Posted on 06/12/2023 10:20:58 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Ahead of the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in New Orleans this week, Saddleback Church founder Rick Warren stressed that he agrees with all of the denomination’s beliefs — except for its stance on women pastors.
“The SBC Constitution was changed in 2015 after 170yrs of Baptist cooperation. Now churches must be ‘CLOSELY’ identified with our confession. NOT ‘completely’ Our BF&M2000 is 4,032 words. We disagree with only 1 word: men. We're 99.9999999999% in agreement! Is that CLOSE ENOUGH?” Warren tweeted on Sunday.
"I'm not making this stuff up," he added on Monday. "This is the history of the SBC: After growing for 80 YEARS without any Confession of faith, Southern Baptists grew for another 90 years with a 'Consensus of Opinion' Confession which was never used to exclude churches. It was a 'Guide for Interpretation' ... the Founders never intended for our Convention to be defined or unified by a man-made compilation of doctrinal statements. The Bible itself was enough."
Warren’s tweet came just before he is scheduled to appear before thousands of Southern Baptists at their Annual Meeting held in New Orleans, Louisiana, this week and appeal the SBC’s decision to cut ties with Saddleback Church due to “the church continuing to have a female teaching pastor functioning in the office of a pastor.”
The move came after Pastor Andy Wood, who succeeded retiring Warren at Saddleback, listed his wife, Stacie, as a "pastor" in his biography on the prominent California megachurch's website in October 2022. And on May 7, Katie Edwards, one of the three women ordained at Saddleback in 2021, was announced as the Lake Forest campus pastor.
Launched in 1980 by Warren, Saddleback Church had grown to become the second-largest Southern Baptist church in the U.S. with 57,000 members, planting numerous churches in the U.S. and four campuses overseas.
Since retiring as Saddleback’s leader a year ago, Warren has openly discussed how his views on the role of women in the Church have changed over the years, often drawing criticism from more conservative leaders within the SBC.
The denomination holds to the belief that the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture, as outlined in its Faith and Message Statement.
Earlier this month, Warren launched a website in which he addresses what he sees as challenges within the SBC and makes arguments for women pastors.
In his first video, Warren said he changed his views after three years of scriptural study and now believes women can serve in any role in the church, including as pastors.
He weighed in on complementarianism, the theological framework that says women have distinct roles in the family and church and are forbidden from holding certain offices in the church, and egalitarianism, which contends that Scripture does not warrant such restrictions.
“There are biblical alternatives to both complementarianism and egalitarianism,” he said. “And while both of those positions have strengths, they both, in my opinion, have unbiblical weaknesses, and they ignore important Bible verses. So actually, I'm neither. I'm neither one of them, I reject them both. Now, if you're honest, you'll have to admit that Paul often says things about women in Scripture that appeared to contradict each other. So tell me what you want to believe … and I'll show you the verses you have to ignore or rationalize away.”
In an earlier tweet on Sunday, Warren published an open letter to Christian women apologizing for holding them back “from using the spiritual gifts and leadership skills that the Holy Spirit had sovereignly placed in them.” He said his “biggest regret” in 53 years of ministry is that he “didn’t do my own personal exegesis sooner on the four passages used to restrict women.”
“Shame on me,” he wrote, adding that he felt compelled to “repent” for his earlier teaching regarding the role of women in the church after “reading over 100 books on the early church and the history of the Great Commission.”
Warren said he doesn’t “expect to win” the appeal in New Orleans, nor does he expect to “change the mind of any angry fundamentalist.”
“They are responsible to God, not to me. I’m doing this as an act of obedience to the Holy Spirit,” he wrote.
“Regardless of attacks and the vote result, I want a clear conscience before my Master ... that I repented, and that this sinner did what he asked me to do. With that, I am completely content to let Him be the judge and evaluator of my life and ministry. We must live for an Audience of One.”
In addition to Saddleback, the SBC cut ties with four other churches due to their stance on women in church leadership: Calvary Baptist Church in Jackson, Mississippi; Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky; New Faith Mission Ministry in Griffin, Georgia; and St. Timothy's Christian Baptist Church in Baltimore, Maryland.
