Rick Warren Going Hard at Southern Baptists

this is Rick Warren and he has switched from taking a passive resistance role um and a switch to open opposition to the southern baptist conferences continued uh stagnant position against women as Leaders so let's talk about how the SPC is breaking the church and what Rick Warren is doing to fix it never thought those words would come out of my mouth but here we are

yeah and I've got to like Wonder like like could we ever have like uttered the phrase Rick Warren culture Warrior right oh my god wow and so so for those of you who don't know Rick Warren um best-selling author purpose-driven life and all of the derivatives thereof um uh senior pastor founder of Saddleback Church um more weekly attenders than some countries have citizens you know so Rick Warren very very successful very popular Pastor has had it up to here with the southern baptist conventions continued insistence that women have no places leaders and it seems like he has uh he stepped down as leader of Saddleback I mean he's retired just because he retired but it seems like he has stepped down in order to pick this fight instead of like Get being interviewed by Relevant Magazine or Christianity today or any one of dozens of Christian Media Outlets Rick Warren has just gone straight to the Washington Post and has written his own op-ed so I think that is a a pretty clear declaration to me that that he has done having this conversation quote unquote in the family and he's ready to kind of talk on a bigger stage about this yeah I like like I am curious It's like what is the ratio of balls to brains here on Rick's side I've got to imagine like there's just this sort of like like what do I have to lose like at this point like I've sold all the books I need to sell and dirty little secret I'm Gonna Keep selling books well after I'm dead this is one of those books you know so yeah not only am I fine but my wife is fine and my children will be fine long after I'm gone um but I don't want to read this whole article out loud for you but I did have three Choice Snippets that I that are you know I'm assuming like he's a big boy so I'm assuming these came from his own brain not from some other person feeding him lines I thought right he made three points that that go well with your and I with our continued message that that one of the continued chains of the church is treating women as second-class Citizens so one of the first thing he says is he gives us a little reminder of history that um yeah that the SPC has been in Decline since the Baptist faced message faith and message confession was revised in 2000 to add a Prohibition against female pastors then in 2015 an amendment to the Constitution weaponized that confession turning it into an enforceable Creed um and all I wanted to mention was that is one of the points that I keep making over and over again that people hate is that we are always as humans renegotiating with the Bible renegotiating with Doctrine renegotiating with what we mean um as times change as societies change as perspectives change as norms and morals change we're always in negotiation with that and Rick Warren just reminds us that that churches are no different churches renegotiate this stuff all the time and it wasn't all that long ago that the SBC negotiated this kind of presuppositions and made them indication you know we're talking about ultimately wisdom like these are like the laws are meant to impart wisdom and produce wisdom like you know um any ancient Society then it's like they had these like large legal texts which were not meant to actually be the law they were meant to teach how to you know make judgments right and and in the same way like the Bible today like we have to as we learn things about how the world works we you know our you know our our economic systems change our governmental system has changed our social systems change um you know yeah like we have to keep trying to understand okay well how does this wisdom apply to to this now and I I feel like Rick Warren has you know is landing on the right side of this argument yeah yeah I mean the SBC doesn't right well it's just interesting that um you can get up at a Pulpit week after week after week and talk about the glory of God's creation while at the same time kind of always pushing down half of that creation um on a theological basis on a hermeneutical basis on a um philosophical basis on a moral basis on an ethical basis it just seems to be more consistent if you don't keep trying to Crush people just just for wanting to be part you know just for wanting to be in the same room you know so I do I do think in that sense you know it's not a revelation to call Rick Warren Wright like it's kind of like wow like look how amazing my my seven-year-old for for getting right that one plus one is two you know like like the equation is kind of like that's where we are sadly you know all right let's move on okay so one of so you and I always we often talk about uh Folly of sweeping things under the rug right those things always find way back out right and so one of one of the um truisms that Rick mentions in his article in his op-ed is that some SBC leaders seem unable to admit or talk about it but denial is dishonesty right and so he writes I should note that men treat this as a theological issue um whereas women see it as an existential issue because it denies the gifts talents and skills that they were sovereignly given by God right and so like that's not an unfair um observation right Men Are from Mars Women Are from Venus or whatever we just see things differently it's part of what makes Society work right that different people have different strengths see things differently it's just interesting that in the seeing of things differently that the men either cannot see or refuse to see the

