My first exposure to J.D. Greear was through his book, Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart. I listened to it on audio while mowing my lawn. Through sweat-soaked headphones, I heard Greear explain conversion, assurance, and perseverance with a simplicity and clarity that made me grateful for his ministry. Since then, I have only occasionally come across articles and videos by Greear, and have found many of them helpful. A few, however, have left me baffled.
Earlier this week, I read a post on Greear’s website titled, How Should We Think About Disfellowshipping Churches In the SBC That Have Women as Pastors? The article represents the latest salvo in an ongoing debate on complementarianism within the SBC. Greear is a complementarian, and I am thankful for that. But in this article, Greear appears to go to great lengths to persuade other complementarians that despite rising temperatures and an increase in smoke, there is no egalitarian fire. Moreover, he argues that complementarians seeking to remove churches from the SBC who are functionally denying the BF&M are asking for something invasive and untenable.
In some sense I’ve watched the recent scuffle in the convention from a distance. (I serve as a pastor of an independent baptist church.) But complementarianism is important to me, and I want to see Southern Baptist churches remain faithful to the God-ordained distinctions between men and women in the church.
Also, I think Greear is wrong.
Egalitarianism poses a significant threat to the fidelity and unity of the SBC. The rest of this article will deal directly with Greear’s key claims.
A Familiar Fallacy
Greear begins by acknowledging that some churches have openly appointed women as “pastors”, and rightly recognizes that these churches should be removed from the SBC. But he goes on to suggest that complementarians in the SBC should be less focused on women serving as pastors and more focused on the issue of unqualified men in that role. As he puts it, “It seems we are at risk of focusing hard on the ‘men’ part … and we have much less to say about the ‘qualified’ part.” This is the logical fallacy of whataboutism, and in this instance, it’s also functioning as a red herring.
We ought to pray earnestly that churches in the SBC appoint pastors who are qualified in every way. But to my knowledge, no one is actively pushing the convention to expand the definition of pastor to include men who can’t teach, adulterers, or men who are greedy for gain. (1 Tim 3:2, Titus 1:7)
If Greear’s argument sounds familiar, it may be because it has been used so often by progressives in debates over homosexuality. “Why are you focused so much on homosexuality and not on unbiblical divorce?” The answer is the same in both debates: Both are wrong, but one is beating down our door for acceptance and normalization.
Terminology or Theology?
A large part of Greear’s argument is that much of what looks like a complementarian problem is really something else. As he puts it, “the issue is…one of nomenclature.” What might this look like? Greear gives the following example: “…what are we to do about a church that’s using an improper title, calling a woman the “children’s pastor”? Are they really taking an egalitarian stance, or do they have a nomenclature problem?”
Greear follows this example with a question: “…are we really prepared to start asking our Credentials Committee to start kicking out churches left and right over sloppy titling of their staff positions?”
This argument is more complex than it might first appear, so I want to take some time to unpack it.
Greear seems to agree that a church who has appointed a woman to serve in the office described by Paul in Titus 1:5–9 and 1 Tim 3:1–7 has flatly rejected the BF&M and should find fellowship somewhere else. Amen. God himself has marked-out the function, responsibilities, and qualifications for this office. As such, we are not free to redefine who or what a pastor is. To appoint a woman to this office is to tell the watching world a lie.
But this does not seem to be what Greear has in mind. Rather, he seems to have carved out a category for churches who call a woman “pastor” without referring to the scriptural office we commonly associate with that term. For example, imagine a church giving a woman the title of “children’s pastor” who is essentially functioning as a children’s Sunday school teacher. Let’s also imagine that her church has not appointed her to carry out any of the biblical functions or responsibilities of an actual pastor. As unusual as this may sound, it seems to be the sort scenario J.D. envisions.
When challenged, this church might argue that by putting the modifying adjective “children’s” in front of the title “pastor”, they are creating a different role, one distinct from the biblical office. In other words, she is a different kind of pastor.
To be sure, confusion over nomenclature is at play here, but it seems unwise to treat this scenario as merely, or even primarily a question of nomenclatural. “Pastor” is the name the BF&M 2000 uses for the scriptural office of elder/overseer. For churches who affirm the BF&M, there should be no question — pastor is a word for this office. Greear seems to be appealing to the notion that a church might just define “pastor” differently than the BF&M. But it’s a serious problem if this is happening, as the BF&M serves as the unifying document for all churches in the convention. Adopting an idiosyncratic definition of “pastor” that expands the meaning of the word to include meanings other than what the BF&M has in mind seems naive at best, dangerous at worst.
This linguistic issue is similar to what has happened in our culture’s language battles related to gender. Our culture now speaks of both “women” and “trans women.” The word “woman” has been expanded through modifying adjectives to include individuals who are by definition not women. In the same way, giving a woman the title of “pastor”, regardless of what adjectives precede that title, is expanding the word to include people who, by definition, are not pastors. Expanding the semantic range of a word in this practically guarantees confusion, and as Greear himself notes, “Clarity is a kindness.”
