6.1 conclusion  (Page 2/8)

He goes further to predict that as society grants additional rights to women, Baptists will do the same. ^Ibid.

Should we conclude, therefore, that biblical ideology did not influence the changes that affected the women who subscribed to it? It does appear that proof texts became less influential during this period; increasingly actions were rationalized on a pragmatic or economic basis. Still, however, Baptist women's belief system shaped the speed with which they accepted certain alterations in role, and it remained important for them to continue to feel that their actions were supported by the teachings of the Bible. Martin Marty, in A Nation of Behavers , recognizes the importance of doctrinal orthodoxy in providing for its numerous adherents a means of establishing identity and stability in the face of the complexity of the culture. Evangelicals like Baptists, he affirms, are successful because they are both idealistic and worldly.

Martin E. Marty, A Nation of Behavers (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1976), pp. 104-105.

The parts of the Bible that remained most authoritative and formed guidelines for behavior for Baptist women were the portions that assigned men the headship of the family and the church, thereby implying an inferior status for women. These two arenas of male privilege—the domestic and the religious—have been among the last to be altered by the liberation of women. Not until the 1960s, with the second wave of feminist activism, have they begun to move toward real parity. On these two fronts, biblical literalists are being dragged slowly by the culture toward sexual equality. They still have an anchor firmly implanted in the biblical tradition of sexual hierarchy—as has our national subconscious.

The Southern Baptist denomination in Texas, as well as its women, moved obviously in the direction of the general culture during the decades around 1900. These shifts carried them away from their tradition of atomized individualism toward conforming with the majority and with the culture at large. The changes were exemplified in the denominational establishment of centralized state bureaucracies and a southern-wide power structure that enlisted members and congregations to support corporate goals and projects. Every age group of the denomination was organized for mission causes, and programs in all aspects of church life were standardized.