Girls for the Gospel: Appealing to Remain Southern Baptist in a Convention that Opposes Female Pastorship

Abstract

Reverend Linda Barnes Popham was finishing her third decade as senior pastor of Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky when the Credentials and Executive Committees of the Southern Baptist Convention removed her church from the organization in 2023. The Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in North America, had grappled with women’s roles in leadership for decades, though 2023 was the first year it began enforcing the exclusion of churches with female pastors. Its decision to remove churches with female pastors occurred in a climate rife with unaddressed racism and sexual abuse charges, as well as increased tension over the church and state’s stances on LGBTQ+ matters. As a pastor “more Southern Baptist than most,” Popham had to decide whether she would appeal the committee’s decisions on her church’s behalf at the organization’s annual meeting. Could she appeal to remain in an organization whose goals aligned with her own but did not recognize her as a worthy partner because of her very identity?