On Wednesday morning (June 14) the results from the votes of three churches appealing their removal, which included Saddleback Church (Lake Forest, California), Fern Creek Baptist Church (Louisville, Kentucky), and Freedom Church (Vero Beach, Florida) from the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) were announced.
Rick Warren’s Official Argument To Overturn the EC Judgment Failed
The SBC delegates, who are called messengers, voted overwhelmingly to uphold the Feb. 21 ruling of the SBC Executive Committee, which determined all three churches had been found to be “not in friendly cooperation with the Convention.” Both Saddleback Church and Fern Creek Baptist Church were removed for having women functioning in the office of pastor. Freedom Church was removed for failing to cooperate with the Convention to resolve concerns regarding an abuse allegation.
Of the 11,000-plus messengers present during the time of the vote, 9,437 messengers (88.46%) voted to uphold the removal of Saddleback Church, with 1,212 (11.36%) voting to allow the church to remain part of the Convention.
Fern Creek Baptist Church, which has been pastored by Linda Popham since April 4, 1993, received 9,700 votes (91.85%) in favor of upholding the removal. Only 806 messengers (7.63%) voted in favor of retaining Fern Creek as an SBC church.
Of the three, Freedom Church received the largest number of messengers in agreement with the EC, with 9,984 (96.46%) voting for removal and 343 (3.31%) voting for the church to stay.
Rick Warren Calls SBC Ruling ‘Hypocritical’
Saddleback Church’s founder and former senior pastor Rick Warren held a non-SBC-affiliated press conference shortly after the tallies were announced.
During his opening remarks, Warren said, “We lost. I wasn’t expecting to win. I think I’ve been saying it since February. We didn’t have any expectation, [especially] when it was in New Orleans. We actually had about 700 more votes than I figured we’d get.”
Warren went on to say he believes the Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU) might be the “healthiest thing of the Southern Baptist Convention.”
“They are arguing over a word that isn’t even in the New Testament English Bible,” Warren said of the SBC. ”The single word, the English word, pastor—singular—you can’t find it in any English translation of the New Testament. It’s not there. You can only find the plural word, one time.” Warren referred to Ephesians 4:11, where he says the use of the word can be found.
The best-selling Christian author said, “People will say, ‘Show me in the Scripture where there’s a woman called pastor.’ I can’t, because there’s no man in the Scriptures called pastor, either. So that’s a moot question. While there’s no women called pastors, there is not a single man in Scripture called a pastor [either].”
While Rick Warren and Saddleback Church are no longer part of the SBC, Warren said he still considers himself a Southern Baptist. “I don’t consider myself part of the national Convention because obviously they don’t want me here, [and] that’s their prerogative.”
“I fought for this because if you love something, you fight for it,” Warren said.
