Disfellowshipped Churches, Rick Warren, the SBC, and Women Pastors: Part II

Does the Bible direct the exclusion of women from a pastoral role? Let’s put this hotly debated question under the microscope in Part II of “Disfellowshipped Churches, Rick Warren, the SBC, Women Pastors.” An influential SBC pastor writes, “Abiding women in the pastoral office materially harms the work of the Convention because it cultivates disunity where we have long been united. It contaminates the soil of our Convention with distrust of and disobedience to the Scriptures.” I’ll recap this description of sisters-in-the-faith: Women pastors “harm the work,” “cultivate disunity,” and “contaminate the soil” because of “disobedience to the Scriptures.” Truly?

THE MOVE TO DISFELLOWSHIP SBC CHURCHES

Mike Law, of Arlington Baptist Church in Arlington, VA, wrote the statement above in his 2022 letter to the Executive Committee (EC) of the SBC. His letter, titled “A Call to Keep Our Unity,” urges the EC to vote at the 2023 SBC annual meeting to amend the Baptist Faith & Message to state that all churches within the SBC Convention will “not affirm, appoint, or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.” Law invited SBC pastors and seminary professors to join him by co-signing his letter. As of March 30^th, the amendment proposal letter has 2,179 (male) co-signors.

The SBC had previously amended the Baptist Faith & Message 2000 to include this statement: “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.” The Roys Report noted that in the time frame of this amendment, women in senior pastor roles in the SBC represented “less than 0.1% of SBC churches.” While the number of co-signors to Law’s letter is significant, there are approximately 50,000 SBC churches in the United States.

The almost-hotter-than-hell debate over women pastors has created and continues to create dividing lines in the church based on one’s theology of women. Within the SBC, a complementarian organization, some believe women should not serve as a “senior pastor” or “lead pastor.” SBC hard-liners, on the other hand, are determined to expel women from all pastoral positions.

A FEMALE PASTOR RESPONDS

Carlisle Davidhizar, a female associate pastor in Powhatan, VA, was recently interviewed by the Baptist News Global. She remarks, “I made Mike Law’s list of rebellious lady pastors.” Law (and others) surveyed SBC churches listed at churches.sbc.net. From this research, they published a detailed list of 170 women with the title of pastor in SBC churches. Davidhizar said, “Having my photo and work address passed around the internet doesn’t feel like something these pastors have done to keep me safe.” She responds further,

“Who knew that of all the problems in the world and the church, women proclaiming the gospel and holding a certain title was the most pressing? Racism. Economic injustice. A secret list of more than 700 predators. These might all be unfortunate, but the real problem, the thing keeping Southern Baptist from unity, the thing causing them to “devalue their doctrine,” is women pastors.”

“I don’t buy his [Law’s] line that this is about scriptural integrity, doctrinal purity or unity within the denomination. This is what it’s always been about: power.”

BETH MOORE & WOMEN PREACHING

A member of the SBC for approximately 50 years, Beth Moore is a Bible teacher, speaker, author of Bible studies, and a recent book titled All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir. Moore said, “I’d accepted the rampant sexism because I thought it was all about Scripture.” But she believes the controversial issue of women preaching in the SBC is not about Scripture. Rather she said it “was about power. This was about control. This was about the boy’s club.”

Moore explains in her memoir why, in 2019, she left the SBC,

“After my ill-advised tweet about speaking in my church on Mother’s Day, suddenly the biggest threat to the denomination was publicly portrayed as women trying to get to the pulpit and supplant their pastors. I did not know one.”

“All that time I’d obsessed over having a male covering, a mind-boggling number of male leaders were providing a covering, all right. They were covering up sexual abuse. But because I’d been so outspoken and had already annoyed them, a horde of Southern Baptist brethren [many of them pastors] came for me like I’d burned down churches…These dogs got through the fence. These dogs hit home and knocked me down in my own yard. These dogs bit. I might have survived it, had it not been so personal.”

RICK WARREN’S NEW VIEW ON WOMEN PASTORS

As noted in Part I, Rick Warren, Saddleback Church’s newly retired founder/lead pastor, changed his mind about women in the pastorate. After carefully reexamining the Scriptures, Warren concludes that the church errs when it limits women’s pastoral and preaching/teaching gifts. Warren explains his view change and his thoughts on the EC’s recent action to disfellowship Saddleback Church in an interview with Russell Moore of Christianity Today. Andy Wood, Saddleback’s new lead pastor, describes the church’s view on women in a video.

Warren explained that he derives his new understanding of women pastors from three parts of the biblical text:

1. Jesus charged women and men with the entirety of the Great Commission— “to go,” “make disciples of all nations,” “baptizing them,” and “teaching them” (Matt 28:19–20).
2. Mary, Jesus’s mother (along with other women) was present and received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. During this outpouring of the Spirit, females prophesied and preached in other languages. In his Pentecost sermon, Peter explained that the prophesying of “sons and daughters” fulfilled Joel’s prophecy (Acts 2:17–18; Joel 2:28).
3. Jesus first revealed himself as the resurrected Messiah to a woman, Mary Magdalene, and instructed her to “go and tell” her brothers (John 20:15­–18).

