Acting on a recommendation by the Southern Baptist Convention Credentials Committee, the SBC Executive Committee voted Feb. 18 to disfellowship Ranchland Heights Baptist Church of Midland, Texas, from the SBC because of its employment of a lifetime registered sex offender as pastor.

Phillip Rutledge, who was convicted in 2003 of aggravated sexual assault charges against two girls, has been pastor at Ranchland Heights since 2016.

SBC Executive Committee president and CEO Ronnie Floyd commended the committee’s strong action.

“We have spoken against matters of sexual abuse, and we have taken some major, demonstrative steps as a convention of churches,” Floyd said. “Also, churches are being equipped more effectively in matters related to sexual abuse. … Today, we’ve seen this process in action with the disfellowshipping of (Ranchland Heights).”

Through a change in SBC bylaws, messengers to the 2019 SBC annual meeting revised the function of the Credentials Committee, allowing it to receive reports of a church’s suspected departure from Southern Baptist polity, doctrine or practice and to make recommendations to the Executive Committee regarding the possible disfellowship of churches from the SBC. Ranchland Heights is the first church disfellowshipped in the process.