Carlos (at Jesus Politics) points to an article on Ethics Daily remembering Roy Honeycutt, former President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (which he became while I was an MDiv student there in 1980 when Duke McCall became unable to continue just before his death).
The seminary’s position on women in ministry changed abruptly after Honeycutt’s retirement in 1993. In a news conference shortly after his election, Honeycutt’s successor, Al Mohler, stated opposition to women serving as pastors of congregations.
Mohler’s comments drew criticism from seminary alumni and other supporters of women in ministry. Yet the new president held firm to his position and the seminary began requiring that new professors oppose women serving in pastoral leadership.
Scalise, Davis and Lambert left the seminary just prior to Honeycutt’s retirement or shortly after Mohler’s inauguration. Marshall resigned after Mohler threatened to bring charges that she was teaching outside the seminary’s confessional statement, The Abstract of Principles.
The issue of women serving as pastors later led to the firing of the social work dean and the demise of the social work school, then the nation’s only accredited social work school housed within a theological seminary.