Southern Baptist Women: An Interview with Betsy Flowers (Part II)
Kate Bowler
Today's interview is the second of a multi-part interview with Elizabeth Flowers about her wonderful new book Into the Pulpit: Southern Baptist Women since World War II.
Kate: Historians always love when real life issues are actually attempts to re-write the past. How have both the conservatives and the moderates narrated the history of Southern Baptist women in leadership to their benefit?
Betsy: This
is a great question, and one that I treat at some length in the book,
particularly around conflicting conservative, moderate, and we might add
progressive interpretations of the history of the Woman’s Missionary Union as: a
woman’s auxiliary that was submissive to and served the SBC’s male leadership; or
the organization that ran the denomination alongside and with its male
counterparts until mid-century; or as a group of maverick women who functioned
as a thorn-in-the-side to Southern patriarchy and eventual right-wing conservative
ideals. I even wrote a separate article here about the contested history and
biography of famed Southern Baptist missionary to China, Lottie Moon, which
involved her billion-dollar named offering. I could say a lot about divergent understandings
of Baptist and evangelicals too, which range from that of a rag-tag bunch of
radicals who early-on promoted women’s preaching; a populist movement in the
mold of William Jennings Bryant and plainfolk religion; or those who supported
and propped up the Southern hierarchy and establishment as it involved race and
gender. I discovered accusations on both (all) sides as to the other’s being
“un-baptist,” “historically selective,” or practicing (I love this one)
“historical hanky-panky” when it came to women in ministry.
I
am not sure if this pertains as much to your question but the historical narrative
having gained most acceptance, and which continues to irk more progressive
women, is actually the one moderates so often spin: that of their longtime support
for women in leadership, particularly ordained ministry. When looking at the
facts and figures, even conservatives have questioned this narrative. And much
to my surprise, interviews with women who sought ordination, ministerial
status, and placement over the 1990s and early 2000s indicate more a story of betrayal
and defeat when it came to their relationship with moderates. According to
these women, after what appeared to be initial backing, those moderates who had
ruled the denomination, and preached compromise and caution, seemed to realize
that any outward loyalty toward women in ordained ministry and leadership would
come at too high a cost. To these women’s minds, the question of “when” rather
than “if” somewhat reversed itself, and as they saw it too, local church autonomy
became moderates’ code word to avoid supporting their ordination and ministry. If
the denomination’s fragmentation could have been their moment of great
liberation, it became instead a means to alienate them further. When looking at
biographical and historic accounts of the moderate movement’s first decade of
organization, from the mid-1980s onward, during which they fought bitterly to
maintain control of the denomination, we find list after list of exclusively
male committees, meetings, networks. Part of the problem was that Texas
moderates, who held the purse strings, were far more conservative on “the woman
question” than East-coast moderates. And that continued in the initial years of
organizing their largest para-denomination. If moderates did miss a particular
moment, they are still feeling its lingering effects—and so too are the other denominations,
networks, and groups who “absorbed” these Southern Baptist women “refugees.” Part
of the moderate leadership’s growing fear over these women was also their more
vocal support of gay rights in the church and society at large—and “rumors”
continued to circulate as to their sexuality and practices. As a result, (Southern)
Baptist Women in Ministry quickly became the redheaded stepsister to the moderate
(para)denomination or fellowships that emerged in the wake of conservatives’
victory.
Kate: With all your
extensive fieldwork and interviewing, what can you tell us about how the
now-accepted ideology of female submission is experienced by Southern Baptist women
in leadership? As you say, there are all kinds of places where women can and do
wield power.
Betsy: Of
course, Southern Baptist, as an identity marker, can be seen and understood institutionally
but it also indicates a particular history and heritage. Southern Baptist Women
in Ministry still exists, though now as Baptist Women in Ministry and within
moderate Baptist para-denominational organizations. While the number of women
who actively serve as senior pastor in moderate Baptist life is pretty low, the
women’s organization has more recently lobbied for church plants with women
pastors. It’s a sort of “if you build it, they will come” approach. With both
pressure from these women and a younger generation assuming leadership, moderates
are scrambling to reverse their previous positions and policies, including
those excluding the LGBTQ community from leadership too. And the largest
moderate para-denomination recently elected a woman as its executive
coordinator. She is not, however, an ordained pastor. And more often than not,
women in leadership in moderate life have not been ordained, another irksome
fact to some. Still, as one moderate leader told me, when it comes to women in
leadership, “we’ve come a long way.” The question remains whether these
ordained women have the power to push their agenda. It’s not just a matter of
numbers and quotas but accommodating a particular way of viewing the world, and
Baptists’ place in it, that has caused the moderate male leadership so much
anxiety over including ordained women in leadership, at least in the past.
