Rick Warren Apologizes To Women, Admits He Hasn’t Exegeted Scripture in 53 Years
In the hot heat and at risk of being booted from the Southern Baptist Convention over his church’s promotion and proliferation of women pastors, Rick Warren has continued his blistering attempts to upend a hundred and fifty years of Southern Baptist beliefs by seeking to remake the denomination in his own obstreperous image, with the famed braggart who once claimed he added more to the church daily than Jesus did, now offering up an “apology” to women, while at the same time showing what a sad and scurrilous man he is.
Remembering how catastrophically bad a preacher and teacher Rick Warren is doesn’t take much. Famous for peddling to the church the poison and spiritual strychnine that is The Purpose Driven Life for over thirty years- a damaging and unbiblical theology that has seeped into tens of thousands of churches, he was mostly dormant for the last decade but then has reinserted himself into the conversation as a warrior for women preachers.
Saddleback has been the subject of a few controversies over the last few years, after it was uncovered that they have several gay-affirming church leaders on staff who run a gay-affirming ministry for parents of LGBTQ+ children (the same as Andy Stanley’s North Point Church) and for having a “Blacks Only worship service” where no white members were allowed in, so the “black fold” could have a “safe space” to “heal.” They also came under fire after they blasted white Christians for having ‘no discernment’ and accusing them of not caring about black people.
In his public apology, which reads more like a bitter, self-promoting, attention-getting screed than anything, he constantly alludes to his great accomplishments and resourcefulness. He also condemns complementarians as ‘angry fundamentalists’ who are not acting in obedience to the Holy Spirit like he is and specifically notes, “My biggest regret in 53 years of ministry is that I didn’t do my own personal exegesis sooner on the 4 passages used to restrict women. Shame on me.”
That he hasn’t exegeted those four verses in half a century is an insightful admission. Pulpit & Pen makes this salient point:
His post got me to thinking, not about the legitimacy of Warren’s arguments for females in the pastorate, but about just how unqualified Warren himself is to hold the pastoral office. Consider his opening words:
“My biggest regret in 53 years of ministry is that I didn’t do my own personal exegesis sooner on the 4 passages used to restrict women.”
What was he doing in 53 years of ministry if he wasn’t exegeting the scriptures? Warren says that there are only four scriptures which are used as the basis of complimentarian theology! Did Warren not preach through these few passages in over five decades of ministry? Wouldn’t he have been forced to exegete these passages as part of his sermon preparation?
Warren’s statement just goes to show what a snake oil salesman he really is and has been all these years. Warren’s sermons and books are far from exegetical masterpieces. Frankly, he’s become one of the world’s most influential Christians by preaching manipulative, feel-good sermons that are far from exegetically faithful. At least now he’s finally admiting how little exegetical work he has done.
He should indeed be sorry for that.
The fact that he has a library bigger than most houses has not helped him a whit. Given the shallowness, scripture-twisting, and overall poor construction of decades of Warren’s purpose-driven sermons, are we to believe that he has been exegeting scriptures this whole time for all his sermons and that these four verses are the only ones he passed on and failed to exegete properly?
You’ll never convince us of that.
About Author
Surely, Rick, you will publish your exhaustive research which proves your case, so the rest of us can also repent of our allegedly incorrect interpretation?
Maybe God puts guys like the Rickster in power and authority to test us…will we heed the voice of the Savior, or will we harken unto fools and heirlings.
And another point, it doesn’t matter if something is only mentioned once in Scripture. If it’s mentioned at all, then that’s all that mattered. That’s like saying, “Oh, it says ‘you shouldn’t murder’ only one time in Scripture, so we can’t build a doctrine around it.” It’s lunacy to think that way.
Oh what a tangled web he weaves….
It’s obvious Warren has no clue how to exegete scriptures, I doubt he has even read them, because almost everything out of his mouth contradicts them.
But, you know, ‘I’ve built the biggest church, bla, bla, bla, pass me the fried chicken, bla, and ho-ho’s, bla, and twinkies, bla…’
Philip B. Payne’s new book, The Bible vs. Biblical Womanhood, makes a good exegetical case for why the Bible supports women pastors (or, at least is not opposed to female pastors).
1 Timothy 2:12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
1 Corinthians 11:3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
1 Corinthians 14:34 Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.
Titus 2:3-5 The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; That they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, To be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.
Rick Warren, Philip Payne and Sandy Williams are not Bible believing Christians who CANNOT “rightly divide the word of truth” 2 Timothy 2:15.
Change my mind.
Read the book.
Your comment was enough. The BOOK of books has spoken concerning the subject matter.
Re-read the Scriptures I posted. Or does that book take precedence over the Scriptures?
Thanks, I’ll now be sure to avoid anything this fellow writes. Women pastors is pretty recent error in the history of doctrinal development. Seems to be driven by feminism. Can you please tell us about any churches that haven’t completely fallen into gross error or apostasy that have ordained women?
If claimed to be a feminist and wrote a book (or spoke at conferences) on feminism and wrote and spoke about how feminism isn’t about equality for women. Like these false teachers I could explain that when these women wanted equal voting rights, that isn’t what they really meant. In actuality it meant that women should never vote at all, or even have opinion on politics whatsoever😂
And when the founding feminists said women deserved the same pay as men…that actually meant women only deserved 10% of what men made, you get the point.
The women at these imaginary conferences would be gnashing the teeth and renting their clothes, and the intelligent women would simply leave. That’s how true Christians should handle the Rick Warrens, Beth Moores, etc… and the rest of the apostates. Teach true Christians what is truth and leave the goats to do what goats do, deny truth and teach lies.
Also, I would pay good money to see someone go to one of these colleges or conferences and say that 😂😂😂
But that better have food health insurance because it’s going to be ugly 😵
I’m SURE to check that out.
How sad that we’ve been wrong for 2000 years 😏
As of today Rick Warren is still on Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa (Chuck Smith’s church before he passed) radio station twice a day (KWVE 107.9 FM). It was an awful compromise when they allowed him on three years ago, how can it possibly be justified today?
Here’s their contact page, please be polite they are fellow Christians.
https://kwave.com/contact/
For all of Chuck’s strengths (and he had his fair share of weakness as well), he totally blew it with his failure to have a clear plan to hand off leadership to a godly, biblical person. That negated so much of the good done.
It sounds to me as though Warren thinks that the crux of the entire δόγμα has historically rested on a certain nuanced definition of αὐθεντέω in 1 Timothy 2:12, when in fact it should have rested on a different nuanced definition of αὐθεντέω. To put it mildly, that really doesn’t speak well of his exegetical abilities.