The Only Way to End the Debate About Women Pastors in the SBC is to Pass and Ratify the Law-Sanchez Amendment. Again.
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.”
With all due respect to Shakespeare and King Henry V, here we are again in the SBC. That’s right, we Southern Baptists have to discuss the Law-Sanchez Amendment for the third Annual Meeting in a row.
What should have been ratified last summer at the Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, and already helping guide the Credential Committee in enforcing our Baptist commitments, was not approved.
Now, to be clear, the Law-Sanchez Amendment did receive a substantial majority vote two years in a row. However, it fell just short of the supermajority required for adoption on the second vote.
This was due to the clever work of those who assured us (and convinced just enough of the voting messengers) that it was unnecessary or that there was some ulterior motive behind the push for the Amendment that should be rejected. Thus, it did not clear the 66% threshold.
The Amendment died. Or so we thought. I will mention that Willy Rice tried to warn us that, whatever happened, it wasn’t going away. Prophetic.
But now it is 2025, and we’re having the same discussions. We are making the same arguments. The ones that guys like me have been making for over two years. See “A Taxonomy of Bad Arguments Against the Law-Sanchez Amendment” and “On Secondary Issues and Cooperation in the SBC.”
Even though dozens of articles have been written on this debate and two votes taken, we are now having to re-enter the same discussion that preoccupied the last few conventions. Whether we like it or not, or are tired of it or not.
So, why is this STILL an issue? Well, the thing we were promised by many would not happen because “the system works just fine” happened. It happened just as many of us had predicted: The Credentials Committee refused to take action against New Spring Church, a blatantly egalitarian church, which was in open violation of the Baptist Faith & Message 2000.
And it happened not because “the troublemakers at a bunch of small churches” brought it up, but because the SBC Credentials Committee failed to handle a relatively straightforward case. A case that mirrored one already decided by the committee and the convention (Saddleback Church). This was a slam dunk, a softball, an easy opportunity for the committee to show that all those “small church troublemakers” were alarmists and the Law-Sanchez Amendment was unnecessary. Yet they botched it. They fumbled the ball. They tripped on the way to that slam dunk.
Why did they mess up? Well, many reasons could be given, but I do not want to impugn the motives or abilities of the Credentials Committee through speculation. Suffice it to say they did not do their job well, and they obviously would have been helped by more precise instructions, as they previously requested and as the Law-Sanczhez Amendment was intended to give.
The goal of the Amendment was never to cause problems, but to help make this process more transparent, effective, and faithful to our confession of faith (which is sorely needed), and to prevent us from having this discussion every single summer until Jesus returns.
As one SBC pastor helpfully summarized the state of play, the system is broken, and now we know that beyond a shadow of a doubt: “We were told the system works. That turned out to be false. The system is broken. It failed—not ‘years down the road,’ but at its very first test post-law. If we were to assume the best, then yes, the system is obviously broken. The Credentials Committee is failing at its most basic task…Clearly, we needed the Law Amendment to provide the clarity and instruction that was its purpose.”
In response to the Credentials Committee’s actions (or lack thereof), on March 4, Juan Sanchez released an open letter to the SBC informing us that he, along with the signers of the letter, would make a motion to lead a “renewed effort to amend the SBC Constitution.”
Sanchez clarified that they “are not offering new language but are supporting an effort to adopt the same language that a majority of the last two conventions wanted to be passed.” And, because this same language has been debated for over two years now, they “do not believe that we need to spend another year waiting for the Executive Committee to decide whether to put the amendment before the convention for a vote.”
As such, he will ask the Convention to vote with him to “suspend” a rule that would refer the Amendment to the Executive Committee, allowing it to languish for another year, and bring it out for a first vote immediately. You can read his letter and the strategy in its entirety below.
What do we do now? Well, we do the obvious: Pass the Law-Sanchez Amendment.
Why? For the same reasons we argued for passing and ratifying it before, and because it is clear, even to former opponents, that it is necessary.
For the sake of clarity of our doctrinal convictions, it is necessary.
For the sake of teaching churches with muddy or undefined ecclesiological convictions, it is necessary.
For the sake of the Credentials Committee not making mistakes on easy decisions, it is necessary.
For the sake of our faithfulness to God’s Word, it is necessary.
No argument against it has ever held much weight. Even less so now when the failures of the Credentials Committee are so stark.
So, in Dallas, what do we do? Well, “the game’s afoot.” There will be those who continue to oppose and undermine it. There will be those who try to confuse and obstruct. They were successful in 2024, and it must not be so in 2025.
In Dallas, to quote Henry V (via Shakespeare), we must “set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit, to his full height.”
We must go into Dallas with steel spines and resolved spirits to do what is right. Not to cause trouble, but to do what is beneficial for the SBC.
So, on, you noblest Southern Baptists! Let’s put this battle to rest by passing the Law-Sanchez Amendment and delivering the clarity we so desperately need to defend our Confession and move forward as a Convention.
