Posted on 05/19/2024 11:23:24 AM PDT by Morgana
Almost five years after hiring The Rev. Tony Lowden as its first black lead pastor, Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia, where former President Jimmy Carter is a member, has hired The Rev. Ashley Guthas as its first woman pastor.
The 2023 McAfee School of Theology graduate, whose hiring was first reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, previously served as associate minister to families with children and youth at Northside Drive Baptist Church in Atlanta. She is a divorcee who says she still feels "uneasy labeling myself as a pastor."
Northside Drive Baptist Church announced her hiring last August, highlighting her significant experience working with youth ministries in Methodist and Baptist churches and marketing at Chick-fil-A.
An official at Maranatha Baptist Church told The Christian Post Thursday that the church deacons authorized to speak on Guthas' hiring were not immediately available for comment.
In a note to Northside Drive Baptist on April 12, Guthas, a mother of two daughters, said she decided to resign from that congregation after being relentlessly pursued by Maranatha Baptist Church. She thanked the congregation for its encouragement, saying it took her years to "let go of the theological views that insisted women could not lead."
"Just months before I became a part of the family here, I was enduring the most difficult transition of my life. As I weighed the pros and cons of each job offer, I narrowed it down to two. One was to be the associate minister here and the other was to be the senior pastor of Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, GA," Guthas wrote. "Through prayer and seeking the advice of many trusted voices in my life, I believed that the best decision at that tumultuous time was to choose to be here with you."
But when she informed Maranatha of her decision, she said they asked her to "consider coming the following year."
"I did not ask them to put their search on hold. I told them I didn't even know what the next day held, much less the next year. However, Maranatha did not relent," she explained.
Guthas, who detailed her struggle with the idea of women pastors to Northside congregants only a month earlier, said she couldn't shake the feeling that she was called to lead as a pastor.
"As much as I do not wish for yet another year of major transition for me and my daughters, I cannot shake the stirring I sense in my soul that I am called to pastor," she said. "It has taken many years for me to let go of the theological views that insisted women could not lead. Many of you have offered words that have encouraged me in this calling, and you had no idea of the wrestling taking place inside of me."
Guthas officially resigned from Northside Drive Baptist Church on April 28.
"I ask for your prayers. Candidly, I seem to carry so many emotions within me regarding this calling. It is no small thing that a Baptist church, only recently separated from the Southern Baptist Convention, is calling a woman to be their pastor," she added in her note to Northside Drive Baptist.
"Thank you for allowing me to serve alongside of you. I know I have grown in my time here and though my time was much shorter than I would have ever imagined, I earnestly hope that I have helped some of you grow as well."
Carter, 99, is the oldest living U.S. president and has been in hospice care for over a year. His wife, Rosalynn, died last November at age 96.
In 2000, Carter cut ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, citing the adoption of increasingly "rigid" views. He continued to teach Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church and encouraged the church to send half its mission contribution to another Baptist church network, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
The SBC's 2000 Baptist Faith & Message statement states that "the office of pastor/elder/overseer is limited to men as qualified by Scripture." Carter stated that he agreed with the adherence to the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message.
"I personally feel the Bible says all people are equal in the eyes of God," Carter told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution at the time. "I personally feel that women should play an absolutely equal role in service of Christ in the church."
My late dad worked at a mental hospital as an ordly he walked around asking residents hey you want to pee nut
The downfall of the churches.
Who’s surprised, seriously?
I’m surprised people attend the church. Why don’t they leave and go to one that is not this crazy?
You all seem to find a church that is not nutso how come these people can’t or won’t?
Women have roles and serve in churches but senior pastor shouldn’t be one of them.
I have no issue with women preachers, and have always found it ironic that Catholics who have the biggest hangup about this, have no issue praying to Mary.
“Women have roles and serve in churches but senior pastor shouldn’t be one of them.”
I agree.
It is what it is the churches are where they are at.
Jimmy Carter spoke of men committing adultery in their hearts and judging those whose sexual sin was out in the open for everyone to see.
He had quite a few words to say to Playboy back in 1976 but I guess the “Christian Men” just wanted to look at the pictures.
Because those kind of chruches are not a rock concert, or a social club, or and activites camp, or make anyone “feel bad” by sometimes discussing the reality of people, and our failings, our need to fight ourselves and do better (not perfect, but better, and not in order to earn salvation but out of gratitude for what God’s done for us), and that means honest introspection and examination of ourselves, and its not pretty or fun.
“I personally feel”, summarizes a major problem with many US churches. It is all about their feelings, instead of God’s word.
I grew up Baptist and they had a hang up about it. Some of them still do. The IFB’s and others like them.
Also when I was growing up I never knew of any female pastors. In fact the first one I ever heard of was around 1994 at a local Presbyterian Church. That was rare and we were shocked. Now they are commonplace.
How stylish.
Christian men often turn to porn because christian women don’t uphold their parts of the marriage contract. Not only about sex, but they recognize him as head of the house and treat him with respect. Alienation or withholding of affection is grounds for divorce. Sex in marriage is a given. They shut it down on a guy and now hes trapped in a sexless or dead-wife sex marriage. Thats not good for either of them in the marriage. Wives wthholding sex from husbands is like husbands withholding non-sex romance/emotion from wives.
Is she a lesbian? She should be a lesbian.
Its the bare minimum for the new woke Christianity.
I have to admit a preference for a man as pastor, I don’t know why exactly, maybe just because it is what I am used to? no idea.
Paul did.
When even the Baptists start yielding, yup, we’re doomed. I really don’t mind a female pastor...but given the woke rule book, this usually means that sex will overpower anything else when it comes to choosing a new minister.
Back when the Bible was followed. The qualification of pastor is within the text of the scriptures. A woman as a pastor is unscriptural.
“I grew up Baptist and they had a hang up about it. Some of them still do.”
The ones that follow Scripture still do. “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak” It can’t get much clearer than that.
If they read that, and still do it, then they can read about murder, etc., and do that, too. Cherry-picking the Bible...
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