Elevation Church, a multi-site megachurch in Charlotte, North Carolina, left the Southern Baptist Convention this week after attendees of the denomination’s annual meeting disfellowshipped other churches with female pastors.
The congregation, which is led by Steven Furtick, said in a letter to the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee and provided to Baptist Press that Elevation would withdraw affiliation “effective immediately” from the nation’s largest association of Protestant churches and has “no intention” of changing core beliefs in response to the annual meeting.
“This letter is to inform you that Elevation Church is withdrawing its affiliation with the Southern Baptist Convention effective immediately,” the document said. “Please know that our withdrawal from affiliation in no way means that we will withdraw from praying for you and your ministries and mission work in the future: we are all on the same side!”
Holly Furtick, the wife of Steven Furtick, is listed as a “pastor” on the website of Elevation Church. Her personal website says that she helps to “lead” the congregation and links to several sermons she has preached on Sunday mornings.
Elevation added in the letter that the congregation’s core beliefs are “very much in line” with the Baptist Faith and Message, the doctrinal statement to which Southern Baptist churches adhere. The statement confesses that “while both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”
The annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention earlier this month was marked by debate over the allowance of female pastors in the denomination’s churches. Messengers overwhelmingly voted in favor of decisions to disfellowship Saddleback Church, the congregation founded by Rick Warren which recently installed a number of female pastors, as well as Fern Creek Baptist Church, which has employed a female pastor for three decades.
Jeff Wright, a pastor at Midway Baptist Church in Cookeville, Tennessee, said to The Sentinel that the departure of Elevation was “good fruit” from an amendment passed at the annual meeting by Mike Law, a pastor at Arlington Baptist Church in Arlington, Virginia. The amendment clarified that Southern Baptist churches must appoint "only men as any kind of pastor or elder as qualified by Scripture" to stay in “friendly cooperation” with the denomination.
“Elevation's relationship to the Southern Baptist Convention has long been a head scratcher for doctrinal reasons,” he commented. “That the Law amendment helped Elevation see that their partnership with the Southern Baptist Convention didn't make sense is a win for both parties.”
Law has documented more than 170 instances of female pastors currently serving in Southern Baptist churches across the nation after observing the trend at churches in his area, noting that many churches have left the denomination as they grow frustrated with inaction over the issue. One recent estimate from American Reformer found that some 1,200 of the 48,000 churches in the Southern Baptist Convention have at least one woman working in a pastoral position.
Scott Packett, a pastor at North Athens Baptist Church in Athens, Tennessee, likewise said to The Sentinel that the disfellowship of Saddleback was instrumental in the exit of Elevation.
“I believe when God’s people conduct themselves according to God’s word, then God will be glorified and his church will be edified. Those who oppose God’s word will be confronted with the truth and will either be set free to walk in submission to it or they will go their own way,” he remarked. “I think we are going to see other churches either repent or go the way of Elevation. I would love to see a mass repentance and reform take place in the Southern Baptist Convention, and pray for it weekly. However, just like our forefathers fought for the inerrancy of Scripture in the Conservative Resurgence, we are fighting for the authority and sufficiency of Scripture.”
The annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention occurred after the denomination’s churches saw the largest year-over-year membership decline in more than a century, a phenomenon attributed to broader decreases in church attendance but possibly linked to a perceived theologically liberal drift in the denomination. Many pastors remarked to The Sentinel that the votes were a positive development and a reflection of the denomination’s historic stance that women are equal with men in value but have different roles as enumerated in Scripture.
