Response to Rick Warren’s Email
At the beginning of June, I and thousands of other Southern Baptist Pastors received an email from Rick Warren regarding this year's Southern Baptist Convention meeting as he wishes to challenge the Executive Committee’s (EC) Ruling regarding women being able to fulfill the office and title of Pastor. Rick generalizes several key Baptist distinctions in his email and website with an appeal to emotion fallacy. In his email and website, he references four historic Southern Baptist distinctives upon which our founders organized the Convention. The four issues that Warren addresses as a cause for concern if 2023 SBC Resolution on the Office of Bishop/Elder/Pastor passes is that it will:
change the basis of our cooperation
change the basis of our identity
centralize the power in the EC and take away autonomy from the churches
turn our confession into a creed, which Baptists have always opposed.
I wish to address these four items that he is building his case upon to highlight and demonstrate that, in several ways, he is misrepresenting the historic nature of the Southern Baptists and the beliefs held and purpose of the formation of the Baptist denomination.
1. Change the Basis of Our Cooperation
On Warren’s website, he appeals to the Southern Baptist formation after the great schism of 1845 over the issue of slavery. He references one of the chief architects of the Southern Baptist Convention, William Bullein Johnson of South Carolina. In his drafting of the constitution, which would establish the Southern body on a convention plan as opposed to a society plan, and on May 8, 1845, in Augusta, Georgia, Johnsons' draft was adopted with minor changes. Upon adoption, the objects of importance were: 1) foreign and home missions, 2) the number of boards of managers, 3) the convention’s “home field” and territories in which it could operate and establish churches.[1] Johnson stated, “The whole Denomination will be united in one body for the purpose of welldoing.”[2] The basis of the denomination that Warren is referencing is that of missions. At the organization of this new convention in 1845, the SBC numbered 4,126 churches and 351,951 members.[3] The basis for the Baptist denominational heritage goes back to the 17th century during the time of the English Reformation, and the era in 1814 ended in 1854 with the schism that transpired behind the qualified in front of the word “Baptist” either North or South. Establishing the biblical principle of the office and role of elder/overseer to that to a man only does not violate the basis of our cooperation.
2. Change the Basis of Our Identity
The second point of Warren’s claim is unclear to me as to what he is referencing regarding our identity. Is he referencing us as individuals who constitute the church to form the body (1 Cor. 12:12-27)? Or is this in reference to that of the convention? I will take the stance that this is about that of the convention; however, as he attempts to appeal to historical documents of his choosing, the history of the SBC and its identity is clear to see that it is continually moving to enhance missions. With the gospel's spread after the Landmark faction withdrawal in 1905, Southern Baptists enjoyed two decades of peace with a primary focus on fulfilling the Great Commission. As The Centennial Committee made a report in 1900 for Southern Baptist focusing on the Convention’s existence was “to carry into effect the benevolent intentions of its constituents by eliciting, combining, and directing the energies of the whole denomination in one sacred effort for the propagation of the gospel.”[4]
Defining the office and role of the pastor by utilizing Scripture as the source of truth does not change the basis of Southern Baptist identity; it protects it. Maintaining the historical creedal understanding of the emergence of the original Baptists, to begin with, is to understand the need and desire for doctrinal clarity and distinctiveness from anti-biblical perspectives.
3. Centralize the power in the EC and take away autonomy from the churches
The establishment of the Executive Committee was created in 1917 due to several issues arising from The Centennial Committee (1898), the Commission on Co-operation (1900), and the Commission on Efficiency (1914), according to John E. White of Georgia as a means “for securing the highest efficiency of our forces.”[5] The EC was created and established to have closer cooperation between state and national boards to consolidate resources to further the advancement of the gospel and to give the SBC continuity between sessions. The EC is not dictating or overreaching into other Southern Baptist churches to tell them how to conduct their services, hiring, firing, or any other church preference. However, identifying and cooperating with Southern Baptist is adhering to the BFM 2000, according to Article VI. The Church states, “Its scriptural officers are pastors and deacons. While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”[6] If you wish to be in cooperation, this item is established. It is not an item of subjectivity for interpretation. For if one reads the BFM 2000 as subjective regarding what it means to be Southern Baptist, and you wish to go against any other section of the BFM, you violate breaching the unity of Southern Baptist Churches, not the executive committee. The interpretation of the clear biblical distinctions is not open for interpretation where items are clearly articulated, such as documents of the Baptist Faith and Message. Either we hold to the standard and other churches to the standard, or we as a denomination will see a liberal theological drift from the source and standard of truth, Scripture.
