Missionaries Pressed to Accept New Pledge
The Southern Baptist Convention is making another attempt to get all its overseas missionaries to pledge that they agree with the denomination’s revised statement of faith -- a document that opposes women pastors and says wives should submit to their husbands.
The dispute involves missionaries who were hired under pledges to agree with the previous version of the “Baptist Faith and Message” statement, issued in 1963.
The revision that, among other things, opposes women pastors and says “a wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband,” was issued in 2000.
The board said 32 missionaries who resigned in the last year cited the pledge to support the new faith statement as one reason. But the Baptist Standard of Texas says others are believed to have left for that reason without explicitly saying so.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
