New Southern Baptist Convention President Urges Cultural Change, Supports Women in Leadership

The Southern Baptist Convention elected J.D. Greear as president Tuesday, signaling Southern Baptists’ willingness to embrace massive cultural changes.

Greear, at 45-years-old, is the youngest man to be elected president of the SBC in 37 years. He has spoken openly about abuse scandals that have recently rocked the Southern Baptist Convention and hailed them a sign from God of needed cultural change.

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Greear recently called on his fellow Southern Baptists to embrace not a doctrinal change, but a cultural change with regard to their implementation of complementarianism, representation of minorities in church leadership, protection for the abused, and other changes that in many cases repudiated elements of culture that the recently disgraced Paige Patterson promoted.

Complimentarianism is the doctrinal belief that God created men and women with distinct roles. Men are to be servant leaders in the house and in the church, and women are to graciously submit to the leadership, or headship, of men, according to the doctrine. Greear affirmed the doctrine as biblical, but said that a correct interpretation of it acknowledges and values women’s spiritual gifts and encourages the training of women as leaders and teachers.

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“A complimentarianism that recognizes the gifts that God gives to women in the church and seeks to empower them. That honors our sisters in Christ as equal in salvation, equal in value, and equal in spiritual giftings. All while being faithful to the inerrant word of God,” Grear added, and also said that Southern Baptists “need to be as committed to raising them up in leadership and ministry as we are to our sons.”

Greear also advocated for proportional representation of “people of color” and minorities in church leadership, and said that the SBC had historically “protected our institutions” and positions from minority influence to the detriment of the convention as a whole.

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