Less than a year after Gainesville’s First Baptist Church cut ties with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in a dispute over women pastors, the organization has ousted a Kentucky church because its Senior Pastor is a woman.
The Southern Baptist Convention’s top administrative body voted Tuesday to oust a total of four congregations — one for having a woman as senior minister, two for what it said were failures related to the denomination’s sexual-abuse policy and one for lack of financial participation.
The SBC’s Executive Committee announced the decision after a closed-door session at the end of its two-day meeting in Nashville. These are the latest in a series of expulsions in recent years, most notably when it ousted one of its largest, California’s Saddleback Church, and a Louisville, Kentucky congregation for having women in ministry leadership roles.
You can read the full story here: KEYWORD NOTICE – Southern Baptists oust one church for having woman pastor, two others over sexual-abuse policy – SRN News
EARLIER STORY (from June 15, 2023): The First Baptist Church of Gainesville (FBC) is pulling out of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the Chattahoochee Baptist Association, and the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, “pending FBC approval at an upcoming church conference,” according to an open letter to church membership from Senior Pastor Rev. Dr. Jeremy Shoulta.
At issue is the SBC’s affirmation at its annual conference this week of its opposition to women clergy by amending its constitution to remove any church from its membership which “appoints or employs a woman as a pastor of any kind.”
In his letter, which you can read here https://www.fbcgainesville.org/2412-2/… Rev. Shoulta points out that First Baptist has “celebrated the presence of women pastors on our staff for some time, and we will not compromise this practice…”
The church’s staff directory lists three women ministers: Rev. Kellie Denton, Associate Pastor for Faith and Formation; Rev. Ruth Demby, Associate Pastor for Missions; and Susan Eernisse, Associate Minister of Music.