But
I think your question is more about the current SBC. A senior scholar once
warned me against exploring submission as it “had already been done” by Griffith,
Brasher and others—to which I wanted to add, “in the 1990s”! Of course, as
readers here know, the concept of submission is fluid, and the prevailing
ideology of Christian womanhood in current conservative life, called complementarianism,
is somewhat new and still evolving. Most significant, it’s being shaped by
women as well as men. While submission might be a part of the new ideology of complementarianism,
women downplay it as an aside, and many younger conservative women have begun
to refuse the term altogether, if not become indifferent to it. While I don’t
think it’s a matter of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, as others scholars have
argued, I also don’t want to turn these conservative women into
proto-feminists. To most feminist minds, complementarianism has some disturbing
implications. But something more complicated is happening as conservative women
acknowledge and adapt to changes in their own lives (which deal with higher
education levels, professional careers, divorce, and sexuality) as well as the
day-to-day lives of their daughters and other women in their congregations. Interestingly,
as they rethink submission in light of complementarianism, some of their more sophisticated
analysis deal with race too and candid matters of sex and sexuality (and not
the Marabel Morgan version of the saran-wrapped wife). In the process of shaping
and reshaping complementarianism, conservative women have insisted on a
particular rhetoric of ministry and pushed agendas in their congregations and
the wider SBC, which prioritize their programs. There is a lot of fuzziness
here. Conservative women’s programs and their underlying ideologies, even
around complementarianism, can vary widely from woman to woman, congregation to
congregation, even seminary to seminary. Exactly how women’s roles complement
men’s is as nebulous and varied as how women exactly submitted to male
leadership.
The
implications of power, to get back to that aspect of the question, are huge because
large amounts of money are also at stake. Many conservative women’s programs
really drive the energy and finances of their local churches. Moreover, the revenues
from their related literature provide a significant source of income for
Lifeway, and thus the SBC. And from what I understand, establishing conservative
women’s ministry tracks has been instrumental to helping financially floundering
seminaries. (Interestingly, women graduates of these conservative programs have
complained about the lack of paid or full-time staff positions at local
churches, which local women have the power to address and some seem to be changing.)
At
the same time there is also that celebrity-like culture you, Kate, are looking
it, which involves women like Beth Moore and Lisa Young. (Did you know that
Beth Moore has outsold Elton John and other celebrities at certain venues?) If
Moore and some of these celebrity figures once depended on the institutional support
of the SBC, and it seems Lifeway continues to recruit female personalities in a
bid to find the next Beth Moore, they have also moved well beyond the “control”
of the SBC’s male leadership, which now depends on these women. Another
interesting dynamic is that independent evangelical women still find that they
need the infrastructure that a denominational institution like the SBC can
provide. And the traditionally independent Council on Biblical Manhood and
Womanhood operates from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Finally, as I
mentioned before, both conservative and moderate women continue to seek balance
between therapeutic ministries and more politically-driven agendas, though the
two are certainly entangled. We especially see this in some of the
conversations around sex and sexuality. (I’d love to see if and how Amy
DeRogatis covers conservative Southern Baptist women, who talk a lot about sex,
in her new book.)
Again,
Southern Baptist women are enormously significant to new directions in our
field. Examinations of the constructions of gender and power in the lives of
Southern Baptist women intersect with studies of material and consumer culture,
bodily performance, the politics of sex and sexuality, as well as ongoing
matters of race and region—and yes, even doctrinal belief and denominational
history. We miss a lot in these areas when we overlook Southern Baptist women,
an odd argument to have to make when we consider their numbers. Currently, I am
working on an edited volume that reimagines Southern Baptist history and
heritage in light of women and gender and will showcase some of the really creative
work of a new generation of scholars here.
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