Pastor Rick Warren’s Women

Warren vs. the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)

A House Divided

The event is scheduled for Tuesday 13 June 2023.

What’s going on in evangelical Christendom?

The relatively recent (in terms of church history) Christian movement known as evangelical Christianity conserves some Christian teachings and practices even as they threw out old traditions retained by Catholic and Orthodox groups.

One conservative Christian tradition is an all-male leadership. Thanks to their abilities, perseverance, and two global wars, men who made laws gradually shared leadership with the other half of the population. Slowly, liberal churches followed secular trends by welcoming women to pastoral and other leadership roles within the church. One exception among evangelicals is the ordination of women by some Pentecostals.

Like most Christian groups, the SBC does not allow women to serve as pastors. The highly respected evangelical pastor, Rick Warren broke with tradition when he ordained women to serve at the California megachurch, Saddleback. Warren’s rise to recognition was arguably due to the world-wide bestseller, The Purpose Driven Life.

Women and men have argued at length with male church authorities about biblical teachings that restrict what women can do in church. Those arguments rest on a few examples in the text where women held leadership positions or were accorded a modicum of respect. Mary, the mother of Jesus, of course is more exalted by some Christians than others.

Regardless of the arguments favoring women’s leadership, there are plenty of examples and teachings limiting what women can do. Eve’s deceit hangs like a dagger over millions of capable women. St. Paul’s advice to Timothy is a 2,000-year-old security door protecting the pulpit from women who dare to attack the sacred trust.

It seems, those who consider the Bible the literal Word of God don’t have much wiggle room when it comes to allowing women to have an inspired voice in the church or to act without a man being in authority above her perceived spiritual vulnerability. After all, Jesus the revolutionary relied on men for his chosen 12.

Enter Rick Warren and the SBC in 2023.

The SBC removed Saddleback Church from membership because of the ordination of women. On Tuesday, Rick Warren will argue for an appeal of the decision. Pointing to another evangelical tradition, Warren argues that the church needs all church members—not just men—to carry out the Great Commission. The Great Commission is of course to evangelize.

Unlike Former President Jimmy Carter and respected leader Beth Moore who left the SBC, Rev. Warren wants to get back in the SBC -- or is he really about changing the SBC for the greater good?

Perhaps Warren has the clout to change the SBC’s decision. His arguments are passionate and rationale but ultimately rest on a different interpretation of the Bible. Although, he can be as savvy as Jesus when it comes to attacking religious authorities. Just look closely at the words in his letter from a few days ago.

“This should be the moment where 47,000+ autonomous, independent, freedom-loving churches say NO to turning the Executive Committee into a theological Magisterium that controls a perpetual inquisition of churches and makes the EC a centralized hierarchy that tells our congregations who to hire and what to call them,” Warren wrote in an open letter released Friday (June 2). (RNS)

If you are interested in the decision, the event takes place June 13-14 in New Orleans. When all is said and done, will women voice the cry of Dr. Joy Qualls, "God Forgive Us for Being Women?"