Baptist Leaders Plan to Cut Ties With Georgia Church With Female Pastor

[RamboLiberal]

Source: ABC News

The co-pastor of an Atlanta Baptist church said she has no interest in stepping down, even though state and national leaders threaten to cut ties with her congregation because it is led by a woman.

"I know this is hurting people, so I'm saddened," the Rev. Mimi Walker said. "I'm not so much offended but saddened for the path they're taking."

Walker and her husband, the Rev. Graham Walker, co-pastors of the Druid Hills Baptist Church for two years, were told in late January that the Georgia Baptist Convention would recommend "defellowshipping" the Walkers' church unless Mimi Walker stepped down or the church admitted that her husband was more senior than she.

The couple, backed by their congregation of about 100 active members, refused.


Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/baptists-planning-disown-church-female-pastor/story?id=10252735

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God save us from many fools who believe in you.

[Deep13]

1. First, good for that congregation for sticking to their principles.

Second, if Christianity is so unifying then why does all this divisiveness happen? Why are there 100s of different denominations, most of which claim to have the one right answer?

[hedgehog]

3. From what I've seen, the denominations are coming together into two

camps - one camp is concerned about helping people and is in favor of equal rights for everyone regardless of gender or sexual orientation. The other wants to make/keep women as second class citizens and force the GLBT community back into the closet. Thus, liberal Catholics and Protestants have more in common with each other than with conservative members of their own denominations and vice versa. Case in point: Anglican and Episcopal congregations that have placed themselves under the banner of the Pope and brought the Book of Common Prayer and married priests along with them. I guess points of doctrine or even priestly celibacy don't matter as long as you agree not to have any female or openly gay priests!

[Deep13]

7. That seems to be true.

Even the Anglican churches are split with the industrial countries taking the non-discrimination view while the developing nations remain conservative.

[Sebastian Doyle]

2. Good for them!

Women should sit down and shut up in church. Jesus said so.

[hedgehog]

4. No, it was some scribe tacking his own two cents to the end of a letter

of St. Paul who said so!

[No Elephants]

8. Yep. Most or all of the crap in the NT is in the Pauline letters.

Paul never met Jesus (assuming Jesus ever existed--which I do assume).

[Iggo]

10. Pauline?

adjective meaning "of or pertaining to" Paul?

Wow. I never thought of it that way.

Damn! I don't know anyone named Pauline! That would've been cool.

[pgodbold]

5. Fred Phelps is a Baptist "minister" too. No "defellowshipping" for him.

[Iggo]

6. Ew. Girls have cooties!

[mitchum]

9. This atheist is amused

[SkyDaddy7]

22. This Atheist is confused...

Ok, this week we have learned the Boy Scouts & the Vatican are both hiding child rapist and Baptist have officially told women they are below men! Of course, none of this is new news

Will any of these groups lose a significant % of their followers or is childhood indoctrination simply that powerful?

[struggle4progress]

11. For authoritarians, the BIG question is always: "Who's da boss?"

The next question, of course, is usually: "How dare you question my authority ?!!"

[groundloop]

12. This nonesense is the exact reason Jimmy Carter disassociated from the Southern Baptist Church

I'm impressed that this congrgation is standing up for what's right.

I'll add that Rev. Graham Walker is a smart husband - I too know what would (or wouldn't !!!) happen if I said I were "senior" to my wife.

[Mopar151]

13. I know a fundie Baptist

He said, a few years ago, that the Southern Baptist Convention had lost it's mind. Fortunately, unlike the Catholics, the congregations own the churches - they are somewhat free to join a more liberal association.

[onehandle]

14. This is nearby to me in the most liberal part of Atlanta.

I would imagine that they let teh gays into their church too.

Good for them.

[UndecidedGuy]

15. I am trying to get my head around this

I cannot think of any logical reason why people would have a problem with a woman in a position of leadership in a church.

I dunno. Maybe I am old fashioned or something.

[LibertyLover]

17. It's all because of some of the writings of Paul, or Pseudo-paul,

that made it into the New Testament. The writer, usually identified as Paul, but who may actually be a later writer claiming legitimacy for his beliefs by saying he is Paul, states that it is not given for a woman to be in a position of power over a man, that women should cover their heads and keep silent in church and that it is not permissible for a woman to teach a man or to preach. Strict fundamentalist churches such as the Southern Baptist Convention that believe the Bible to be the literal, inerrant word of God, use those statements to prohibit female ministers and prevent as much as possible situations that would place women in any sort of position of authority over men, such as teaching adult Bible school classes or being a minister.

The interesting thing is that in the early Christian church, because services were held in private homes, women had a fair amount of authority. Women priests and even a bishop or two are attested in the records in the first 2 or 3 centuries of the Christian church's existence. This is partly because in the Greco-Roman world, women had authority over the house or the "oikos", while men were concerned with the world beyond the house. It is not for nothing that the first public churches built were in the shape of the basilica or law court found in every Roman city. By building churches in the shape of one of the premier places of male authority and responsibility, the Christian church was saying it had outgrown the early house churches and female input and was now a masculine entity, worthy of respect by the Roman authorities.

There are several books about this, but an easy read and introduction to the topic is one called "When Women Were Priests".

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JBoy]

18. Shocking: Organization that does not respect women also shows disrespect to those who do.

[Jefferson23]

19. No gender equality, I can only imagine their position for gays..sheesh

[rateyes]

20. I'm a grad of a SBC Seminary, so is my wife...both ordained Rev's.

Left the SBC and the Georgia Convention years ago. I know the Grahams. They shouldn't be sad to be "disfellowshipped." They should be saying, "Good effing riddance."

[4lbs]

21. "Men threatened by woman. Decide to take their balls and go home."

That's pretty much the headline.

It appears the Baptist sect of Christianity has a real problem with women as church pastors. I don't know why, and don't care about the reasoning (which is likely to be stupid).