DENNY BURK’S REBUTTAL TO WARREN

Shortly after Warren announced his new and broader view regarding women pastors, Denny Burk, a professor at an SBC-affiliated college and president of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, weighed in, “Yes, women may have preached on the Day of Pentecost, but ‘the office of pastor’ is reserved for men.” Burk contends that “none of Warren’s texts [outlined above] deal with who is qualified to serve in the office of pastor.” In contrast, Burke points to four Scriptures as the texts which explain “who is qualified to serve in the office of pastor.” In the first two texts, 1 Timothy 3:2 and Titus 1:6, he points to the phrase “husband of one wife” to indicate that the Bible teaches that men should hold church leadership offices. The second set of texts are complementarian’s most frequently quoted Bible passages: “I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man (1 Tim 2:12 NET)” and

“The women should be silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak. Rather, let them be in submission, as in fact the law says. If they want to find out something, they should ask their husbands at home, because it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in church (1 Cor 14:34­–35 NET).”

THE SBC & ABUSE REFORMS

Rick Warren and others have accused SBC leaders of focusing more on preventative measures against women serving as pastors than caring for women abused within their churches. In his article, Denny Burke responded to Warren: “This is a manipulative argument that presents a false dichotomy—as if the SBC has to choose between giving attention to abuse reform or to women as pastors.” He continues, “The SBC cares deeply about abused women and has undertaken massive reforms to make sure that cooperating churches take this seriously as well. The SBC is capable of doing both things at once.”

Bob Smietana, in a Religion News article, described the issue of sexual abuse in the SBC:

“For decades, the leaders of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination mistreated survivors of sexual abuse, labeling them as troublemakers and enemies of their church while claiming there was little the leaders could do to address abuse in local congregations, often in the name of protecting their vast missionary operations.”

SBC messengers, at the denomination’s 2021 annual meeting, overruled leaders and voted for an in-depth investigation into the sexual abuse allegations (details in Part I). After receiving a detailed report in 2022, the SBC passed reforms aimed at preventing abuse and providing survivor care. One reform implemented is the establishment of a “Ministry Check” database for tracking abusive pastors and church volunteers. Another reform is the creation of a volunteer task force—Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force—tasked with providing survivor care, abuse prevention training for churches, and expelling churches who have deliberately mishandled abuse concerns. The chairman, pastor Marshall Blalock, described the task force’s work as a complicated project which will require a long-term approach.

A sexual abuse survivor in the SBC, Christa Brown writes that “#SBCtoo survivors have a budget of $0 for their concerns.” She continues, “If the institution was taking this seriously, it wouldn’t be putting so much reliance on volunteers and would instead be hiring more professionals. After all, the SBC EC has spent millions on its own attorney fees for its own legal protection.” Many await the task force’s progress report at the SBC’s June 2023 annual meeting.

A BRIEF COMPARISON OF ARGUMENTS ABOUT WOMEN PASTORS

Rick Warren argues for women pastors with texts rooted in Jesus’s words and actions. Texts not disputed. Denny Burke argues against women pastors by pointing to Paul’s writings—specific biblical texts with an ocean of ink spilled over them by scholars, theologians, and pastors vehemently disputing Paul’s intended meaning and application.

Let’s briefly compare two arguments about women pastors. The first regards the phrase “husband of one wife” (1 Tim 3:2; Titus 1:6). Egalitarians believe this phrase means that any person considered for church office, female or male, must have the character quality of faithfulness. To complementarians, this phrase excludes a woman from a church office. At the same time, they believe “husband of one wife” refers to a character quality because, in most complementarian churches, an unmarried man with a faithful character is eligible for church office.

A second argument relates to the 1 Corinthians 14 text (cited above). In Paul’s writing, this passage instructs women to be silent in the church and points to the reason being “as the law says.” 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 is a confusing passage for many reasons. One, these verses are found in two different places in ancient manuscripts, with some scholars arguing that these verses are a scribal addition. Two, complementarians and egalitarians agree that no law instructing women’s silence is in the Old or New Testament. Three, the instructions in chapter 14 seemingly conflict with Paul’s instructions to women given earlier in the letter. He addresses the women praying and prophesying in church assemblies and gives guidance about their hair/head while engaged in public prayer and prophesying (1 Cor 11:5–6; 8­–12).

CONCLUSION

In this article, we reviewed the latest regarding disfellowshipped churches, Rick Warren, the SBC, and women pastors: Part II. And we briefly considered the conflicting views about women pastors. It’s a complicated conversation. It’s a conversation that impacts approximately 60% of the church in the United States and 80% of the church worldwide. What you believe about women and the church matters.

Image: Mary Magdalene and the risen Christ, Andrea del Sarto, Uffizi, Florence, Italy. Courtesy of Visual Museum of Women in Christianity

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Did you miss reading Part I of this article? If so, click here.

Do you desire to examine what the Bible says about women from tip (Genesis) to toe (Revelation) but are unsure what to read and study? Join the waitlist for my online course called Theology of Women Academy®. In this self-paced course, I’ll guide you through a comprehensive study of what the Bible says about women. In this course, we will unpack the spectrum of Christian views so that you will gain the foundation to form your theology of women. Enrollment opens again in the early fall of 2023.