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US Southern Baptists effort to enshrine ban on women pastors falls short 


Messengers stand for worship during a Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, June 11, 2024, in Indianapolis.
Messengers stand for worship during a Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, June 11, 2024, in Indianapolis.

The Southern Baptist Convention on Wednesday fell just short of the two-thirds majority vote needed to enshrine in its constitution a ban on women as church pastors.

Issues impacting women are prominent at this year's annual meeting of the SBC, taking place in Indianapolis. Later on Wednesday the church leaders were expected to vote on whether to approve a resolution that condemns the use of in vitro fertilization.

The SBC is the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., with over 50,000 churches and over 14 million faithful, and has become a political force in recent decades.

The proposed constitutional change banning women pastors, known as the Law Amendment, had been approved during last year's annual meeting. By church rules, any such change must be approved at two consecutive annual meetings, and this year it was approved by 61.45% of church leaders who voted - short of the 2/3 majority required.

Messengers raise their ballots in support of a motion put up for vote during a Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, June 11, 2024, in Indianapolis.
Messengers raise their ballots in support of a motion put up for vote during a Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, June 11, 2024, in Indianapolis.

The denomination has in recent years voted that individual churches that have female leaders were no longer in "friendly cooperation" with the organization, citing the denomination's doctrine and scriptures as indicating that only men can lead a church.

The over 10,000 church leaders — known as "messengers" — attending the meeting and voting on an array of issues, fell just short of officially changing the SBC's constitution to assert that a church can only employ "men as any kind of pastor or elder as qualified by the scripture."

Individual Baptist churches are largely autonomous, typically locally own their own facilities and make their own decisions on how to worship.

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    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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