Letters to the Editor: Who’s got a problem with women or LGBTQ+ pastors? Not God
To the editor: In his op-ed article “What is the Southern Baptists’ problem with women?” Randall Balmer quoted a Southern Baptist minister as saying that allowing female clergy would “allow the marriage of homosexuals, and then even allowing homosexuals to serve as pastors.”
On Sunday, my Episcopalian pastor, who is happily married to his husband, said in his sermon that about half of the active Episcopal clergy are women, and about a quarter are part of the LGBTQ+ community.
We have climbed that “slippery slope” and found God’s grace at the top waiting for us.
When the Southern Baptists objecting to women pastors ask themselves, “What would Jesus do?” they need to answer with this: “Jesus would welcome and love everybody, without exclusion or exception.”
Jeanette Barcroft, Camarillo
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To the editor: What’s with those zany Baptists at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, allowing women to serve as their pastors? Don’t they know that the Bible’s “inerrant” word mandates that women be kept pregnant and in the kitchen?
No, it’s not misogyny. It’s the biblical stance that made America so great in the 1950s, back when men were men and women faithfully did their bidding.
Truly, barring women from pastoral roles will serve to make America great again.
Betty Turner, Sherman Oaks
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To the editor: The Southern Baptist Convention’s decision to bar women from serving as pastors underscores religion’s extraordinary power not just within the church but across society.
If you can get people to believe in things without evidence, based solely on what an authority figure claims, it is easy to understand why someone would deny the dangers of climate change or the link between the proliferation of firearms and gun deaths, or why someone would support former President Trump’s efforts to overthrow democracy.
The “truth” will surely not set Southern Baptist women free, but the rest of us should also be worried.
Mark Cassell, Washington
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To the editor: Balmer could also mention that in the Gospel of Mark, at the crucifixion, only women, not men, are mourners, the first to suffer the sting of Jesus’ loss.
Also according to Mark, when Jesus was in Galilee, a woman named Salome (not to be confused with Herodias’ daughter) followed Jesus and “ministered to Him.”
So what is the problem again with a woman serving as a pastor or minister?
Gary Hoffman, Huntington Beach
