Why are Southern Baptists still arguing about women preachers?

The Southern Baptist Convention’s credentials committee had a problem.

It had been asked to determine whether or not to expel one of the denomination’s largest churches for violating the SBC’s ban on women serving as pastors. But the committee could not agree on what the word “pastor” meant in a rule that said only man can be pastors. Did it refer to the church’s senior pastor? Or did it mean any role with the title of pastor — such as a music pastor, youth pastor or children’s pastor?

The committee asked the messengers, or local delegates, at the denomination’s 2022 annual meeting for help. What the committee got was an earful instead.

Religion & Politics

Photos of the Week: Ramadan begins; Carnival celebrations

As the sun sets, Palestinians sit at a large table surrounded by the rubble of destroyed homes and buildings as they gather for iftar, the fast-breaking meal, on the first day of Ramadan in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Saturday, March 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

In Opinion

And finally, Smoke and Shiva: Young Hindus observe deity's 'great night' as a high holiday

A few minutes before midnight on Wednesday (Feb. 26), under the strobe light of the dance floor of a Queens bar, a man dressed as the Hindu deity Lord Shiva performed the Tandava — a vigorous dance meant to evoke Shiva’s spiritual realm: the cosmic cycles of creation, preservation and dissolution. Onlookers steeped in liquor and weed smoke seemed to recognize the divine as they watched with wonderment and confusion.

The ancient ritual of Mahashivaratri, or “the great night of Shiva,” has long been celebrated by drinking bhang — milk infused with cannabis — and pulling an all-nighter to access the upsurge of cosmic energy that is believed to pour from the heavens due to an alignment of celestial bodies.

At Thamel Bar, a Nepalese hangout in Woodside, Queens, the veneration of the god of destruction and creation, one of the supreme deities of Hinduism, had taken on some aspects of a rave, with a D.J. playing American pop hits and soundtracks from Nepali film classics, while out back a group of revelers passed around a chillum, a clay pipe of a kind used by sadhus, or Hindu holy men, since the 18th century to smoke marijuana in the pursuit of higher consciousness and ananda (divine bliss).

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