so many churches in my lifetime). However, in the last couple years, I have really fallen in love, in a way, with the Episcopalian church and fortunately I feel very good about the way women are seen in the Episcopal Church–as a whole; there are some churches that of course are more conservative–in that sense much like the Southern Baptists. There you go–it comes down to the local church again, doesn’t it?

3. DVD Says:
   July 21st, 2009 at 2:40 pm

   This is my first visit to your website and it looks interesting! Answering the question of “leave or try to change from within?” is always subject to the particular issue, I would say. For example, I would not stay in any organization (secular or religious) with a racist attitude or practice. In my opinion, issues of gender equality are on par with racial equality. So if I wouldn’t stay in an organization that refused to elect an African-American president or pastor, I also wouldn’t stay in one that refused to elect women. Equality is that important.

   I can’t know Carter’s particular motivation, but I see in his statement a valid motivation for his “sudden” change. The interesting question to me is “why now, given the misogynistic history of his denomination?” Carter is part of a group called The Elders (theelders.org if you’re interested). He mentions in his statement, and the website confirms, that the group is starting a new initiative of equality for women and girls. Given this new emphasis, it would make sense that Carter would reevaluate his own associations and remove any potential distractions from the message and make a personal gesture of the importance of the issue. In another important stroke, the move signals that all issues of gender equality are equally important. Carter doesn’t pull punches on Islam’s treatment of women (as it is practiced in most areas of the world) and it would be easy to say “at least the baptists don’t do anything as bad as THEY do!” Instead, Carter’s message seems to be that wrong is wrong, whether it’s barbaric adultery laws or exclusion from leadership positions. A principled position to take.

   Just my two cents. Thanks for the venue!

4. Judith Says:
   July 22nd, 2009 at 5:33 pm

   This is an important subject to me and I’m sure its themes are bound to come up in subsequent posts. When I was in first grade I “voted” for Jimmy Carter in our Weekly Reader. I remember waking up the morning after the election and my mother telling me, “your friend didn’t win.” I’m not sure why she said friend, maybe something in the way I described my reasons for voting? As it turns out, he is my friend. He stands in solidarity with women of all races and religions who have been told “no” as a result of patriarchally influenced religious writings and the primarily male-dominated interpretation of those writings. In the documentary about his life–Jimmy Carter, Man from Plains–President Carter’s early encounters with racial in/equality and his ongoing religious commitment are prominent. His commitment to his principles and his courageousness in voicing them are inspiring to me. His break with the SBC is their loss. In 2000, I withdrew from an SBC seminary after they voted to revise the Baptist Faith and Message to reflect their increasingly restrictive and legalistic interpretations on women’s roles. I wrote to the President of the Seminary that I could not in good conscience continue with an entity that would offer me an education based on my academic ability and a job based on my gender. I never heard back. I am going to save my comments about leaving/working from within the church for a future post. It is a big topic for me that needs its own space.

5. Judith Says:
   July 22nd, 2009 at 5:36 pm

   P.S. Inspired by President Carter, I wrote to the SBC church I joined in college (you girls know which one I’m talking about) and asked them to formally purge my name from their records if they hadn’t done so already.

6. Anne Says:
   July 22nd, 2009 at 10:58 pm

   I recently read Carter’s book Keeping Faith. I recommend it. I learned a lot about him. I was raised to think he was a good man, but misguided. My mom kept it a secret for about twenty years that she voted for him BOTH times. I remember my dad kept on saying BOTH times?

7. PUT ME IN A BOX » Blog Archive » Dating Jesus Says:
   July 28th, 2009 at 9:17 am

   [...] Still, whether church of Christ or Baptist or Assembly of God, like Campbell, I immersed myself fully in church–teaching Vacation Bible School, knocking on doors (though like her also rather reluctantly), etc.  I had a few more opportunities once we moved on to other churches.  In the christian church I was a key leader in my youth group and sang and spoke in front of the church.  In the Baptist church I sang and spoke in front of many churches on revival teams with the Baptist Student Union or during “summer missions”.  Still, we learned that there was a limit–we couldn’t be ministers–we could only “testify” at the pulpit and not “preach”.  (This is not true of every Baptist church–there are female Baptist ministers, but it’s not nationally embraced by the Southern Baptist Convention — see our previous post about Jimmy Carter.) [...]