Should the SBC expel Saddleback Church for Ordaining Female Pastors?
The answer is easy if they follow the Scriptures
The Southern Baptist Convention is caught in the dilemma of deciding what to do about Saddleback Church, the church that Rick Warren pastored for 40 years before his recent retirement.
The issue is over the role of women in the church. Last May, Warren ordained three women as pastors, which is flatly contrary to Scripture and to Baptist polity. Many in the denomination are calling on the SBC to expel Saddleback from the denomination in light of its longstanding ban on female ordination.
The Credentials Committee, which decides whether SBC churches are abiding by SBC standards of faith and practice, has postponed making a decision. The time now would seem to be propitious, since Warren, easily the most well-known Southern Baptist in America, is no longer in the pulpit. It would have been a much dicier proposition from a public relations perspective if Warren were still in the saddle (so to speak).
From a scriptural standpoint, the answer is simple and straightforward. Paul says, speaking in 1 Timothy 2:12, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.” Using his apostolic authority as an apostle, delivering a message he received from the Lord himself, Paul says if the position involves teaching men from the Scriptures, a woman is not to do it. (There is no prohibition on women teaching other women from Scripture, so perhaps that’s where her energies should be directed).
And secondly, if the position involves exercising authority over men, telling men what to do, a woman is not to do it. (Oddly, the SBC Credentials Committee itself may be in violation of biblical standards: the chairman of the committee - the one who tells the men on the committee what time to show up, when they can speak, etc. - is a woman.) Again, there is no prohibition on a woman exercising authority over other women.
The issue now seems to be how the scriptural standards apply to pastoral positions other than senior pastor, “staff positions with different responsibilities and authority than that of the lead pastor.”
Again, this is not complicated. There are two questions to ask: does this pastoral position put women in a place where they are instructing men from the Scripture, and does this pastoral position put woman in a place where they are exercising authority over men. If the answer is “yes” in any situation, Christ through the apostle is telling you not to do it.
The Southern Baptists keep wrestling with this issue, and have for more than two decades now. But if the Scriptures are indeed the inspired and infallible word of God, then the path forward for the SBC is clear. Will they follow it?