Al Mohler says ‘confusion’ over role of ‘pastor’ threatens future of SBC

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Tuesday, April 21, 2026

The ongoing “confusion” over who is a “pastor” in the Southern Baptist Convention, which the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 reserves only for men, is a threat to the future of the denomination and needs to be settled, warns Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Al Mohler.

“I think we’ve reached a breaking point. I’m hearing from pastors and Baptist leaders all over, just saying, you know, we have got to move forward. I still believe that the most effective way to deal with this is with a bylaw amendment, such as was proposed to the SBC and received clear support but not enough to reach the bylaw majority requirement,” Mohler said in an April 16 video statement posted on YouTube titled “A Call for Southern Baptists to End the Confusion Over the Office of Pastor.” 

Mohler’s statement comes just weeks before the annual meeting of the SBC set for June 7–10 in Orlando, Florida. It also comes less than a year since the SBC failed to pass a motion to prohibit member churches from employing women in any pastor role.  

The failed motion at last year’s annual meeting, which was proposed by Juan Sanchez of High Pointe Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, sought to amend the SBC Constitution’s Article 3, Paragraph 1 to include a sixth item requiring churches to have “only men as any kind of pastor or elder as qualified by Scripture.” 

Even though the SBC Baptist Faith and Message 2000 already states that only men should serve in the office of pastor, the proposed measure would have directed the SBC Credentials Committee on how this standard should be implemented.

The motion needed a two-thirds majority (66%) of votes from messengers to pass, and it received 3,421 messenger votes, or 60.74%. Some 2,191 (38.9%) of the messengers who voted opposed it.

In his statement Thursday, Mohler said “the overwhelming majority of Southern Baptists are absolutely clear, and have been all along, that the office of pastor is restricted to men as qualified by Scripture,” and they want the ongoing “confusion” over the office of pastor settled.

“I think it’s also important that we have a statement ... from the convention of its affirmation and of its conviction on this issue by any and every means possible,” Mohler said.

He also called on the SBC Credentials Committee to take action toward settling the issue.

“We really need a credentials committee to take action since it’s been invested in them that this right now has been put in their court. We need them to show how they’re going to deal with this efficiently so that these matters don’t always end up on the floor of the SBC,” he continued.

“I think with a consensus that actually helps to build and enrich and extend the Southern Baptist Convention, its reach, its mission, its purpose. I think the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention are really clear on this matter,” he added. “Where there’s confusion, it’s our responsibility in this generation to clarify it. The confusion has gone on to the point in which I think it really is very dangerous to the future of the Southern Baptist Convention.”