um one the Injustice of their position but B the um

the the lack the lack of scriptural support for their position so I feel like for men like in the SBC at least you know or you know similar denominations I feel like it might actually be an existential to them existential threat to them as well because as you know women take roles that men used to get to say well this is just a man's role they don't know how to define themselves as men anymore and I think that might be freaking in a matter right and it doesn't excuse it but you know at least like maybe it gives us something we can work with absolutely so how does the the southern baptist conference how does this persistence in wanting to uphold um a policy that is dubious at the best in its biblical foundations how does this break the church um and I just kind of had this random thought that I that I typed out and then and then let's kind of jump into it um what would just like what you when you don't fight for something that's a tacit endorsement what isn't said matters just as much as what is said um do you ever notice how when when you pastors are at the pulpit they never ever preach the message of here's five biblical examples of why women shouldn't be leaders you can't do that because it's not there right so right instead what you hear at every Pulpit is here's five examples of how God has given men Authority right and that's so you have to come at it from that perspective because it's the only perspective that gives you any wiggle room to to keep your you know immoral unethical unprofessional unbiblical points alive right and so now that the SBC like they figured it out we can't go to the Bible to defend these anti-women policies right so then we have to retreat to this is tradition this is the way it's always been this like we are not the woke we are not the progressive you know we are not a bunch of um tree-hugging um you know rainbow flag waving um of liberals that is not us we are the other thing and so then then by virtue of defining themselves by a tradition of political conservatism social conservatism um sexual conservatism professional conservatism they've painted themselves into this corner where they're no longer preserving um quote I hate this phrase because I don't because because we renegotiate biblical truth right now we are like now we are like quite solidly in the practice of preserving tradition and I just have to wonder what is the point of preserving tradition if if there is no um spiritual value of it to it there's no biblical truth to it there is no Kingdom benefit to it all there is is hey your organization needs to let you know they get to keep women down for a couple more decades oh gosh you know in this is uh just one of those things I want to like yell at people in Latin um because you know there's this Latin phrase argumentative which is a reasoning fallacy which means specifically argument against tradition yeah um like you can't just say because this is the way it's been this is the way it should be yeah um I mean to an extent I really appreciate tradition in the church um in terms of things like you know ritual and worship um and and then also you know to an extent you know to you know theology because you know we don't want to be you know as James puts it like swept back and forth by every wind of Doctrine you know we want to have stability um and so you know tradition does give us an inertia so we don't go like just ricocheting off you know a weird thing um but at the same time um you know somebody like you know like a uh like a like a like a super panamax ship it's it's huge and it turns slowly but it has to be piloted or else it just you know turns sideways in the Suez Canal and and there you go you know so it's like you know it's it's like they're taking their hands off the wheel and saying oh we just have to let it go where it wants to and I mean that's just that's cowardice yeah you know we're going to date ourselves on this particular uh episode uh because this is also this is the week where that for those of us for people paying attention to the news um there's a submersible that that has recently imploded um and this submersible exists to to give people guided tours of the wreckage of the Titanic right and why is is the Titanic where it is now uh because the people who were supposed to be diligent in in guiding the Titanic through Dangerous Waters were asleep at the wheel right and so that it feels very it feels very parallel to what's going on in the SBC it feels like there are people who think that they are um they've got both hands on the wheel and they are protecting the legacy of of the the church and of in God's Legacy somehow uh uh but the truth is they're looking this way and there's a ginormous Iceberg coming from over here that they have no idea and the iceberg's already kind of hit right with um with with all the churches that have already been kicked out of the SBC and the thousands of churches according to Rick Warren the thousands of churches not now run the risk of being kicked out right then you add on to that all the people that are going to leave as a result of knowing when the ship is sinking and wanting not to be a part of it right and so it's just an interesting parallel to to watching history repeat itself yeah and um you know I yeah do you mind if I'm moving on to fixing it yeah yeah please all right so so looking at like you know like like how do we fix this right like you know you brought up the