Tag: Women

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Former Lifeway Exec Ed Stetzer’s New Church Is Riddled With Female ‘Pastors’ + Christine Caine is One of Them

Southern Baptist Convention mainstay Ed Stetzer has revealed he has a new home church, and it’s chock full of women pastors, including one celebrity pastrix he’s long been theologically sweet on.

Ed Stetzer is the disgraced former Lifeway executive who knowingly sold false Heaven Tourism books before being publicly exposed by Alex Malarkey. He was recently a professor, dean, and executive director of the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center but has since taken a job as Dean of the Talbot School of Theology. An SBTS grad who has permanently embedded himself in Southern Baptist politics, Stetzer was recently appointed by J.D. Greear as the chair of the 2020 Resolutions Committee. 

We’ve been calling out his bad behavior as the bearded anti-Berean for years; in our posts Ed Stetzer, Insufferable Expert on Everything, Says Pastors Can’t Give “Medical Opinion,” in Stetzer Wonders Why Conservatives Can’t “Look Past Abortion” to Vote Democrat and Ed Stetzer Ignores the Voice of Black Christians.

Stetzer has been giving egalitarianism his best bedroom eyes for years, despite his keening protestations to the contrary. Unlike his previous churches Highland Church and Moody Church, his new home Mariners Church has women ‘pastors’, including Teaching ‘pastor’ Ines Franklin, Executive ‘pastor’ Beth Ganem, Content ‘pastor’ Liz Powers, and celebrity pastrix Christine Caine, whom Stetzer has long admired.

We’re not surprised by his shift in this regard. We wrote this in 2018:

A lady of the night needs a man to facilitate their transactions of transgressions. And no matter how liberated or independent today’s female preachers seem to be, they need men in positions of authority to assist them in their sin of leading astray the church’s more vulnerable and impressionable weak women (2 Timothy 3:6). For the most atrociously inept and theologically deficient prophetesses, they have Ed Stetzer as their pimp and hustler, giving them a platform and theological street corner to stand on and propagate their false doctrines. Stetzer, who proudly and defiantly helped to turn Lifeway Christian Resources into the world’s largest retailer of heresy during his tenure in the Southern Baptist Convention, is now opening the door to a whole new harem of false prophetesses and turning Wheaten College into a brothel of bad teaching.

Wheaton College, with Ed Stetzer serving in the Billy Graham Distinguished Chair of Church, Mission, and Evangelism and as the Executive Director of the Billy Graham Center, is partnering with Propel Women. Propel Women is an Egalitarian-focused women’s ministry (best characterized as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism), founded by Christine Caine and steeped in the Hillsong variety of the prosperity Gospel and Word-Faith Theology. Joyce Meyer has been a keynote speaker at Propel in the past. Propel is the theological equivalent of the human papilloma virus, a serious communicable disease transferred among women (often without their knowledge), spreading a self-centered, naricigetical, feminist, emotion-fueled ideology and a painfully low comprehension of the Bible.

Sadly, these women have been provided the very worst of teachers as their muse. One can only imagine the type of female “minister” will be unleashed upon the world in this generation. The future of evangelicalism will look very much like the testosterone-heavy, short-haired United Methodist female bishops who preside over primarily dying congregations.

In reality, that Stetzer would expose Wheaton women to Christine Caine and Ann Voskamp is incredibly sexist and paternalistic, exposing the soft bigotry of Stetzer’s lowered expectations. No male seminary students would be exposed to teachers of such dubious or non-existent theological credentials or the rambling, incoherent babble of self-ordained prophets. But for women, bless their heart, it’s good enough.

Godly women deserve better.

Vindicated once again.

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News

Another 170 SBC Churches with Women ‘Pastors’ Come to Light

Three years ago, we did an expose demonstrating that 10% Of The Biggest Southern Baptist Churches Are Pastored By Women. This was around the time that SBTS president Al Mohler commented on RNS Ryan Burge article Most Southern Baptist Women Would Welcome a Woman Pastor. It’s Unlikely to Happen, where Mohler forcefully denied that SBC churches would stand for it and claimed that not a single SBC church has a woman pastor on staff.

