Critics in the media are trying to weave a narrative that Southern Baptists chose their complementarian theology over abuse reform and women in ministry. That narrative is a lie. It’s also theologically and practically a false choice. We don’t have to pick between our complementarian theology and abuse reform/women in ministry. We can do it all at once, and we did.

It’s been nearly a week since the SBC annual meeting finished up in New Orleans. I have been fascinated to read all of the “reports” and commentary that have come out over the last seven days. One thing that has become very clear. Even some of the “straight news” reporting has been beholden to a narrative that distorts what actually happened.
According to the narrative, abuse reforms “slowed down” while Southern Baptists reasserted the “patriarchy” by excluding female pastors. The New York Times published a “report” that amounts to little more than thinly veiled contempt. The article frets about an “ultraconservative” take-over and reduces the SBC’s relevance to being “a key Republican voting bloc ahead of the 2024 presidential election.”
TIME magazine warns of “The Southern Baptist Convention’s Long War for the Patriarchy.” Beth Allison Barr wrote for MSNBC.com that the SBC is “ignoring” the abused in order to “increase the power of men.” Barr even alleges that our complementarian theology amounts to “beliefs that rationalize and enable abuse against women.”
This is no surprise. The SBC is a complementarian convention. It’s written into our governing documents. The world hates this teaching and will try to paint the teaching in the worst possible light. Egalitarians and feminists have been levelling the abuse-slander against complementarians for decades. It is the worst sort of ad hominem, and egalitarians have found it a useful tactic when they are otherwise losing the biblical argument.
And make no mistake about last week. Proponents of female pastors were losing the argument. The SBC voted overwhelmingly to exclude two churches with female pastors. The convention also amended its doctrinal statement to clarify that the terms pastor, elder, and overseer are merely three ways of referring to the same office. Also, the convention voted to approve an amendment to the SBC Constitution which defines a cooperating church as one that “affirms, appoints, or employs only men as any kind of pastor or elder as qualified by Scripture.” None of these votes were close. They were all 80-90% supermajorities.
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A Christian repents murdering others with their attitude and sass and picks up the cleaver to begin murdering the sin that caused it. A Christian is the one who picks up the bayonet and goes to war, as Romans 8:13 says, not one who continually succumbs to their hostilities and rage. Here is what I am saying, dear Christian, the good and the sweet confidences of our Christian faith (the assurance of salvation) are not for the sluggard and slothful but for those who are waging an all-out war against their sin.

You shall not murder. – Exodus 20:13

The Murder of Disordered Passions
Embedded within the command “thou shalt not murder” is the understanding that it reaches far beyond the mere prohibition of physically taking another person’s life. The Westminster Larger Catechism in question 135 elaborates on this brilliantly, stating that

“the duties required in the sixth commandment are all careful studies, lawful endeavors, to preserve the life of ourselves and others by resisting all thoughts and purposes and by subduing all passions, which tend to the unjust taking away of any life.” – Westminster Larger Catechism Q135

This catechetical exposition highlights that murder is not just the bloody and homicidal result but actually begins before the knife is drawn, before the gun is aimed and before the bomb is thrown. As the catechism teaches, murder begins with disordered passions. Before a person will ever dream of performing a sinister coup de grâce, their heart will have executed that person a million times through anger, malice, bitterness, jealousy, envy, and even a million micro-annoyances.
We are All Serial- Killers
For this reason, the commandment not only calls us to be innocent of grabbing the Tommy gun and mowing down our adversaries and not only innocent of planting claymores in our enemy’s tomato garden; it also calls us to a life of inward purity of heart. We are called by God to mortify our sinful passions and to beat them into submission so that anger no longer walks unchecked within our serial-killing hearts.
In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives us full license to speak, think, and interpret this commandment in this way. He intensifies the understanding of what murder is by exposing the pickled and festering root lying dormant underneath it. And that, Jesus tells us, is good old-fashioned anger.
For instance, in Matthew 5:21-22, Jesus says this:

“21 “You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.” – Matthew 5:21-22

Contrary to many popular opinions of who Jesus is, He did not loosen the standard. In fact, he ratcheted it up so that even the sweetest, pillowy-handed grandmother can be considered (in some ways) on the same level as John Wayne Gacy and Jeffery Dahmer. Like those fiendish men, she has a pile of bodies that she has dismembered with a thousand glares, hacked with ten thousand razor-bladed comments, and buried with a million mental weapons like agitation, frustration, bitterness, and resentment.
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God has put eternity into our hearts, and we long not just for joy but for joy unending. Every happy experience we have on earth will end. That prick of incompleteness, of a premature finale, is an indication of the capacity of our souls. It points to a new land.

Somehow my oldest child is a freshman in high school. As I’ve experienced those where-did-the-time-go emotions that come with such minor milestones, I’ve started to feel a deep, preemptive loss.
I have loved being a parent. It has been one of the best callings in my life. My sadness at (possibly) having less than four years left with my daughter at home is not mere nostalgia for familiar or picturesque days. In the midst of a happy season, I can see its end on the horizon.
I’m not alone in this, and these feelings are not reserved for parents. I’ve felt this same grief in the middle of a family vacation as the lightness of the first few days becomes weighted with regret as I feel the end approaching.
This grief creeps into small things too, like stretching out the end of a good book to avoid snapping the cover closed for the last time. Or savoring a delicious coffee so long that it turns cold and sour.
This is a narrow, specific kind of grief, but it can be stifling.
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