A church that fosters theological confusion by changing the meanings of words found in their convention’s statement of faith is on shaky ground. The nomenclatural problem is likely only the visible tip of a large theological iceberg.
Burning The Straw Man
Greear goes on to address what he sees as a contingent of complementarians in the SBC who go too far. He writes, “They believe we shouldn’t stop at restricting the title of “pastor” to men. Instead, they believe we need to find churches in which women are doing things that are ‘pastor-like.’”
This is a straw-man argument. Complementarians are not merely concerned with restricting the title of pastor to men. We want to restrict the office of pastor to men. As such, a woman who is engaged in the functions of that office, even without the official title, is a violation of God’s good design for leadership in the church. This is why the BF&M states that “the office of pastor is limited to men’’ as opposed to “the title of pastor is limited to men.”
If this distinction isn’t immediately clear, consider this thought experiment. What would happen if you began issuing citations, directing traffic, and apprehending criminals. You might never officially claim the title of “police officer” but it will be clear to the authorities who arrest you that you were de facto engaged in the functions of that job, and therefore guilty of impersonating a peace officer. In the same way, a church allowing women to function as pastors is de facto in violation of God’s design for that office.*
Greear goes on to argue that identifying violations of this type would lead to churches wrongly accusing one another of violating “unwritten” rules.
“I’m not convinced any of us want to live in the world where this kind of enforcement begins to happen. Just imagine: Church X has a woman in a staff role. She isn’t an elder. She isn’t called “pastor.” But someone from Church Y decides that, in their interpretation, the woman (and therefore Church X) is in violation of this unwritten rule. Do we really want people policing their specific application of what is “pastor-like” in other churches?”
As I see it, there are two problems with this argument. The first is that this isn’t an unwritten rule. The BF&M speaks of offices, not titles. The written rule is: “the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” As shown above, churches can violate this rule by having women engage in the functions of that office. Second, Greear seems to think there would be no practical way to identify and measure this type of violation of the BF&M. I don’t see why this would be the case. He is surely correct in noting how churches apply their complementarian beliefs is always “slightly fluid”, but it seems to me that there would be at least a handful of simple litmus tests for identifying a woman functioning as a pastor.
An Appeal to Statistics
Next, Greear makes the case that the tide is changing on egalitarianism, but for the better. He argues from statistics in his home state that “female pastors” are on the decline in SBC churches:
“Some have said that we need to be on guard, since the prospect of female pastors in SBC churches is a “growing danger.” I disagree. The reality is that even the largest estimates of churches with female pastors on staff make for a very small — and, in fact, shrinking — fraction of our Convention. I can speak specifically about my own state. Here, we have about 4,300 North Carolina Baptist churches. Ten years ago, the number of female pastors was around 200. Twenty years ago, it was around 400. Now, it’s fewer than 20. So, judging by our data, this is not growing, it is shrinking.
If Greear’s numbers are accurate (and I have no reason to doubt them), they seem to line up with common sense. In 2000, the BF&M was updated to include the statement that the office of pastor is limited to men. From that point on, churches that desired to continue giving women the title of pastor were either removed from or left the convention of their own accord. But it does not logically follow from this observation that present concerns over egalitarianism in the convention are unwarranted. Again, Greear has limited his data to women who are given the title pastor, not women executing the functions of the office. How many women in SBC churches across North Carolina are functioning in ways that only pastors should?
But the larger issue is Greear’s assumption that these numbers should be the metric we use to gauge the health of the SBC on this topic. Rick Warren, arguably one of the most influential evangelical pastors in the world, has recently begun an active and aggressive campaign to shift the SBC and her churches toward his newfound egalitarian convictions. Should this go unrecognized in our assessment of the egalitarian threat to the convention?
Greear’s reasoning seems to suggest that the appropriate response is to ignore Warren, and after several years of surveys, check to see if his false teaching has led enough baptist churches into error to warrant a response. This seems unwise. It’s hard to overstate Rick Warren’s influence in the SBC and beyond. Rather than ignore Warren, we should acknowledge the extent of his influence and work to counter his error. Oddly, Greear, who has been commendably careful in his assessment of churches using the title “pastor” for women, gives no grace to those who might disagree with his assessment that egalitarianism is on the decline in the SBC. As he puts it “anyone who says otherwise is either ignorant, misinformed, or being purposely divisive.” I’d like to offer a fourth option: “reasonably skeptical”.
Though I have found Greear’s argument unconvincing, I want to acknowledge another important point of agreement. He writes:
“Additionally, there are some in our Convention who would like to go even further and consider an amendment to the SBC Constitution, declaring in our governing documents that a church is only in friendly cooperation if it does not affirm, appoint, or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind. To be clear, the Credentials Committee already has what they need in the current constitution to take this action…”
From my limited knowledge of SBC procedures, it would seem that he’s right. The BF&M couldn’t be clearer. The scriptural office of pastor is limited to men. A church that affirms, appoints, or employs a woman in office of pastor is functionally denying the SBC’s statement of faith. The question is, will they enforce this? Or will they allow churches to avoid this biblical teaching by playing fast and loose with titles?
* Tom Schreiner has a good Twitter thread on this very issue. link
