This article originally appeared at Baptist News Global on June 4, 2026.
The so-called Mohler Amendment to prohibit women from functioning as pastors in Southern Baptist churches is being hailed by his minions as “critical for us at this juncture.”
According to Brian Arnold, pastor of First Baptist Church Paducah, Ky.: “In a day and age of rampant egalitarianism, it is incumbent on us to return to what Scripture and the history of the faith have said on this issue. And it couldn’t be clearer that the office and the title and the function of the pastor belongs to men. … Men alone.”
In his post, Arnold attempts to reassure everyone, “This is not about misogyny, it is about fidelity.”
There is no reasoning with complementarian men over being faithful to what they believe the Bible says. We could quote verses, parse words and discuss ancient culture all we want. But they are the ones who hold the authority to pick and choose how to interpret and enforce the Bible.
“It is a picking and choosing of which verses they decide are universal, universally applicable to folks and which are not,” Baptist Women in Ministry Executive Director Meredith Stone told me on a recent episode of “Highest Power: Church + State.” “It is all about who has the power to make those decisions. They are trying to maintain their power to do that.”
What if Mohler’s “No Girls Allowed” club was about more than his attempt to be faithful to the Bible?
“What if Mohler’s ‘No Girls Allowed’ club was about more than his attempt to be faithful to the Bible?”
Complementarian men have a very simple script. From Adam and Eve, God established a created order that prioritizes male headship and female submission. Men are called to lead families, churches, businesses and governments, with women submitting as their helpers. Like Arnold, they’re very careful to deny any accusations of misogyny.
But when they go off script and speak extemporaneously, they often present their case in a way that reveals ulterior motives we may not have noticed before. In the case of Mohler’s amendment, his presentation last week to the Heritage Foundation reveals that perhaps part of what’s going on here is that his control and exclusion of women is motivated by winning a competition.
A competitive sport for boys
During the Q&A portion of Mohler’s talk, a woman asked him how his presentation applies to education. Then Mohler replied, “When I was a boy, learning was made a competition. In other words, it was a competitive sport. And, I mean, you had an entire educational elite come to the conclusion that that was wrong, morally wrong.”
“I think there was an intentional effort to concentrate away from boys, and I think it’s come with devastating consequences,” Mohler added. “It turns out, you have to put enormous energy into boys or the civilization fails.”
According to Mohler, boys are motivated by competition. The survival of civilization itself hangs on boys competing with one another, trying to gain advantage over one another. So, what if the enormous energy Mohler is pouring into creating male-only spaces in SBC pulpits is also about male competition?
Mohler’s competition with the left
During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Mohler appeared on CNN and asked, “Is it worth destroying our moral credibility to support someone who is beneath the baseline level of human decency for anyone who should deserve our vote?”
He was referring, of course, to Donald Trump.
But then during the 2020 election, Mohler publicly backed Trump “because the alternative is increasingly unthinkable.” That alternative was the devout Catholic Joe Biden. But Biden is a Democrat, and Mohler is a lifelong Republican.
In other words, Mohler’s political competition against the Democrats ultimately took precedence over a candidate’s moral credibility.