Rick Warren Gives Final Appeal to SBC Messengers To Not Oust Saddleback + Gets Microphone Cut Off
Rick Warren made a final appeal yesterday at the 2023 Southern Baptist Convention that Saddleback church not be disfellowshipped for having women pastors, in contravention to the Baptist Faith and Message 2000. But with an earlier vote on Resolution Six crystalizing language that would forbid women from being able to assume the office of pastor/ elder/ bishop, his appeals, by and large, fell on deaf ears.
Warren has been insufferable this last week on social media, first issuing an “apology” to women on for not allowing them to be pastors during his tenure at Saddleback and then insulting complementarian Southern Baptists as a bunch of angry fundamentalists for also not following his lead.
In his brief screed before the convention (full transcript below), Warren insisted that he wasn’t asking anyone to change their theology on women preachers, only that they allow egalitarian churches to consist peacefully within the denomination. It’s a disingenuous plea, given that he’s publicly argued on social media that not allowing women to preach is a sin that must be repented of.
Warren reiterated an argument he’s previously made on social media: “Now the Baptist Faith and Message is 4032 words. Saddleback disagrees with one word. That’s 99.99999999999 in agreement. Isn’t that close enough?”
This is stupid for a number of reason, least of which is one word can make an enormous difference. And in 2023, the difference between “man” and “woman” is not a small one. Perhaps Warren needs to become more familiar with Arius and the one-word difference between homoousios/ homoiousios- terms used to describe the divinity of the Son in the Trinity. The battle came to a head at the Council of Nicea over whether or not Jesus is of the same substance as the Father, or as the latter suggests, he’s of a similar substance as the Father. In this, the former won out. Christ is the same substance as the Father, and the difference came not down to a single word, but rather a single letter, the letter i, or iota in Greek.
Then, being warned that he only had three minutes to speak, Warren hit his limit, was given another 10 seconds, and then had his mic cut off mid-sentence. Being silenced and unable to finish was an inevitable surprise for Warren, who spoke for over 5 minutes last year and likely was counting on receiving the same special treatment afforded a man of his perceived importance, but he was denied.
Hopefully, those will be his last words.
Saddleback’s excising from the Southen Baptist Convention will be considered tomorrow, and unless something drastic happens, he’ll go down in a well-deserved defeat.
Transcript.
For 178 years, the SBC has been a blend of at least a dozen different tribes of Baptists. If you think every Baptists thinks like you, you’re mistaken. What we share in common is a mutual commitment to the inerrancy and the infallibility of God’s word under the Great Commission of Jesus Christ.
No one is asking any Southern Baptist to change their theology. I’m not asking you to agree with my church. I am asking you to act like a Southern Baptist, who have historically agreed to disagree on dozens of doctrines in order to share a common mission.
Since Southern Baptists have always allowed disagreement on doctrines, including the essential doctrines of salvation, why should this one issue cancel our fellowship? In 2013, when the Calvinists were under fire, Baptists agreed to disagree, and the split was averted. Now, 10 years later, will we treat egalitarian Baptist with the same grace we showed the Calvinist?
We should remove churches for all kinds of sexual sin, racial sin, financial sin, leadership sins, sins that harm the testimony of our convention. But the 1928 churches with women on pastoral staff have not sinned. If doctrinal disagreements between Baptists are considered sin, we all get kicked out. You’ll never get 100% of Baptists to agree 100% on 100% of doctrine. That’s why our constitution says that churches must closely identify not completely identify with our confessionNow the Baptist Faith and Message is 4032 words. Saddleback disagrees with one word. That’s 99.99999999999 in agreement. Isn’t that close enough?
Al Mohler, who for some reason gets to speak twice and do the rebuttal, claims the phrase ‘the office of the pastor is limited to men’, that that also includes every staff position too, and somehow it also prevents any woman from teaching. But I was able to contact about half, over half, of the original drafting committee of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, and seven of them told me Al was wrong.
In fact, before the vote on the 2000 Baptists Faith and Message, even Al in his hometown newspaper said it didn’t limit women from being assistant pastors. Go read it in the Courier Journal. If this precedent is set, Southern Seminary will have to change the name of the Billy Graham School since Billy Graham trained women pastors at our global training events and he endorsed the preaching ministry of his daughter saying Anne is the best preacher in the Graham family.
Vote No. If this precedent is set, we’ll have to rename our two-Mic cut off.
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