Baptist Board Names Woman as Yale Chaplain

The Southern Baptist Home Mission Board, for the first time in its history, overturned its personnel committee and has voted to name a woman as chaplain to Yale University. Even that action, however, was not considered final in the ideological battles being waged in the Southern Baptist Convention.

The mission board, after a heated session this week, voted 37 to 34 to certify the Rev. Janet Fay Fuller for the Yale job.

“This action will fly in the face of thousands of Southern Baptists who are opposed to the use of missions’ money to support ordained women,” said the Rev. Johnny Jackson, of Little Rock, Ark., after the vote was counted.

The mission board’s personnel committee voted 8 to 7 earlier in the week against approving Fuller for the Yale job, citing two reasons: that she is a woman and that she is an ordained minister.

Southern Baptist leaders have generally opposed ordination of women in recent years.