As the Southern Baptists prepare for their meeting next week in Nashville, the various churches that make up the Southern Baptist Convention stand at a crossroads in coming to terms with questions regarding the role of women in the church and how to address racial issues, USA Today reports.

The Convention, which has seen a steep decline in member over the last 15 years, is again facing a cleave due to conflicting opinions caused by a shift some member churches have taken to elevate women into leadership position and to teach critical race theory.

The official position of the Convention is that women cannot be pastors in the church, relegating them to support roles.  But some larger congregations, including the high-profile Saddleback Church in California, have ordained female pastors, forcing the national organization to rethink its positions.

While the Convention has condemned racism and the sins of slavery over the past quarter century, it’s been faced with a reluctance to condemn modern racist organizations like the alt-right.  A 2017 vote by messengers, the local churches representatives to the Convention, took two rounds of votes to pass a resolution to condemn far-right groups.

That hesitation led to scores of primarily Black-led churches to leave the Convention.

The ultra-conservative wing of the Convention, which currently holds many of the top offices, has pushed away some of the moderate churches by bringing then-Vice President Mike Pence in to speak in 2018 and by condemning critical race theory as antithetical to the teachings of the Bible.

The division has an impact far beyond the preaching from the pulpit.  Southern Baptists run more than four dozen colleges and universities around the US, as well as hundreds of el-hi schools.  Staff, including administrators and faculty, must adhere to the Convention’s teachings in order to be hired.