Henderson history: Southern Baptists created storm by calling for wives to submit

Frank Boyett
·8 min read
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For well over a century Southern Baptists have argued about whether women could be called as pastors. But it wasn’t until the end of the 20th Century that the denomination’s statement of beliefs explicitly prohibited that.

The denomination’s annual conference in 1998 in Salt Lake City foreshadowed that ban by adopting language that it characterized as a response to the breakdown of the American family. It was the first time in 35 years there had been a change in the Baptist Faith and Message – the core concepts of what it means to be a Southern Baptist.

The new language said marriage was only for heterosexuals and castigated such things as abortion and divorce, but the change that caused the biggest stir was the section calling on wives to submit to their husbands. Here is the language adopted in 1998, which remains unchanged in the current Baptist Faith and Message: “The husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God’s image. The marriage relationship models the way God relates to His people. A husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church. He has the God-given responsibility to provide for, to protect, and to lead his family.

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“A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ. She, being in the image of God as is her husband and thus equal to him, has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household and nurturing the next generation.”

Mary Mohler of Louisville was a member of the committee that drafted the new language, according to The Gleaner of June 11, 1998. She conceded that the word “submit” might be unpopular, “but it is a biblically correct word and that is all that counts.

“I submit to the leadership of my husband in our home, not because it is a command from Al Mohler, but because it is a command from almighty God to me as a Christian woman.”

In 1993 the National Conference of Catholic Bishops had acknowledged that marital roles differ, but “mutual submission, not dominance by either partner, is the key to genuine joy.”

The Southern Baptists rejected a similar mutual-submission amendment.

The Gleaner of June 14, 1998, carried a story where a half-dozen local Baptist ministers were asked whether they agreed with the new language in the Baptist Faith and Message. Most of them did.

The Rev. Bill Patterson, pastor at First Baptist Church, said he thought the language was nothing new and that the whole matter had been blown out of proportion.

“It’s just a restating of traditional Christianity,” he said. “You can go to most Southern Baptist churches and hear that almost any time the family is being talked about. The scripture is very clear on that.”

The Rev. Dan Garland of Zion Baptist Church also said the national convention’s action had been misinterpreted.

“It doesn’t mean that women are inferior or that they should be doormats or put up with abuse,” he said. The idea that women “should grovel at the feet of their husband” is “nonsense,” he said.

“That’s not biblical teaching in my opinion. It’s to be a mutual submission. Each person, husband or wife, submits themselves first to Christ and then to each other,” although the husband “is to be the spiritual leader of the home.”

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The Rev. John Dunaway assumed the pulpit at Community Baptist Church in 1995. That church had been formed the previous year, mostly by people unhappy with the fundamentalist direction Immanuel Baptist Temple had taken. (It is part of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship; the ordination of women was one of the main reasons for the split between the Southern Baptist Conference and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.)

“I don’t approve of what they did; I don’t think it’s realistic,” Dunaway said. “A marriage cannot exist with a kingly role in the marriage. Marriage is a partnership. That’s really what makes a marriage go.”

And the idea that the husband should be the sole breadwinner while the wife stays at home with the kids “is of a generation past. It’s an idealistic concept of a non-working wife.” In the modern world, he said, “there is a necessity for two people to work” to support most households.

The 1998 modifications by the Southern Baptist national convention were followed by further additions in 2000, which specify “the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by scripture.” But no action followed that addition until 2023.

In February of this year the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention ousted five churches that had women in leadership roles. One of them was Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, one of the largest Baptist congregations in the denomination. Another was Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, where the Rev. Linda Barnes Popham has occupied the pulpit since 1993 and was interim pastor for three years before that.

Popham expressed bafflement and anger at her church’s ouster. “It’s like being kicked out of the family,” she told the Baptist Press, noting that her church participates in and contributes to every program of the Southern Baptist Conference. “On another level it makes me very angry because I believe this is happening because of deeds done in darkness. I truly do, and I don’t understand them.”

Several of the ousted churches, including Saddleback and Fern Creek, have appealed their ousters to the national Southern Baptist convention, which will be held June 11-14 in New Orleans.

Popham expressed hope. “We hold fast to the Baptist tenets of the priesthood of the believer and the autonomy of the local church. We think that deeds of darkness need to be exposed.”

100 YEARS AGO

The Gleaner of June 12, 1923, reported the formal organization of the West Kentucky Motor Club, which was an affiliate of the American Automobile Association. The story lists all the club members.

The club had 55 members; a minimum of 50 was required for affiliation with the AAA. Local members could avail themselves of the privileges extended by other AAA affiliates across the country.

This advertisement that appeared in The Gleaner of Feb. 11, 1923, depicts what may have been Henderson's first automotive wrecker. Up until then mules were used to move disabled vehicles. The wrecker was built upon the chassis of a Packard Twin Six, which had America's first V-12 motor in a production vehicle.
This advertisement that appeared in The Gleaner of Feb. 11, 1923, depicts what may have been Henderson's first automotive wrecker. Up until then mules were used to move disabled vehicles. The wrecker was built upon the chassis of a Packard Twin Six, which had America's first V-12 motor in a production vehicle.

One of the main aims of the club was to support improvements of roads and highways. One of the club’s first proposed projects was putting up signposts along all roads in the county.

Organization of the club began in early February, according to the Feb. 11 Gleaner, which also carried an advertisement from Meyer Bros. Motor Co. touting what may have been the county’s first motorized wrecker.

Mules were used before that to pull vehicles out of mudholes.

The first wrecker was built upon the chassis of a Packard Twin Six, which was America’s first production vehicle with a V-12 motor. It displaced 424 cubic inches.

75 YEARS AGO

Henderson’s first television set flickered to light the previous week at 236 Highland Dr., the home of Jack Grimes, according to The Gleaner of June 8, 1948.

The closest station the antenna could pick up was KSD-TV of St. Louis, 160 air miles from Henderson. The set featured a 10-inch screen.

Grimes and Neff Cox of Evansville watched Brooklyn-St. Louis baseball games, followed by a wrestling match that saw Wild Bill Longson defeat “Nature Boy” Buddy Rogers.

The first television seen by most Henderson residents was shortly after that, when Grimes placed a set in the picture window of Henderson Gas Appliance on North Main Street.

Grimes and Cox, later joined by A.S. Henderson, formed a company called Tel-A-Ray Enterprises Inc., which initially manufactured antennas in Zion before moving to a tobacco warehouse in Henderson.

That company was the first to apply for the UHF 50 license from the Federal Communications Commission, although after Tel-A-Ray went out of business that license was obtained by WEHT.

WEHT first began providing programs Sept. 27, 1953. It was the Tri-State’s first TV station, although it was joined within a few weeks by WFIE, which initially broadcast on channel 62.

50 YEARS AGO

Longstanding complaints about flooding in the Lakeland subdivision area prompted three city officials to tour the problem area of Canoe Creek by – what else? Canoes – according to The Gleaner of June 13, 1973.

The three were City Manager John Hefner, City Engineer Ronnie Musgrave and City Commissioner Ralph Hays.

The city had $20,000 budgeted for “ditch maintenance” in the 1973-74 fiscal year. “We decided that the inspection might help us determine way the city could most wisely spend the money we have budgeted,” Hays said.

The Gleaner of July 28, 1973, reported that an experimental project costing $4,187 was to begin the following week to clear 680 feet. More extensive work followed in the mid-1970s, but the problem wasn’t really solved until work that began 2006-07.

Readers of The Gleaner can reach Frank Boyett at YesNews42@yahoo.com or on Twitter at @BoyettFrank.

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Henderson history: Southern Baptists created storm by calling for wives to submit