Titanic so another dated reference would be the movie Titanic yeah um and so you know in there um a guy whose name you know I can only call him Chief O'Brien because I watch too much Star Trek's Next Generation yeah yeah like I think it was him that made the comment like you know like even God couldn't sink her um and I really feel like that's just kind of the equivalent what we have here is like we have people with us thinking that like well we're the church yeah you know so like we can't be sunk right but you can't just automatically presume you're on God's side I mean part of part of our faith is you know believing that you know we're mostly hunting outside right um you know but I I yeah it's it's just there's a hubris to it like like they're they're leaning into it at least that's what it seems like with the the amendments to the Constitution Etc right like it seems like they're just they're leaning into it because they're convinced that there is no way that this will be their undoing yeah and I mean if if the the you know I don't know if any of you've looked at the chart recently for the membership of the SBC but like it's it's decreasing faster than it was increasing to its peak right and if Rick Warren's got his his um you know finger on the pulse yeah I mean it just it really doesn't seem like it's a it's a good thing it seems like it's sinking but in terms of fixing the church I think we need to look back once again we need to read our Bibles and I think we need to look back to the story of David and Goliath um we tend to look at these denominations Catholics um the SBC the Methodist Church um all you know whatever big denomination uh that that you know of the AG uh denomination we kind of think of them as these these humongous structures I don't think it's unreasonable to think that people who have um a Right View of who they are who they are in Christ who scripture says they are cannot with with David's kind of humility with his um with the practice that he had with his Stone and his slingshot with his understanding that it doesn't matter how big you are that every human has soft spots somewhere that can be taken advantage of um and and you know you know with the ability to look around to your fellow soldiers and see the cowardice and say somebody's got to stand up to this and and even it comes even it comes if it comes at my own peril um I will speak the truth and I Won't Back Down I think that's the fix I I think that every every man who leads the southern baptist conference puts her on their pants on Words is hard uh put they put their pants on one leg at a time just like everybody else and with enough reasonable people contending for what is right I can't help but think that this is yet something else that we can renegotiate you know we have very much lost that prophetic voice um just kind of you know in the church culture in general um where there's uh there's there's not a lot of um people that are willing to stand up and rock the boat when it needs to be rocked um but let's face it sometimes you know you do need to be you know you know the a-hole and and stand up and you know and say hey no no no no no this is wrong um and Warren is you know he's taking I would call it kind of a soft prophetic role um sure if you think that's fair like he's not he's not like going Whole Hog at this but he's he's he's at least stood up um you know with being a prophetic voice you know there is the wisdom like like you said like you know you can't just start you know condemning everybody and throwing names out there right like you know like like the message of that prophetic voice needs to be appropriate for the moment it needs to be appropriate for what's going on um you know you you don't get people to really listen to you if you start off just hauling in on them um you know but like you do have to be dedicated to it and I think I I think I think you know praying for wisdom as anybody who wants to stand against us I think that's a very important part of that process too a great point and probably the point we should we should end on right um taking a stand is important um but the the prayer is not just only to be victorious right the prayer is for Wisdom right the prayer for the prayers for wisdom and that's a super super subtle and an important part of that so I like that let's end there foreign

so this is Church's lame all right you may have watched this video or listen to this podcast and think man Scott and Mark really hate the church nothing could be further from the church we both love the church we are actively involved our churches the goal of this podcast is to answer the question why don't people take church more seriously well it's because of the stupid things that we point out week to week and hopefully if we can stop doing these stupid things the church could grain some credibility in in the modern world and begin to to bring Kingdom and and Kingdom principles back to back to this world again um and so that's why we do what we do and so if you want to be part of the conversation by all means uh head over to YouTube find this video and leave us a comment and do the thumbs up or thumbs down and let us know what you think um or if you're listening to this podcast you know go to your favorite podcast player and leave us a rating and review so we can know what you like about the podcast what you know and if you want to yell at us like the most direct way possible shoot us an email churcheslanepodcast gmail.com