An Old Post with Current Meaning

At its 2009 Annual Meeting held last week in Woodstock, the Georgia Baptist Convention (GBC) voted to return any contributions received from the First Baptist Church of Decatur, a move that effectively ends the relationship between that church and the convention. The reason that the GBC took this step is that FBC Decatur called a woman, Rev. Julie Pennington-Russell, as pastor, a move that, in the GBC's judgment, puts the church outside the parameters of a "cooperating church."

After the 2008 GBC Annual Meeting in Jonesboro, when the GBC adopted a policy that pretty clearly was pointing in the direction of this year's move, I wrote a post entitled What If the Georgia Baptist Convention Decided to Be Consistent? that I think is still pertinent.