Southern Baptists back male-only pastors, reject Saddleback Church’s reinstatement appeal

The Southern Baptist Convention approved Wednesday an amendment to its constitution saying only men can serve as pastors after delegates at the SBC’s annual meeting in New Orleans rejected an appeal to reinstate the Rev. Rick Warren’s megachurch over its female “teaching pastor.”

The amendment, proposed by the Rev. Mike Law Jr. of Arlington Baptist Church in Northern Virginia, says only churches that “affirm, appoint or employ only men as any kind of pastor or elder as qualified by Scripture” can be members of the denomination.

Delegates must approve the amendment in a second vote at next year’s annual meeting in Indianapolis for it to be enacted.

On Tuesday, delegates voted 9,437 to 1,212 to affirm the expulsion of Saddleback Church after Mr. Warren had pleaded for the reinstatement of the congregation he founded in Southern California.

The delegates also rejected appeals from two smaller churches that the SBC’s executive committee had expelled in February: a congregation in Louisville, Kentucky, where a woman is pastor; and a church in Vero Beach, Florida, contesting charges of sexual abuse by a pastor who has since resigned.

The results of Tuesday’s votes were announced Wednesday on the last day of a two-day meeting of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, whose statement of faith asserts that only qualified men can serve as pastors.

Wednesday’s vote on the constitutional amendment drew criticism from the Rev. Bob Bender, emeritus pastor of Cross Fellowship Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, who said it will create a “lockstep” regimentation similar to that found in North Korea.

“I beg of you, do not do this,” Mr. Bender said to the delegates before the vote. “All the liberals have left us. It looks like we conservatives are left to fight amongst ourselves.”

Similarly, Mr. Warren, author of the best-selling book “The Purpose Driven Life,” had pleaded with the delegates before Tuesday’s vote to reinstate Saddleback, saying his congregation agrees with “99.99999999999%” of the doctrinal statement and differs only with “one word” in that document.

“Isn’t that close enough?” he asked.

Speaking to reporters after the vote, Mr. Warren said he anticipated defeat.

“We made this effort knowing we weren’t going to win,” he said.

The Rev. Bart Barber, who was reelected Tuesday as president of the 13.3 million-member denomination, warned delegates not to cheer the vote results.

“We don’t throw divorce parties,” Mr. Barber said. “Whatever the results are, behave like Christians.”

Mr. Warren, a fourth-generation Baptist preacher, said the vote marks a break with decades of SBC practice that allowed congregations to dissent on various points of doctrine and remain in “friendly cooperation” — the term Baptists use for denominational affiliation.

He said he believes the expulsion of Saddleback is the tip of a reactionary iceberg.

“This is going to be an inquisition, and it will probably go on for 10 years,” he said. “And we will be the ’Shrinking Baptist Convention.’”

The SBC has lost 3 million members since 2006 and 457,371 in 2022, the denomination reported in May.