Fern Creek Baptist Church, which has been led by the Rev. Linda Barnes Popham since 1993, also plans to appeal the decision at this week’s meeting.
Sorry Rick. I’m not buying.
Thanks for that. Curent church I’m going to has an incredible mix and emotional joy but lacks in serious teaching through the bible.
There are a few female pastors and teachers and I tune out. Men need male leadership.
The church needs to hear cut and dry, black and white discipline and objective spiritual planning/goals/outlook.
I’ll grant women make good leaders in many capacities but when you’re in a spiritual battle I want a strong decisive man leading.
signed CK, a spiritual man who is trying NOT to compromise in these last days
“Yep, no greater authority than a feminist Bible ‘scholar’.”
I notice that you do not challenge her work.
“I am not a theologian and can’t comment”
You don’t have to be a theologian to read. 1 Corinthians 14:34-35:
“Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak;”
Word is that Warren has maybe only 10% support. And in a Baptist — any Bible-believing - organization, that’s 10% too much.
“Paul was quite clear about women pastors.”
Actually, it was God who was quite clear. Paul was His tool.
I was trying to make a larger argument, and that's for reading the Bible exegetically instead of eisegetically. The "ex" version means without your own bias. It's very analogous to Clarence Thomas reading the Constitution as an originalist. What exactly does the Bible say on the subject, in what context, and what the original language meant at the time, etc. Bible verses we think say one thing, often when we stop and remove our modern cultural biases and read it again looking up the definitions of the original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic words and what those words meant 2,000 to 3,500 years ago, we realize the verses say something else. Or perhaps don't say anything at all on the topic we thought they did.
I'd rather "win" by encouraging all of my fellow Christians to read the Bible like addicts exegetically, than agree with me on any one particular issue (i.e. female pastors). I encourage that knowing that there's no way we can all agree, particularly on things that are pretty vague in the Bible. But hopefully, one thing that comes out of it is we fuss less on the stuff that doesn't matter (again, on what's vague in the Bible) because we focus on things that the unbiased reading is clear about.
IMHO if God wanted us being led in the churches by women He would have sent us his daughter. But He didn’t- He sent us his son.
I get you. and I’m NOT against women leading in the church. My church has female and male pastors. It’s sort of an eclectic mix that works but we are lacking in people like you( myself) who go word by word, verse by verse, chapter by chapter.
And I agree with you on encouragement and opening the bible and learning likening it to Philip and the eunuch in Actsch8:31,And he said, “How can I understand unless a man will instruct me?”
-——————————________________-——————
I let people know women have their place just as Deborah in Judges was raised to lead. One thing is certain is we need strong leaders in the church.
To use a more modern example, the English Standard Version is called the Revised Standard Version for conservatives. The translators used methodology similar to that used by the RSV, but spun controversial passages, such as Isaiah 7:14, which in the ESV reads, " Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." In the RSV, it reads, "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
“The King James translators were instructed to use the Bishops Bible as a basis,”
The King James translators were instructed to edit the Bishops Bible as needed ...
We disagree with only 1 word
= = =
Well, The Bible says Jesus is The Word.
So, . . .
Agree to disagree - I think NOT.
The world 🌎🌍 is being prepared for the debut of Satan’s anti-messiah the Antichrist.
= = =
Hmmm.
Do you think the antichrist might be a woman?
Or maybe even a trans?
My issue with Rick Warren is that he has gone woke to the nth degree.
My mother had him pegged decades ago when Rick Warren told her he doesn’t want to put the word “baptist” in the name of his church because he “didn’t want to alienate people”.
Thank God my mother took a hard pass on his church. Plus, almost everyone I have run into from that church has been a complete delta bravo. The Bible does reference something about, “by their fruits you shall know them”.
heh Dylan Mulvaney
Amen and amen. As a woman, I would not attend a church with female pastors or elders. It is the ruin of many churches today. Not to say that men can’t destroy a church with wokeness but for certain once a woman is running things it’s on the downhill slope.
Rat poison is 99.9999999% good food.
Is that close enough?
Amen.
Absolutely!
YIKES! Didn’t know that!!
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