OK, those were not the exact words in the resolution, but the bottom line was that women could not lead congregations. Of course, that means men will continue to make most of the decisions in the Southern Baptist Convention and women will be patronized by a good many church leaders.

I will never forget the breakthrough on the women’s issue in a congregation I served many years ago. I was leading a committee that would nominate people to serve on the church board. We were looking for leaders and not followers — heroes who could lead the congregation in new directions. It was an all-male committee.

“Gentlemen,” I said. “I believe it’s time for this congregation to nominate a woman to serve as vice president of the church. Of course,” I reminded them, “that would mean the female vice president would become president of the congregation in one year.”

They sat stiff and straight, all former leaders of the congregation, tried and true churchmen who had survived hot issues and cool responses. Finally, one man decided to speak.

“Pastor,” he said “I think you fail to see the big picture here. We are nominating people who can lead this congregation into the future. The people we choose will be running a real church here. We are not playing church — pretending to be leaders — like the women do in the ladies’ organizations.”

All the other men on the committee mumbled their approval. The meeting continued, and only men were nominated to serve in offices. Of course, I repeated that request every year until a woman was finally nominated. She won the election, eventually became president of the congregation and served with distinction.

So, the challenge is not to rid the church of males who can’t appreciate a woman’s management style. Rather, if you want to open the church to women’s leadership, you have to change the culture. And that takes time.

We all know that many denominations are currently refusing to ordain women. There are even some denominations that see women as the greatest enemy of the Gospel.

You have perhaps noticed that some Baptist denominations, such as the American Baptist Church, ordain women and allow them to serve as pastors.

And most mainline denominations, such as the United Methodists, the Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Lutherans, do the same.

Of course a couple of Lutheran denominations, the Wisconsin Synod and the Missouri Synod, refuse to ordain women. And the entrenched leadership in those denominations can see their power and authority slipping away if women ever start putting on the pastoral robes.

You may have also noticed that women are not ordained in the Catholic Church. Only unmarried men can be Catholic priests, and as a result, some parishes have been shut down because of a severe shortage of priests.

What is all this fear of women based upon? Do you think there is some kind of scientific basis for keeping women out of the halls of power? No, nothing that logical is at work here. Rather, the men in power simply say that women are not capable of handling power. Or they say that God has mandated that a woman’s role is different from a man’s role. A man is destined to lead while a woman is challenged to follow.

The amazing thing is, nobody, not even women, challenges those assumptions in the conservative Christian denominations. You will hear very few Missouri Synod Lutheran women, for instance, challenge the male leadership of the church. And if they do, their worth and value to the church is automatically diminished.

All the policies designed to keep women out of positions of power are based on old opinions and ancient ideas about womanhood. For instance, that women were meant to be males, but they failed to develop properly in the womb. Or that women contain too much liquid and are therefore liars. Of course, these assertions make no sense, but that is not the issue.

Here is the issue: The culture must be changed. And to do that, men and women together must challenge the false assumptions that keep any person from being all that God intended.

Clark D. Morphew