To my knowledge, Baylor is the only place that tries to use the BFM with the 1998 family amendment rather than the BFM 1963 or the BFM 2000.

In the attempt to handle a problem, decision-makers created another. Baylor cherry-picked a document to find a statement on marriage, but that same document also says women should submit graciously to their husbands. Again, anyone with knowledge of recent Baptist history knows the 1998 amendment is a core agenda piece in the BFM 2000 creed which capped its restrictive views on women by asserting that a senior pastor could only be male. Said another way, to cite the 1998 amendment on marriage is to invite observers to connect you to the 2000 capstone document.

Baylor’s appeal to the BFM is fraught with problems. Southern Baptist leaders claim that their creed only restricts women in the home and the church. Women can lead in the political realm (so it was OK to vote for Sarah Palin). But such a compartmentalized reading of the Christian life is an Achilles heel. At a university where the integration of faith and learning is paramount, where Christian faith is found all over campus, are we really suggesting that a president, a provost and a Board of Regents chair — all obviously highly qualified women — are not participating in spiritual, vocational leadership? Yet, we are citing a creed from which we distanced ourselves long ago.