The Southern Baptist Convention voted yesterday to amend its official statement of faith to declare that the Bible bars women from serving as pastors. Although each Baptist congregation is autonomous and the convention cannot stop a local church from ordaining or hiring a woman as pastor, the pronouncement is generally considered an important symbol of the denomination's increasing conservatism.
Critics also see the move as bad marketing.
To Laurence Iannaccone, however, the vote is part of a rational strategy and is not necessarily a sign of greater conservatism. Professor Iannaccone, of Santa Clara University in California, has pioneered the application of economic theory to religion. His research examines how individuals make rational choices among religious alternatives and how religions compete in what is, thanks to the First Amendment, the nation's freest marketplace. Both questions are relevant to the issues faced by the Southern Baptists, a moderately strict denomination that is the nation's largest Protestant group. Strictness can manifest itself in dietary restrictions, distinctive clothing, geographical separation or prohibitions on activities like dancing or drinking.