In Their Own Words: SBC Candidate Forum on Complementarianism by Ed Litton for CBMW
As Southern Baptists prepare for their annual meeting in June, four men are set to be nominated as candidates for President of the convention:
-Randy Adams, Executive Director of the Northwest Baptist Convention
-Ed Litton, Pastor of Redemption Church (Saraland, AL)
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-Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY)
-Mike Stone, Pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church (Blackshear, GA)
Among many important challenges facing Southern Baptists, recent events have raised questions about the hard-won complementarian consensus of the denomination. That consensus was settled twenty-one years ago in the SBC’s doctrinal standard, The Baptist Faith & Message.
With this in mind, CBMW has invited all four men to participate in a candidate forum in which they will answer a short list of written questions related to complementarianism and the SBC. Our hope and prayer are to provide a forum for candidates to express their views in a way that will serve and inform Southern Baptists and perhaps even wider evangelicalism.
The candidates’ answers speak only for themselves and have not been edited. The order in which we received the answers is the order in which they will be published.
Below are the responses from Ed Litton, and linked here are the responses from Albert Mohler, Randy Adams, and Mike Stone.
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1. The issue of women in ministry was one of the defining issues of the “conservative resurgence” within the SBC. Do you think it was important for the issue to occupy such a central place in the controversy? Is it right for it to occupy so much of our attention today?
It mattered then; it matters now. To us as Southern Baptists, our convictions about the Bible are tied to our understanding of gender and the roles of men and women in the church. So, in the conservative resurgence we addressed the doctrine of inerrancy, and because the Bible is God’s Word, it is perfect and authoritative. That means we should take the passages on gender to mean what they say, and His Word should always occupy our attention.
2. The Baptist Faith & Message says that God has gifted both men and women for ministry within the local church. Can you describe some of the valuable ministries that women are to have within Southern Baptist Churches?
The only ministry the Bible limits to God-called and qualified men is the office of pastor, which is rightly designated by the title of pastor and elder. In an age where this has become unpopular, we must champion God’s love for and empowerment of our sisters to his church and advance his mission. Women were an essential part of Jesus’ ministry and were present at key moments. Our inerrant, infallible, all-sufficient word of God says that God created male and female, both in his image. A church that emphasizes or only equips half the church disobeys the authority of God’s Word. If our sisters are gifted to serve the church then we ought to encourage them to use all God has given them to serve the mission of the gospel, and we should honor women and their contributions.