And if you just take the headline at face value, it tells us that the majority of Southern Baptist women, the word of the headline was, “most,” would welcome a woman as pastor of the church. That’s rather stunning when you consider the fact that out of the almost 40,000 churches associated with the Southern Baptist Convention, not one of them has a woman as pastor. 

And:

The problem with that is not one of those churches has a woman as pastor… We’re talking about 40,000 churches. And at the moment, I don’t believe that a single one of them has a woman as pastor…Again, the math, 40,000 roughly, and the other column zero. That’s not a close call…Again, 40,000 in one column, zero in the other…If Southern Baptists want Southern Baptist churches to have pastors who are women, they can do it, but they don’t do it.

We noted that when you consider the top 500 biggest churches in the SBC, not only do 10% of these churches have formalized pastrixes in leadership, but another 91 churches have women on staff with the title of either “Minister” – such as “Women’s Minister,” “Youth Minister,” “Singles Minister” – or, to a lesser extent, “Ministry Director” or “Director of Women’s Ministries.”

While some are serving in faithful, biblically appropriate roles (if with loftier-than-needed titles), many who function in their given roles are doing so with the same authority and positioning in the church as the elders and authority of a pastor but without that specific title. This is the game many churches play.

Since many of the biggest churches do not list their staff, we excluded them. This meant that if you combined the two groups, at least ONE-THIRD of the country’s top 450 largest SBC churches have women pastrixes or women “Ministers” employed on staff. There’s more, however.

Recently, Arlington Baptist Church Mike Law filed a motion to amend the SBC constitution, clarifying that it “Does not affirm, appoint, or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.” He reveals that he felt the need to offer this amendment because “five Southern Baptist churches, roughly within a five-mile radius of my own congregation, are employing women as pastors of various kinds, including women serving as “Sr. Pastor.”

As part of this amendment plea, he produces evidence that at least 170 SBC churches* list women as either Senior pastor, Lead pastor, Associate pastor, Assistant pastor, Children’s pastor, Youth pastor, or Elders of some kind. 217 pages of screenshots, websites and links buttressing his position. A typical example would be:

Will the SBC deal with it? Given that there is no appetite from leadership to tackle the issue in any serious way, we’re not holding our breaths.

  • Regarding the 170 churches, Law offers a few caveats.

Note #1: Affiliations are listed per the SBC Workspace Database. According to Annual Church
Profile Coordinator for Lifeway:
“The information on the Affiliations tab [in the SBC Workspace Database] represents the
current affiliations of the congregation. If a relationship with the SBC is shown on the
Affiliations tab, then it is believed that the congregation is in friendly cooperation with
the SBC.” 1
Note #2: Some churches are in this document without “Southern Baptist Convention” being
listed as one of their affiliations. For example, a church might be affiliated with the NorthStar
Church Network and the Baptist General Association of Virginia, but not have the Southern
Baptist Convention listed as one of their affiliations. Such a church remains listed because of one
or more of the following are true:
1) They are listed on the churches.sbc.net website (the website has SBC|Churches up in
the right hand corner, and it states that these are “Our Churches”).
2) They are listed in the SBC Workspace database.
3) Local and State Associations often relate to the SBC on a national level, so there is an
open question of whether they are considered to be in friendly cooperation with the
Southern Baptist Convention for the purposes of seating messengers.
For these reasons the relationship between these churches and the SBC needs to be clarified.
Note#3: I have not examined all of the churches in the Southern Baptist Convention. These are
either churches I personally discovered along the way of writing to the SBC Executive
Committee, churches who disclosed their female pastors to me through correspondence, or
churches who were brought to my attention through colleagues.

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News

SBC Seminary Prez. Suggests Women Could Probably be Ordained as Pastors in the SBC

“Women pastors and women preachers are the most obvious rebellion against the word of God.” John MacArthur

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary president Adam Greenway caused a stir on social media after posting Lifeway’s Study Guide on the definition of a pastor, suggesting that while the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 seems to relegate the position of Senior Pastor to men only, perhaps there is some wiggle room for women to take on certain pastoral roles.

This revelation comes a month after the SBC’s annual meeting, where the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Credentials Committee revealed they were not going to remove Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church from their roles after he famously and unapologetically started to ordain women pastors.

