From its towering white steeple and red-brick facade to its Sunday services filled with rousing gospel hymns and evangelistic sermons, First Baptist Church of Alexandria, Virginia, bears many of the classic hallmarks of a Southern Baptist church.
On a recent Sunday, its pastor for women and children, Kim Eskridge, urged members to invite friends and neighbors to an upcoming vacation Bible school — a perennial Baptist activity — to help “reach families in the community with the gospel.”
But because that pastor is a woman, First Baptist’s days in the Southern Baptist Convention may be numbered.
At the SBC’s annual meeting June 11-12 in Indianapolis, representatives will vote on whether to amend the denomination’s constitution to essentially ban churches with any women pastors — and not just in the top job. That measure received overwhelming approval in a preliminary vote last year.
Someone once explained it to me like this:
The Ancient Hebrews really only had access to two types of fabric, linen and wool. A person could wear a garment made of one or the other or even wear two garments with one made of linen and the other of wool. The reason they couldn’t wear a single garment made of both was because the High Priests garment was made of Linen with a dyed Wool fringe and it was the only garment that was supposed to be made that way.
So anyone wearing a single garment made of both was trying to rise above their station by pretending to be something that they weren’t.