4 Years Running, Southern Baptists Weigh Tightening Ban on Churches With Women Pastors
Even as the convention's membership shrinks, the annual meeting in Orlando serves as a bellwether for religious and political trends among evangelicals.
As Polyamory Gains Visibility, Monogamy Faces a Vote in the Presbyterian Church (USA)
A separate proposal on the docket at the mainline Protestant denomination’s General Assembly this summer calls for a broader theological framework on human relationships.
The Extraordinary Ordinariness of Black Female Laity
Rev. Dr. James Ellis III reflects on the often contentious issue of ordination in the Black Church — particularly the rift that can exist between women who feel called to vocational ministry and women who do not.
Review: Becoming the Pastor’s Wife
In “Becoming the Pastor’s Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman’s Path to Ministry,” Beth Allison Barr traces the history of the role, showing how it both helped and hurt women in conservative Protestant traditions.
To Be Ordained, Would-Be PCUSA Pastors Had to Interpret the Worst Story in the Bible
For students hoping to become pastors in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the exegesis exam is already stressful. But the most recent exam was made even more difficult when the committee developing the test chose one of Scripture’s “texts of terror.”
Internet Church Sues Tennessee Over Restrictions for Online Ordained
The Universal Life Church Monastery, an Internet church that ordains ministers online, is suing Tennessee over a new law that would bar ministers ordained electronically from performing weddings in the state.
Church Ordination Study Notes ‘Room for Improvement’
PIKEVILLE, Ky. (BP) -- The ordination process of Southern Baptist churches is a weak spot when it comes to protecting congregations from sexual predators, according to a report released May 9.
Historic Baptist ordination practices reveal a tangled web of Bible, theology and tradition
Pragmatism and tradition have stood alongside biblical and theological principles in shaping Baptist ordination practices, church historian Karen Bullock told the B.H. Carroll Theological Institute colloquy.