Eric Reed
It seemed like no big deal at the time. Messengers quickly voted for a change to the Baptist Faith and Message in 2023, there was no great debate. The motion came up and it kind of slid through—and that’s the problem. In 2026 they voted to prevent that from ever happening again.
At the 2026 Southern Baptist Convention in Orlando, as Baptist Press reported, “messengers amended Article XIV of the SBC Constitution to allow alterations ‘in the Convention’s adopted statement of faith,’ by the same process of amendments to Article XIV that requires, at any meeting of the Convention, a vote of two-thirds of the messengers present and voting at the time the vote is taken, provided that an amendment shall be so approved by two consecutive annual meetings of the Convention.”
Three years earlier a messenger moved to change the language in the BF&M to clarify the male-only pastorate. His motion affecting the statement of faith was a separate action from the similar constitutional amendment under debate at the time.
Later in the same meeting, the BF&M motion was scheduled for a miscellaneous business session and approved.
Some observers would have expected a change to be referred to the Executive Committee and brought back for a vote in successive conventions—as are amendments to SBC governing documents. But that didn’t happen.
One meeting, one motion, one vote, and our definition of pastor was changed. Not only the “male-only” part that has been argued for four years now, but the language of “pastor/elder/overseer” was added for the first time.
That is a significant theological shift for some churches.
It cannot be said that SBC President Bart Barber or the Committee on the Order of Business were skirting the rules when the motion was brought up for an immediate vote instead of being referred to the EC, because there was no explicit rule in place. It was kind of assumed the Baptist Faith and Message was on the same footing as the Constitution. But you know what they say about assuming.
This observation is about fixing the loophole, but also what slipped through it. The 2023 BF&M amendment equates “pastor/elder/overseer” in a way that some churches did not prior to this shift in language.
Three distinct words are at work here: “Pastor” is poimen in Greek. It appears 18 times in the New Testament and is mostly translated as shepherd. Nine times it is used metaphorically for spiritual leaders, and once, in Ephesians 4:11, it is translated as “pastor” in most renderings.
“Elder” is from the Greek word presbuteros, “overseer” is episcopos. You can see words are important. Whole denominations are built round these two words in particular.
Even in Baptist life, the word for overseer is sometimes translated “bishop.” Baptists don’t have bishops, at least not the denominationally appointed hierarchical ones. Some Baptist churches recognize the senior status of long-term clergy with “bishop” as an honorific. Bishop may be more comfortable than overseer, which has historical connotations making that translation problematic in some settings. Simon Legree was an overseer.
Why does this matter? When the Baptist Faith and Message was so quickly amended to make pastor/elder/overseer synonymous words for one office, the action advanced a theological position that not all churches ascribed to. While rising numbers of churches that adopted elder-led governance would generally approve, the churches that held onto deacons as top level leaders were more likely to argue the point. But they didn’t have the chance.
The SBC suddenly moved to language that supports the reformed position on “plurality of elders”—but it’s clear not everyone who voted in 2023 recognized what was happening. The loophole-closing motion approved this year in Orlando—on second reading—should make certain it doesn’t happen again.
─Eric Reed is editor of the Illinois Baptist.