Breaking News for SBC Women: Wade Burleson Creates #moonarmstrong2027 to Prevent Al Mohler From Turning the SBC Into a Doug Wilson Outpost

Wade Burleson: Isoteria Ministries

“The problem in the SBC isn’t Spirit-gifted and God-called women shepherding God’s people as humble servants. The problem is the false teaching being propagated that only men can ‘rule over Christ’s Church’ and ‘only men can have spiritual authority’ over others, and only men can ‘teach the Bible with authority.’  Nobody but Jesus has authority over His Bride, and both men and women believers in Jesus Christ are His Bride.” Wade Burleson

I wrote this post before speaking with Wade Burleson. He suggested I add this information. Strangely, it fit with the post I had already written. I explain it at the end of the post.

It does not surprise me that Doug Wilson is in the news. I suppose that he attracts attention as a living and breathing supporter of Christian nationalism. Well, at least he says he’s a Christian nationalist. However, when Doug Wilson says he’s something, one must be careful to ask him what he means by that definition. One thing is certain. He doesn’t think women should vote. Instead, they should let their husbands or dads do it for them. He wants to repeal the 19th Amendment.

Some would also claim that Al Mohler is a Christian nationalist, but he would not define himself in that way. Al Mohler has been the leading advocate for the return to Calvinism in the SBC. Why is this important? Doug Wilson’s Christ Church, as well as his Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, adheres to a rigorous form of Reformed theology.

Baptist News Global posted If you think Doug Wilson is fringe, remember Al Mohler’s influence.

Not surprisingly, Wilson advocates for patriarchy in the home and in society. He affirms a concept called “household voting,” in which the husband/man casts a single vote for the entire family, effectively disenfranchising women from the U.S. political system. He has blamed the women’s suffrage movement on “the lie of individualism” and said giving women the right to vote is a “travesty” that undermined the family.
Consistent with his notion of the role of females, he has blamed women and girls for their own rapes and sexual abuse

Until recently, I thought there was a greater divide between the Reformation theology of Doug Wilson and Al Mohler. Al Mohler’s recent statement that a woman should not interpret a sermon from her church on a podcast, which I wrote about here, changed my mind.

Wade Burleson wrote on Twitter:

Mohler will be following up the SBC Annual Meeting in June with an appearance as the featured speaker at the Annual Conference of the Fundamentalist General Association of Regular Baptist Churches

Unlike the SBC, where women can serve on the SBC Executive Committee (women currently make up approximately 18% of that governing body), the GARBC excludes women entirely from its Executive Committee! The gender exclusion is  written into their constitution.

He then said:

Mohler is leading the SBC to adopt the GRBC’s stance on male authority over women.

Calvinism is a concern for many in the SBC. I promise you, the false doctrine of male superiority and female subordination is far more destructive (it aligns both Arminians and Calvinists in the eternal subordination heresy), and the Mohler Amendment is the fruit of its poisonous root.

I believe Mohler’s comment that a female podcaster should not interpret Scripture one step too far. Females listen to sermons. We should be able to interpret them. Some may get it wrong, but as a longtime observer of men of the cloth interpreting Scripture, plenty of them get it wrong as well.

My fear: The SBC is lurching towards the Doug Wilson view of women.

Wilson doesn’t think women should vote. Where does an idea like that come from? A rigid Reformed view does take the restriction of women’s activities within the church very seriously. For many of them, women cannot pray, speak, or give announcements near a pulpit. I seem to remember one rigid Calvinist, Ergun Caner, saying that women belong in the back of the pulpit to vacuum it.

The apparent belief that women are unable to think clearly enough to discuss a sermon is just a few jumps away from “a woman shouldn’t vote.”

Why can’t a woman interpret a sermon?
Where is that in the Bible?
Do women in the church lack critical thinking skills?
If women lack critical thinking skills, why are they allowed to teach other women and children?

Wade Burleson, a faithful SBC pastor for 32 years, and Lee Enochs, a graduate of SWBTS (and Princeton), disagree: It’s repressive authoritarianism.

