Since its pastor is a woman, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) expelled Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in California on Tuesday. A popular Christian leader and author, Warren have achieved widespread success with his work.
Less than a year after Warren’s farewell sermon as senior pastor, the Saddleback Executive Committee elected to replace Warren with lead pastor Andy Wood and his wife Stacie, who serves as a teaching pastor.
Jared Wellman, chairman of the Southern Baptist Convention’s executive committee, said in a statement to The Daily Wire that the convention has expelled the 43-year-old megachurch because of its continued employment of a female pastor and the resulting “not friendly collaboration” between the two parties.
In an interview with The Associated Press in 2016, Wood said that “the Bible teaches that men and women were given spiritual abilities by God.”
For Wood, the church must be a place where men and women may share their spiritual gifts. My dearest wife was blessed with the ability to impart spiritual wisdom via her teaching. For someone to remark that she is a more effective preacher than I am is a huge compliment.
Warren also violated Biblical principles and Article VI of the Baptist Faith and Message when he consecrated three women as pastors in May of 2021, which was the basis for the first motion to expel the church from the SBC.
Since “both men and women are endowed for service in the church,” it states that only “males as qualified by Scripture” can serve as pastors.
After his ex-communication from Saddleback Church on Tuesday, Warren took to Twitter to express gratitude to those who stood with him.
It means a lot to me to have lovely friends all across the world. That’s exactly what Warren meant. We’ll address #SBC when and how it suits us, they tweeted.
Under pressure from the SBC’s top brass, Warren severed ties with Saddleback during the denomination’s annual meeting that June.
Why are we arguing about something if it doesn’t have any bearing on the situation? That’s exactly what Warren meant. Or are we going to make sure that the important stuff doesn’t get lost in the shuffle?
During the same gathering, Warren was reportedly quoted as saying, “I think a pastor’s gift is separate from the pastoral job.”
Women, according to complementarians, should serve in ministry under the supervision of a male pastor, but they should not be in positions of main leadership since it is unhealthy, contrary to biblical principles, and might lead the congregation away from the essential doctrines of the Bible.
Everyone who follows their social media accounts can tell that they are moving in that direction, a source told The Daily Wire.
Four of the five ejected congregations were headed by women pastors.
Baptist churches in Griffin, Georgia’s New Faith Mission Ministries, Baltimore, Maryland’s St. Timothy’s Christian Baptist, Jackson, Mississippi’s Calvary Baptist Church, and Louisville, Kentucky’s Fern Creek Baptist Church are all good examples.
“a lack of purpose to help in resolving challenges around a sexual assault charge,” Wellman, head of the SBC executive committee, was quoted as saying by the Tennessean.
According to Wellman’s interview with The Daily Wire, the choice to collaborate with these churches “was not taken lightly” because of their long history of mutual respect and cooperation. Despite this, we are nevertheless dedicated to the tenets of the Southern Baptist Convention and to fostering a spirit of unity among its member churches.
“We are offended by the false charges, which are defamatory,” Pastor Richard Demsick of Freedom Church told The Tennessean.
It is also true, he said, that “no sexual abuse reports” had been made. Proverbs say that erroneous information has spread widely due to rumors.
The Justice Department is looking into charges of sexual abuse within the Southern Baptist Church, as was stated by convention officials last year. Around 14 million people call themselves Southern Baptists, and the denomination’s more than 47,000 congregations may be found in all 50 states.
Accusations of sexual assault against male clergy members, church employees, and authorities have grown since the year 2000, according to an outside expert cited by The New York Times.
The consultant discovered that “for over two decades, survivors of abuse and other concerned Southern Baptists had been calling the Southern Baptist Convention to report child molesters and other abusers who were in the pulpit or employed by the church staff.”
Some victims said that their attempts to contact authorities by phone, mail, email or in-person meetings and protests were greeted with “opposition, stonewalling, and even downright hostility.”
Church leaders are still “grieving and lamenting past misdeeds,” but the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has promised to “fully and cooperate” with the probe.
All six congregations will have a voice at this year’s annual meeting of the SBC in New Orleans in June when they can protest the organization’s decision.