DAVID MORRILL GOES OFF ON RICK WARREN AND RUSSELL MOORE AS WARREN DEFENDS WOMEN PASTORS (HE AND RUSSELL MOORE KNOW BETTER); VOWS TO APPEAL DISFELLOWSHIP FROM THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION
Perhaps no single individual has done as much to stunt the spiritual growth of and sear the modern American evangelical conscience than Rick Warren. With his Peter Drucker-mentored corporatization of the church, his Schuller-inspired, man-pleasing “gospel,” and his endless ability to taint every would-be solid minister from John Piper to Al Mohler on his way to becoming the king of dollar store, bargain bin Christianity, Rick Warren’s career has been nothing short of infamous. Warren’s brand of cheap, biblically-devoid, “I’m lovin’ it” Christianity has been the junk food that fattened up the American McChurch with so many empty spiritual calories that, even if we knew the race we were supposed to run many of us couldn’t do it.
In the wake of Warren’s Saddleback Church being (surprisingly) disfellowshipped by the Southern Baptist Convention for their blatant disregard for the scriptural (and Baptist Faith and Message) teaching on the office of pastor, Warren joined his fellow former SBC interloper Russell Moore to discuss his supposedly changed beliefs on the topic. No Rick Warren appearance would be complete, of course, without his signature Bible-twisting, patronizing abuse of language, and a healthy dose of Trump-esque narcissistic puffery, and Warren didn’t disappoint.
Warren begins by comparing himself to Moore himself and Beth Moore as people who left the SBC (apparently forgetting the fact that the other two left of their own accord), then reminds listeners that of all the Southern Baptists, he is the most Southern Baptisty of all:
“Because when I started Saddleback Church 43 years ago, although I am a fourth-generation Southern Baptist… And my grandfather, Chester Armstrong was related to Annie Armstrong. That’s my pretty much pedigree. My great, great grandfather was led to Christ by Charles Spurgeon and sent to America to plant churches in the 1860s. So I have a long Baptist background. But you know what, we’ve done so many things not by the book…”
Not by the book. We couldn’t agree more. Not to be outmaneuvered, self-described lifelong SBC’er Moore describes himself as “bowled over” that the SBC would be concerned about “giving women too much [leadership]” (women pastors at Saddleback) when the convention is full of sexual abuse and “crises” involving the treatment of women:
“…I would think with all of the crises involving the treatment of women – sexual abuse within the SBC – that saying that a church is giving women too much, is really not the problem in the SBC as I see it, and I couldn’t believe that that’s what they were taking up.”
Warren responds with an attempted dunk on “voices” in the SBC who object to losing church autonomy in an effort to fight abuse in SBC churches, claiming that:
“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.”
Hey genius, nobody is trying to prevent you from calling your women “pastors.” We just object to associating with churches that can’t obey the clear teachings of the Bible.
In what may have been the dumbest thing he claimed, Warren drew a distinction between “conservative” Baptists and so-called “fundamental” Baptists, and said “fundamental Baptists,” like “fundamental Muslims,” “fundamental Buddhists,” and “fundamental atheists” are simply those who have “stopped listening.” Unlike Warren of course, who in the same breath utters, “I believe in the inerrancy of scripture,” but “I could be wrong” before deriding so-called “fundamentalists” for ascribing inerrancy to what they believe the Bible teaches.
Source: Protestia
To read more, click here: https://protestia.com/2023/03/12/rick-warren-says-denying-women-the-pastorate-is-racist-and-saddleback-will-appeal-disfellowship-to-fight-the-inquisition/
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