Last week a woman pastor I know got an invitation to a Big Game Awards dinner honoring Paige Patterson. For those of you who do not know Paige, he is the president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. This is the largest of the Southern Baptist Seminaries. Patterson was also one of the authors behind the Danvers Statement and the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 – documents that are designed to keep women in their place. The Danvers Statement is to all evangelical churches and the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 is to corral Baptist women. His office at SWTBS is filled with stuffed Big Game and he has a beautiful rug on the floor made from one of his shots. Big he-man stuff. You may remember that I received an invitation to a church sponsored Wild Game Event last year – which wasn’t really a Safari but a farce. (Snipe Hunting with Paige Patterson).
Anyway, this event is a grand affair inviting pastors to celebrate with the Big Man hunter.
The invitation was signed Locked and Loaded.
The church secretary replied back:
Dear Locked and Loaded.
I am sure you sent this to the pastor of the church thinking all pastors are men, but our church pastor is a woman. Thank God for that. I don’t know if she is interested in hearing about Big Game hunting from Paige Patterson. I will ask her though. I am not sure she is a good shot. Do you still want her to come?
No reply from L & L.
Of course they thought that the church pastor was a man. Isn’t that how God intended it?
If you think it is time for church pastors to be women, speak up. Jesus did. Jesus showed us the way, but of course the first four books of the New Testament have no effect when it is restriction of women you want to maintain.
bWe Baptist Women for Equality's Blog 
Shirley:
I wonder almost daily how many men and women’s lives have been ruined by the 2000 BF&M that Paige had his part in creating. But folks like Paige do not take even a second to worry about these other people. It’s all about them and yes why should they ever look to the Gospels to see how Jesus viewed women.
It is always about control and power for folks like Paige.
The Bible tells us that we shall reap what we sow and Paige and the others certainly will.
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I need your help, and the help of all of you who read this. My book Dethroning Male Headship will do what Tommy is talking about. But it won’t unless people read it. So if any of you out there know of book reviewers who review Christian books, will you please let me know so I can contact them to give them a pre-lease of my book? Also any other help in getting the word out will be helpful. Thanks to all of you!
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to be a good shot is not very important, but to be Biblically correct is.
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Welcome! Hmmm, Biblcally correct? That is loaded! (pardon the pun). From your response I gather that you believe women should not be pastors. I hear you say “the Bible says” women can’t. When what the bible says is that women can. Jesus certainly included women in the gospel, but somehow that is not enough to convince those who believe that the Bible restricts women from preaching. Jesus didn’t do enough to convince those who teach that women cannot preach or be a deacon. He should have put a wooden pulpit somewhere in Bethany, and told Mary to get behind it and tell what he had just taught her when she sat at his feet while Martha was in the kitchen.
But, alas! Jesus did not do that. He knew people were hard-headed and realized that even that would not convince those who did not want to be convinced.
I would like for pastor to explain “Why?” Why are women excluded? Why would God do that to women? If it is because of hormones and wrong decisions, women certainly don’t have the lock on hormones determining what they do, and are not the only ones who make wrong decisions. The “why” question has no answer.
but the biggest “why” question is this: “Why are we so eager to restrict women when everything Jesus did was to include women?”
You are right, Mike. To be Biblically correct is more important than if she is a good shot. Biblically, she is qualified.
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