Where have we heard those words before? Those strident and defensive words from Southern Baptist leaders who claim full biblical authority for denouncing women as unequal in power and position.

Listen to their words, along with haunting echoes from a tragic and what should be shameful past:

“It’s a matter of biblical commitment, a commitment to the scripture that unequivocally we believe limits the office of pastor to men,” said Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler to his fellow Southern Baptists recently.

“Who are we, that in our modern wisdom presume to set aside the Word of God … and invent for ourselves ‘a higher law …,’” said John Henry Hopkins, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont, in 1864.

“It’s a question of authority. I think that’s what makes people nervous, but the apostle Paul makes that argument, ‘I forbid a woman to have authority over a man …,’” said Mohler in a 2019 podcast as