Saddleback Church founder pastor Rick Warren has argued during the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting in New Orleans that Saddleback’s church decision to include women in the pastoral team should not call for the exclusion of the church from SBC.
As stated in its Faith and Message declaration from 2000, the SBC denomination maintains the conviction that the post of pastor is only open to men who are qualified by the scripture.
In February, SBC deemed Saddleback not “in friendly cooperation with the Southern Baptist Convention.” This according to SBC was due to the “church continuing to have a female teaching pastor functioning in the office of a pastor.” Consequently, Saddleback and two other churches were expelled from SBC.
During the Tuesday Annual Meeting, Rick warren Challenged the decision of SBC to cut ties with Saddleback church. He argued that SBC constitutes Baptists with different doctrinal disagreements. “If doctrinal disagreements between Baptists are considered sin, we all get kicked out. “You’ll never get 100 percent of Baptists to agree on 100 percent of every doctrine,” he stressed.
“For 178 years, the SBC has been a denomination of at least a dozen different types of Baptists. If you think every Baptist thinks like you, you’re mistaken,” Warren said.
He further called to mind that Southern Baptists historically disagree on “dozens of doctrines,” including the “essential doctrines of salvation.” “Why should this one issue cancel our fellowship?” he questioned
“We should remove churches for all kinds of sexual sins, racial sin, financial sin, leadership sin, sins that harm the testimony of our convention,” he quoted. “But the 1,129 churches with women on pastoral staff have not sinned,” he added.
Responding to Warren’s case, Â Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary apprise that SBC’s unity “is now at stake.”
“It’s not just a matter of church polity, it’s not just a matter of hermeneutics, he said. “It’s a matter of biblical commitment, a commitment to the Scripture that unequivocally we believe limits the office of pastor to men.”
Rev. Linda Barnes Popham Church, Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky Barnes is appealing for its exclusion from SBC. Freedom Church in Vero Beach, Florida pleaded for its expulsion over an issue involving sexual misconduct by a church leader.
SBC Executive Committee spokesman however announced that the result of all three appeals will be available Wednesday morning.