“It’s not a crisis,” Albert Mohler said. “I do not fear an army of women preachers in the SBC. But what I do want to make clear is that this is something the SBC shouldn’t have to revisit over and over again.”
Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and introducer of the self-named “Truth and Unity Amendment” looked wearied as he sat down for an impromptu press conference in Orlando.
Did he, more than anyone else in the room, feel the weight of revisiting this issue? After all, this is the same battle he took up at the beginning of his time in public Southern Baptist life.
Shortly before ascending to lead the SBC’s flagship seminary in 1993, after he was announced as incoming president, Mohler stood before a crowded Boyce Chapel, for a Q-and-A with students. This was at the height of changes occurring within the SBC as result of the conservative resurgence. The inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture was regularly undermined by some seminary faculty. Mohler was now expected to be the harbinger of significant changes in Louisville.
For 45 minutes he absorbed a mixture of questions and anger vented by students, many female, who were opposed to his stance that the office of pastor was reserved for men as qualified by Scripture.
It is this personal history that stands as a backdrop to Mohler’s belief that “This (female pastors) is perhaps the most visible dividing line between liberal and conservative Christians.”
His words seem to suggest this amendment is intended to be a roadblock rather than a fire extinguisher. His statement that there is not a crisis is not the same as saying he believes there is no danger.
The Baptist Faith and Message (2000) addressed many of the issues. But what has changed that might lead to the same theological circumstance found in the early 90s?
“New to the equation would be the idea that a woman would preach to the gathered assembly and not have the title pastor,” Mohler said. “That was really not envisioned in 2000… That’s why function, specifically preaching to the gathered assembly, that’s why that’s added. It’s sort of like an awful lot of policy—you don’t need it until you need it. And I think that’s where we are here.”
There are many ways people, both in favor of and opposed to this amendment, are framing the motivations behind it: Protecting tradition. Subjugating women. Controlling churches.
Mohler’s reasoning in 1993 and in 2026 both frame his motivation as a submission to, and safeguarding of, a belief in the inerrancy of Scripture.
“I find it impossible for me to square the ordination of women to the pastoral ministry with what I see in the New Testament, and what I must do in submitting to those passages of Scripture” (1993).
“And in numerous passages,…it makes very clear the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture… It is not my job to question God as to why it is so” (2026).
─Ben Jones in Orlando