4. Turn our confession into a creed, which Baptists have always opposed.
This statement is partly true; however, on the whole, it is an oversimplification. Throughout the years of Southern Baptist History, some within the convention are wholly and entirely unfamiliar with the heritage from which Southern Baptists draw. Rather than going back to the origins of the Baptist denominational emergence, many focus only on the Southern split neglecting the influences and purposes of the origins. Furthermore, many today are vastly unfamiliar with their own theologians and church fathers who have helped navigate through items of doctrinal clarity and Scriptural integrity. Yes, Southern Baptist is its own denomination; however, when parsing these two out, you are Baptist first and Southern by distinction. Without “Baptist,” you are merely just a geographical location. With this said, the issue with Warren’s statement here and his entire movement is to neglect the roots and heritage of the Baptists by way of osmosis, adopting a myriad of influences from non-Baptist and nondenominational sources. The infiltration of this ideology results in calloused statements regarding “no creeds but the Bible” as a mockery of creeds as being “-” and “anecdotal.”
In this fourth statement, Warren presents a false dichotomy as though creeds and confessions oppose each other.
Creed: an authoritative, formulated statement of the chief articles of Christian belief.
Confession: belief in the importance of full or unambiguous assent to the whole of a movement or denomination’s teachings.
These two are not at odds with each other, as Warren and others purport. Instead, they directly support each other. Historically, given cultural movements, external pressures, and doctrinal ambiguity, statements (creeds) became necessary to make clear what the Bible says about specific issues. Creeds help confessions by articulating, clarifying, and making distinctions in words and their meanings to prevent precisely what transpires here and what took place in 1963 when Southern Baptists adopted their first confession. This confession became creedal but not at the expense of Scriptural authority and integrity. Throughout the years, Southern Baptists and other denominations waged war against the cultural pressure and attacks against the inspiration and authority of Scripture, leading to the inerrancy controversy and the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy in 1978.
The office and role of a pastor have been defined and clearly articulated through biblical support. Warren is suggesting that the BFM confession is confessional, not creedal, meaning that the BFM content cannot serve as a standard necessary to be enforced on each church because of the autonomy of the local church.
In Summary
The issue that Warren is presenting is truly not unique to Warren but a problem that the SBC at large must address. Warren was the catalyst for this conversation, forcing Southern Baptists around America to decide the source and standard of truth. This is not “Pandora's box,” as Warren suggests. Still, it is very telling where Pastors and messengers across the United States stand as it relates to the authority and sufficiency of Scripture. Women being able to fill the office and role of pastor is the tip of the iceberg; beneath the cold surface is the more significant portion ready to reveal itself as the real issue within this issue, the authority, and sufficiency of Scripture. There are several phenomenal articles regarding the Scriptural support for a clear biblical interpretation of these passages, one recently written by Scott Aniol on G3 that I recommend for further reading.
The importance I believe that all Southern Baptist members, pastors, and other brothers and sisters watching is answering the question, what role does Scripture play in the life of the church?
Today the issue is on women in the pulpit, which goes against the explicit interpretation and understanding of the Scripture. Still, tomorrow if this door is not closed, will be the liberal drift that so many other denominations have fallen prey to, such as the Methodists and some Presbyterians. The real issue here that everyone must wrestle with is how you view Scripture, and are you willing to allow Scripture to change your opinion, or would you instead continue to seek out “others” supporting your stance? The debate over the current subject indeed calls everyone to examine their hermeneutic and that of their pastor. If the individual attempts to explain away Paul’s writing as “cultural” and attempts to dismiss a proper hermeneutical approach to appeal to that of the masses, then where else are they compromising?
This is not a secondary issue. This is a primary issue that presents itself as secondary. It is a primary issue because it subtly attacks the sufficiency of Scripture, the very Word of God. No different from Satan's approach to Eve in Genesis 3:1 by asking, “Indeed has God said?” Attacks continually come at the Word of God in what God has inspired men to write under the conviction and testimony of the Holy Spirit. With all this being said, please pray for Southern Baptists that we allow Scripture to rule supreme, not the culturally manipulative pressure on what is or is not acceptable.
[1] Leon McBeth, Baptist Beginnings (Nashville, TN: Historical Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1979), 452.[2] Ibid., 456.[3] Lewis Wingo, “Little Known Facts about the Southern Baptist Convention,” Quarterly Review (April-June 1984), 40-41.[4] Baptist Argus, May 30, 1901, cited in W.W. Barnes, The Southern Baptist Convention 1845-1953, 167. [5] Ibid., 1914, 71.[6] https://bfm.sbc.net/bfm2000/