Current Events and Women - Cynthia Hester, DMin

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Disfellowshipped Churches, Rick Warren, the SBC, and Women Pastors: Part II

by Cynthia Hester| April 3, 2023

Does the Bible direct the exclusion of women from a pastoral role? Let’s put this hotly debated question under the microscope in Part II of “Disfellowshipped Churches, Rick Warren, the SBC, Women Pastors.” An influential SBC pastor writes, “Abiding women in the pastoral office materially harms the work of the Convention because it cultivates disunity where we have long been united. It contaminates the soil of our Convention with distrust of and disobedience to the Scriptures.” I’ll recap this description of sisters-in-the-faith: Women pastors “harm the work,” “cultivate disunity,” and “contaminate the soil” because of “disobedience to the Scriptures.” Truly?

Disfellowshipped Churches, Rick Warren, the SBC, and Women Pastors: Part I

by Cynthia Hester| March 19, 2023

“What changed my mind was scripture,” said author and retired Southern Baptist pastor Rick Warren, to explain why he changed his mind and now affirms women serving as church pastors. In this article, I’ll connect the dots between disfellowshipped churches, Rick Warren, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), and women pastors.

For those of you who are not a Southern Baptist, don’t attend an SBC church, or haven’t followed the recent happenings in the SBC (the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.), please keep reading because this conversation broadens to a discussion about women, the Bible, and the disagreement among complementarians and egalitarians over women pastors.

In Church Leadership: Where Are the Women?

by Cynthia Hester| January 2, 2023

\"When my daughter was in fifth grade, we visited my home church in Oakland, it was communion Sunday, and the preacher—male—got up and preached the sermon, then after the sermon, 12 men in their dark suits came forward to serve communion. And my daughter—fifth grade—leans over to me and she says, \"Dad, where are the women?\"

We Connected Through Twitter: My Interview with Egalitarian Marg Mowczko

by Cynthia Hester| July 14, 2021

I logged into Twitter early one April morning to tweet a request for ideas on Christian egalitarian women to interview. To my delight, Marg Mowczko (pronounced “Moss-Koh”) reached out and offered an interview. I’d previously read several of her blog articles, but we’d never before met or spoken. After arranging a Texas to Australia connection, Marg joined me via Facetime from her home in New South Wales.