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

“What changed my mind was scripture,” said author and retired Southern Baptist pastor Rick Warren, to explain why he changed his mind and now affirms women serving as church pastors. In this article, I’ll connect the dots between disfellowshipped churches, Rick Warren, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), and women pastors. For those of you who are not a Southern Baptist, don’t attend an SBC church, or haven’t followed the recent happenings in the SBC (the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.), please keep reading because this conversation broadens to a discussion about women, the Bible, and the disagreement among complementarians and egalitarians over women pastors.

First, I’ll share a bit about my connection to the SBC and Rick Warren. My husband, Lindsey, and I have roots deeply planted in Baptist soil. We were each baptized as a child in a Southern Baptist church, he in East Texas and me in South Texas. We met, dated, and married while students at Baylor University, a Baptist institution in Waco, Texas.

In the 1990s, we were asked by our pastors at West University Baptist Church, Houston, to attend a weekend conference for lay and ministry leaders. Rick Warren, the founder and lead pastor of Saddleback Church based in Orange County, CA, headlined the conference. He aptly taught attendees the principles for building a purpose-driven church. Shortly after his 2002 bestselling book titled A Purpose Driven Life hit the shelves, the hubby and I shepherded a community group through its’ contents. We’ve since decided to leave the denomination, but continue to feel a deep connection to it.

Returning to our topic, let’s briefly review the timeline of recent events in the SBC to gain clarity as we examine the intersection of disfellowshipped churches, Rick Warren, the SBC, and women pastors.

Let’s begin in the year 2000,

• In 2000, the SBC revised its Baptist Faith and Message 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 question currently being debated within the SBC is whether the original intent of the “office of pastor” revision statement refers to the role of senior/lead pastor or whether it included all types of pastors.
• Fast forward to 2019, multiple reports broke detailing a significant and widespread sexual abuse problem within the SBC, impugning its leadership. The Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News published articles describing credible sexual abuse accusations involving 380 Southern Baptist church leaders and ministry volunteers with 700 victims. Denials and reports of abuse cover-ups by SBC Executive Committee (EC) members soon followed.

• Also in 2019, a different type of watershed moment happened when SBC leaders publicly argued over a woman preaching. Beth Moore, an author and Bible teacher, tweeted that she would be presenting (preaching) the Mother’s Day message at her SBC church in Houston, a church pastored by her son-in-law. Owen Strachan, a Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary professor, promptly and publicly criticized Moore and described her preaching as unbiblical. In contrast, an SBC pastor of a church in the same city wrote supporting the decision for Moore to speak, “The SBC should recognize the fact such churches are within the bounds set by the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message and that these churches strive to faithfully interpret the Scriptures, and the SBC should allow them full cooperation within the denomination.”

• Two years after the published reports of sexual abuse within SBC churches, SBC messengers at the 2021 annual meeting approved engaging a third-party, Guidepost Solutions, to investigate sexual abuse accusations. Their motion called for an “investigation into any allegations of abuse, mishandling of abuse, mistreatment of victims, a pattern of intimidation of victims or advocates, and resistance to sexual abuse reform initiatives,” involving “staff and members of the EC from January 1, 2000 through June 14, 2021.”

• Also in 2021, Saddleback Church elders ordained three women, Liz Puffer, Cynthia Petty, and Katie Edwards, as pastors.

• In 2022, Guidepost Solutions presented its investigative report. In their opening statement, they wrote, “We implore our Southern Baptist family to respond to this report with deep repentance and a commitment to the ongoing moral demands of the gospel as it relates to sexual abuse. We must resolve to give of our time and resources to not only care well for survivors of sexual abuse, but to provide a culture of accountability, transparency, and safety as we move forward.” Guidepost’s findings revealed numerous moral, ethical, and biblical leadership failures:
  
  • Credible evidence of sexual assaults
  • Allegations routinely mishandled
  • Sexual assault survivors were mistreated and with a pattern of intimidation and degradation
  • Evidence the EC had documented records of abuse for over ten years but kept the reports hidden
  • Absence of action taken to remove accused ministers from positions of power
  • Evidence that several former senior SBC leaders protected or supported abusers
  • Previously submitted reform proposals were opposed or rejected
  • The EC’s primary concern was the avoidance of potential legal liability.

• Guidepost’s 2022 report concluded, “The prevailing attitude of some EC leaders was that the SBC had no responsibility for addressing the sexual abuse crisis within member churches, under SBC polity, those churches were autonomous…and not under the control of the SBC.” Note how the EC had pointed to SBC church autonomy as the reason they couldn’t/didn’t hold church leaders accountable for sexual abuse.
• In 2022, Warren retired as Saddleback’s lead pastor and appointed Andy Wood in his place. Wood’s wife, Stacie, also serves in leadership as a teaching pastor at Saddleback.

• That same year, Rick Warren spoke to the SBC membership at the annual meeting about the brewing controversy over women pastors. He reminded the attendees that how women minister in the church is a secondary issue, rather than a doctrinal one.

• In February of this year, the Executive Committee of the SBC announced that certain churches were “no longer in friendly cooperation” with the denomination because “they have a female functioning in the office of pastor.” Therefore, they decided to disfellowship Saddleback Church, the second-largest congregation in the SBC with 14 campuses and 23,000 weekly attendees, and four other churches.

In summary, the SBC ignored their previously stated “we can’t take action… (because) churches are autonomous” by effectively severing multiple satellites from the mother ship over the issue of women serving as pastors. Rick Warren called out their blatant flip-flop in a recent podcast interview with Russell Moore, editor-in-chief of Christianity Today. Warren stated, “It’s not an accident that the same voices that said we cannot protect women from abuse because of the autonomy of the local church are the same voices that are saying, ‘But we can prevent them from being called pastors’ in the autonomy of the local church. So, the autonomy only matters if it’s convenient for you.”

Concerning the raging SBC sexual abuse scandal, the EC has, at best, delayed taking corrective actions, installing leadership reforms, or issuing humble apologies to the many sexual abuse victims—victims horrifically ignored, maligned, threatened, and silenced. While at its worst, the EC has sidelined addressing the now-longstanding sexual abuse issues within their leadership ranks by focusing on, yet again, silencing women.

Stay tuned for next week’s article on Part II of Disfellowshipped Churches, Rick Warren, the Southern Baptist Convention, and Women Pastors. In Part II we’ll examine the three Bible passages that convinced Pastor Warren to change his views about women’s roles in the church. I’ll review the complementarian arguments for saying, “No women pastors!” And likewise, I’ll discuss egalitarian’s arguments for affirming, “Yes, women pastors!”