Baptist Groups Back Conservative Reform

Twenty-five of 41 state and regional Southern Baptist Convention associations that recently held annual meetings proposed conservative-inspired revisions to the denomination’s statement of faith--including a policy that women should not be pastors.

Proposed revisions to “The Baptist Faith and Message” were approved, with various wordings, in Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas-Nebraska, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma and West Virginia, and by conservative organizations in Texas and Virginia that parallel their larger state associations.

Tennessee took weaker action, to “acknowledge” the document as “a source of information.”

The revisions failed in Maryland-Delaware, Arkansas and New England. Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, the Pacific Northwest and Ohio ordered further study, and Mississippi decided to call the Bible alone “our final authority for faith and practice.”