Magazine Featuring Female Pastors Pulled, ‘Treated Like Porno’
You have got to be kidding me. The Southern Baptist Convention has once again done themselves a huge disservice by acting like this is the 1st century BCE. The SBC has pulled Gospel Today from the shelves at its bookstores. What surprised me more is that the SBC actually owns Lifeway bookstores. Who knew?! Anyway, maybe moronic actions like this will ultimately be their undoing (from the Associate Press):
The group says women pastors go against its beliefs, according to its interpretation of the New Testament. The magazine was taken off stands in more than 100 Lifeway Christian Bookstores across the country, including six in metro Atlanta.
“They basically treated it like pornography and put it behind the counter,” the publisher, Teresa Hairston, said. “Unless a person goes into the store and asks for it, they won’t see it displayed.”
Nationally, the Southern Baptists have adopted statements discouraging women from being pastors, but their 42,000 U.S. churches are independent and a few have selected women to lead their congregations. The faith was organized in 1845 in Augusta, Ga.
Chris Turner, a spokesman for Lifeway Resources, said the cover was not the reason the magazine was pulled from Lifeway’s shelves.
“The buyers said the statements that were in it took positions that were contrary to what we would say,” Turner said. “It wasn’t so much that there were women on the cover.”
Featured on the cover are Pastor Sheryl Brady of The River in Durham, N.C.; Pastor Tamara Bennett of This Is Pentecost Ministries in Sacramento, Calif.; Bishop Millicent Hunter of The Baptist Worship Center in Philadelphia, Pa.; Pastor Claudette Copeland of New Creation Christian Fellowship in San Antonio, Texas; and Pastor Kimberly Ray of Church on the Rock in Matteson, Ill.
Backwoods, unenlightened fucking idiots. I only put the f-word in here hoping to increase my hits if people go searching for “fucking baptist porno” or “female pastors take it on the chin” or “lifeway books whips it out, but only if you ask nicely”.
Ironically, I support these women being in positions of leadership, as I would anyone. Discrimination is such an ugly way to retain power — and that’s all it ever has been. I’m so disappointed that I was born into the baptist faith. Took me 40 years to escape from the shackles. Sigh…
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