Osler's Razor

For the first time, Texas Baptists, through the Baptist General Convention of Texas, have elected a woman as their president. And not just any woman, either, but Joy Fenner, a wonderful and accomplished missionary whom I have gotten to know through our service together on a planning committee for the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant.

Joy started out as a church secretary in Marshall, and then was a missionary in Japan for 13 years. She has served the Convention well in a variety of jobs prior to this one. In my own experiences with her (in our six-hour planning meetings) I have found that she is warm, judicious, and wise.

Meanwhile, some are predicting that Joy's election will widen the rift between the BGCT and the Southern Baptist Convention, which in 2000 turned against the idea of women in the ministry and has expelled both female students and faculty from the ministry programs at SBC seminaries. Most recently, the SBC-controlled Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth started a new "homemaking program" exclusively for women to reinforce what they see as biblical family and gender roles.

As for me... I'm with Joy.