We adamantly reject Mohler’s viewpoints regarding female podcasters and believe they attempt to marginalize female expertise. Prohibiting women from formally exegeting or teaching the Bible on podcasts dismisses the theological education, spiritual gifts and academic expertise of female scholars, authors and apologists.

Additionally, we are concerned that Mohler’s views on female podcasters attempt to entrench a repressive authoritarianism and represent the very worst forms of toxic masculinity, misogyny and abusive patriarchal power structures.

We take great umbrage with Mohler’s views on female podcasters and postulate that restricting women from public scriptural interpretation essentially gatekeeps theological discourse. It grants men an exclusive, authoritarian monopoly on how the Bible and Christian theology are understood and communicated.

… By seeking to silence female voices and relegate women to the margins and periphery of the church and society, this misogynistic philosophy lays the exact ideological groundwork required to dismantle hard-won equality. Society must reject these regressive views outright and in total, refusing to surrender modern progress to a dystopian vision of forced subjugation of women.

Wade Burleson further addressed the problems with Al Mohler’s new “Truth and Unity” Amendment on Twitter.

The Myth and Inanity Amendment doesn’t say “senior pastor” or “lead pastor” (try to find those in the Bible); it only says “pastor.”

What are the biblical functions of pastoring? How about teaching, evangelizing, making disciples of Christ, baptizing, exhorting, encouraging, correcting, administering, serving in communion, acts of mercy, and all the other gifts of the Holy Spirit and/or actions that fulfill the Great Commission?

In other words, ‘the functions of pastoring (shepherding)’ are roles for the entire Body of Christ, as we are gifted by our Head.’

Pretty soon, there’ll need to be a ‘list’ of what a woman can and cannot do in the SBC to avoid violating the Mohler Amendment. Lists such as:

*Can she speak about the Bible on a podcast?
*Can she sing a song that prophesies the Word of God?
*Can she participate in distributing the Lord’s Supper?
*Can she serve on a committee where men are present?
*Can she vote when her vote might overrule a man?
*Can she read the Bible from the platform?
*Can she share her testimony and read Scripture while doing it?
*Can she teach the Bible to men in a Sunday School class?
*And on, and on, and on, and on the list goes

Where could this go?

In my opinion, the SBC is slowly drifting toward Doug Wilson’s rigid authoritarianism. If a woman can’t understand a sermon well enough to interpret it, she may be unable to grasp the nuances of politics either. She will need to be “protected by a man who has been given authority from above. He will need to vote for her!

We will need more men to speak up, as Wade and Lee have. May their tribe increase!

How about it going in a different direction?  #moonarmstrong2027

#moonarmstrong2027 Wade Burleson is creating a Twitter account and a website to reach out to SBC women who want to use their God-given gifts and talents within the SBC. The hashtag should be familiar to many Southern Baptists. Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong are pillars in the history of the SBC. The 2027 SBC Convention will be in Indiana, where Al Mohler’s important second vote on the Truth and Unity Amendment will take place. If it passes, it will restrict the use of women’s gifts in the SBC.

Wade Burleson has long been an advocate for women’s roles in the church. Wade strongly advocated that women use their gifts in his church, First Baptist Church, Enid, of which he was the pastor for 32 years. He believes many women (and some men) in the SBC are concerned that the passage of the Truth and Unity Amendment will harm the SBC in the long run. The website has not been set up yet, but it will be in the near future. More will come shortly; this is the first announcement of this effort.

I’ll end with this quote by Wade Burleson.

“The problem in the SBC isn’t Spirit-gifted and God-called women shepherding God’s people as humble servants. The problem is the false teaching being propagated that only men can ‘rule over Christ’s Church’ and ‘only men can have spiritual authority’ over others, and only men can ‘teach the Bible with authority.’  Nobody but Jesus has authority over His Bride, and both men and women believers in Jesus Christ are His Bride.”