The Credentials Committee suggested that the title and function of pastor can be separated, and while it’s true that only men can hold the “office of pastor,” perhaps women can have the “title of pastor” without having a church that is rife with pastrixes to be being disqualified or found not to be in cooperation with the Baptist Faith and Message. They noted that “(we found)…little information evidencing the Convention’s beliefs regarding the use of the title of ‘pastor’ for staff positions with different responsibility and authority than that of the lead pastor.”

Instead, the Credentials Committee said they were “unable to form an opinion regarding the relationship of Saddleback Church to the Southern Baptist Convention until clarity is provided regarding the use of the title “pastor” for staff positions with different responsibility and authority than that of the lead pastor.” They promised to study the issue and get back to the convention next in 2023.

In response to the initial controversy, SBTS President, one of the BFAM2000’s original authors, repudiated the notion that women would ever be biblically qualified to be ordained or that their doctrinal statements allow for it by posting a statement made by other originalist crafters.

And yet they say there is no liberal drift within the Southern Baptist Convention.

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News

SBC Credentials Committees Refuses to Remove Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church For Ordaining Women Pastors

No liberal drift? In a convention bulletin released this morning, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Credentials Committee revealed that they’re not going to remove Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church from their roles after he famously and unapologetically started to ordain women pastors.

The Credentials Committee suggests that the title and function of pastor can be separated, and while it’s true that only men can hold the “office of pastor” perhaps women can have the “title of pastor” without having a church that is rife with pastrixes to be being disqualified or found not to be in cooperation with the Baptist faith and message. They note that “(we found)…little information evidencing the Convention’s beliefs regarding the use of the ‘title of pastor’ for staff positions with different responsibility and authority than that of the lead pastor.”

Instead, the Credentials Committee says they are “unable to form an opinion regarding the relationship of Saddleback Church to the Southern Baptist Convention until clarity is provided regarding the use of the title “pastor” for staff positions with different responsibility and authority than that of the lead pastor” and they said they will study the issue and get back to the convention next year in 2013.

SBC Referral: To break fellowship with Saddleback Church (Item 68, Proceedings of the Southern Baptist Convention, June 15-16, 2021, SBC Annual, p. 74)

Motion: Shadd Tibbs, Louisiana “That according to Article VI of our Baptist Faith and Message and according to the teaching of 1 Timothy 2:12, that, we the Southern Baptist Convention, of June 2021, break fellowship with Saddleback Church, as they have ordained three ladies as pastors, and all other churches that would choose to follow this path. At the very least, I am asking that the validity of this matter be looked into and report given at the 2022 Convention of the action taken”

Response: It is the unanimous opinion of the Credentials Committee that the majority of Southern Baptists hold to the belief that the function of lead pastor, elder, bishop, or overseer is limited to men as qualified by Scripture and that this was the intended definition of “office of pastor” as stated in Article VI of the Baptist Faith & Message 2000.

The Credentials Committee has found little information evidencing the Convention’s beliefs regarding the use of the “title of pastor” for staff positions with different responsibility and authority than that of the lead pastor. For this reason, the Credentials Committee makes the following report and recommendation:

Report: The Credentials Committee reports to the Southern Baptist Convention during its June 14-15, 2022, annual meeting, that pursuant to SBC Bylaw 8 and SBC Constitution Article III, that it is unable to form an opinion regarding the relationship of Saddleback Church to the Southern Baptist Convention, until clarity is provided regarding the use of the title “pastor” for staff positions with different responsibility and authority than that of the lead pastor. Therefore, the Credentials Committee makes the following recommendation:

Recommendation: The Credentials Committee recommends that the Southern Baptist Convention during its June 14-15, 2022, annual meeting in Anaheim, California, form a study committee, the members of which shall be appointed by the President, to report to the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, June 13-14, 2023, in New Orleans, Louisiana, a recommendation providing clarity regarding the “office of pastor” as stated in the Baptist Faith & Message Article VI, The Church, given the many different offices within Baptist churches which include “pastor” in the title, though often with very different responsibilities and authority

This caused even Albert Mohler, who has been in denial for years that there are women pastrixes in SBC churches to publicly rebuke the EC from the convention floor, and then later tweet out:

Rick Warren is the outgoing Lead pastor, and overseer of the 25,000 members, 14 campus Saddleback Church He has recently seen a resurgence from discernment ministries after a few years on the outs. He is famous for peddling to the church the poison and spiritual strychnine that is The Purpose Driven Life for over four decades- a damaging and unbiblical theology that has seeped into tens of thousands of churches, becoming part of their identity.

