Georgia Baptists divided over female pastors

ROME, Ga. — Katrina Brooks always felt a calling from God but wasn't sure how to fulfill it.

A Baptist, Brooks spent years as a hospital chaplain and assisting her husband in his ministerial duties but never felt completely satisfied in those roles. It wasn't until she was in her late 30s that she realized she wanted to lead a congregation.

"I tried very hard to fill out my call as a pastor through being a wife and a mother and through other staff positions" before she determined three years ago that her calling was to become a senior pastor, said Brooks, now 41.

But Brooks' ministry has stirred up debate among Baptists in Georgia: It's not the first time the work of a female pastor has done so.

Women have long been a rarity among Southern Baptist clergy, and the 2000 revision of the Baptist Faith & Message, the denomination's chief doctrinal statement, took a hard line on female pastors.

It declared that "the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture," based on a conservative interpretation of biblical passages such as 1 Timothy 2:11-14 ("I permit no woman to teach or have authority over men").

Some think the 2000 statement allows for women chaplains, but it certainly opposes women leading congregations as pastors. Under Baptist governance, the statement is not binding upon local associations or individual congregations, each of which must debate whether to follow the national body's lead.

Despite resistance from conservative Southern Baptists, Brooks enrolled in the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, Va., a school outside control of the Southern Baptist Convention, then found a church that would welcome both her and her husband, Tony, as co-pastors. North Broad Baptist Church in Rome invited the couple to lead its congregation last November.

Soon after becoming the only female senior pastor of an existing Southern Baptist church in Georgia, Brooks quickly learned that she wasn't welcome by everyone. Two weeks after arriving in Rome, several clergy called meetings of the Floyd County Baptist Association to discuss the issue of female pastors.

The association, which had not yet adopted the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message, suddenly was faced with a motion to vote on it — a move that Katrina and Tony Brooks believe was directed at them, although clergy in support of the statement insist it was simply a matter of aligning the local group with the regional and state conventions.