Gospel Today was snatched from more than 100 Lifeway Christian Bookstore racks because the women on the cover are church pastors, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Chris Turner, a spokesman for Lifeway Resources, which runs the stores for the Southern Baptist Convention, told reporter Christopher Quinn, “It is contrary to what we believe.”
Teresa Hairston, owner of Gospel Today, said she discovered by e-mail that the September/October issue of the magazine had been pulled.
“It’s really kind of sad when you have people like [Gov.] Sarah Palin and [Sen.] Hillary Clinton providing encouragement and being role models for women around the world that we have such a divergent opinion about women who are able to be leaders in the church,” Hairston told Quinn. “I was pretty shocked.”
Southern Baptists are opposed to a woman being the pastor of a local church, but Richard Land told Christianity Today why would they support a woman as vice president.
“Mrs. Thatcher said that her husband was head of her home and she ran the country. Queen Elizabeth said that Prince Phillip was head of the home and she was head of the country. If Mrs. Thatcher had been an American, I would’ve enthusiastically supported her for president of the United States. The only restrictions we find in Scripture are, that for whatever reason women are not to be in charge of a marriage and women are not to be in charge of a church.”
Still, a 2007 survey showed that 44 percent of evangelicals say “Most men are better suited emotionally for politics than most women,” USA Today reports. This is compared to 33 percent of evangelical Protestants, more than other Christians and markedly higher than Jews (29%), other religions (23%), and those with no religion (14%).
Cathy Lynn Grossman notes that Baylor University’s data were gathered in 2007, when Hillary Clinton was seeking the Democratic nomination, but long before Sarah Palin was selected as John McCain’s running mate.