Over the last few he raise eyebrows for announcing they were having a “Blacks Only worship service” where no white members were allowed in, so the “black fold” could have a “safe space” to “heal,” for blasting white Christians for having no discernment and not caring about black people.

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Evangelical Stuff Featured News

Christian and Missionary Alliance May Start Calling Women ‘Pastors’

The Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA) is considering further rebellion against the scriptures by changing their title restriction and starting to allow women who are in high leadership roles in the church to be called “pastor” – a proposal which is supported by over 60% of the denomination.

The curent position paper on their denominational website, which was updated just three years ago, reads in part:

Women may fulfill any function in the local church which the senior pastor and elders may choose to delegate to them consistent with the Uniform Policy for Accredited Churches and may properly engage in any kind of ministry except that which involves elder authority...

While desiring both genders to be mobilized to exercise their gifts in a variety of ministries and leadership roles, The Alliance continues to affirm its understanding of Scripture that elders are male members of the local church. This includes the elected elders of the local church and the senior/lead pastor.

In many ways the designation is just a formality, with women in the CMA functioning in the office of pastor, but don’t use the title as a courtesy, all with a knowing wink and smile to the congregations, who are in on it as well.

It’s for this reason that the CMA is looking to shake things up at the denomination’s annual General Council meeting later this month. President John Stumbo has already come out in support of it, releasing a video where he laments the fact that “some of our policies unnecessarily restrict otherwise called and qualified ministers” and suggesting that by not letting women be pastors they’ve overstepped the limits of scripture.

The policy change, when all said and done, would schizophrenically still allow only men to be Senior Pastors but would allow women to be ordained and hold “key places of leadership in the Alliance at the local church, district, and national levels,” while using the “pastor” moniker. Presently both men and women can go through a two-year training process with the CMA – the end result is that men are ordained and women are “consecrated,” which is a distinction without a difference.

The fact is that if the Christian and Missionary Alliance thinks they can hold the line on women not being senior pastors they are sadly mistaken. They’ve already lost the battle, the war, and host of firefights and skirmishes along the way, but are just too blind to see it. The minute they give an inch and start taking surveys to see what the denomination thinks, start bringing in resolutions to consider the matter, begin forming exploratory committees to consider the pros and cons of the problem, or begin taking votes, it’s over.

The correct way to handle this, of course, is to root out anyone in favor of it and then cull the mischief-makers in a bloodbath of excommunications and congregational shaming.

But because they will not do this, within a decade they’ll be gathering once more to put for General Conference 2029 to celebrate their resolution to let pastrixes become Senior Pastors, patting themselves on the back for this vile act of stunning theological presumption and betrayal.

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Featured News

CNN Roasted for Calling Women ‘Individuals with a Cervix’ – They Double Down

Proving that the once formerly serious news organization is truly beyond parody, CNN gave the public more ammunition in showing how much they have truly devolved when they released an article referring to women as “individuals with a cervix.”

The article, which details the latest guidance from the American Cancer Society about how women between the ages of 25 and 65 should take part in cervical cancer screening every 5 years, had its narrative co-opted when it was discovered that CNN is apparently now so woke that they can’t even say the word “women” anymore. This prompted a flurry of responses and mockery, with the tweet getting ratioed (“ratioed” is when replies to a tweet vastly outnumber likes or retweets, indicating that people are objecting to the tweet and considering its content bad). and the collective world accusing CNN of erasing women, being anti-science, not knowing what the word “women” is, and wondering whether or not the news organization would start referring to men as “individuals with penises.”

The universal scorn resulted in Matt Dornic, the Head of Strategic Communication for CNN Worldwide, doubling down on the terminology and then further arguing that anyone with a problem with describing women as “individuals with a cervix” is simply “threatened with inclusivity.”

And they wonder why people don’t trust the news media.