{"id":1527483,"date":"2022-06-24T07:49:46","date_gmt":"2022-06-24T11:49:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1527483"},"modified":"2022-06-24T07:49:58","modified_gmt":"2022-06-24T11:49:58","slug":"by-catering-to-rick-warren-the-southern-baptist-convention-subverts-the-bible-to-social-fads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/by-catering-to-rick-warren-the-southern-baptist-convention-subverts-the-bible-to-social-fads\/","title":{"rendered":"By Catering To Rick Warren, The Southern Baptist Convention Subverts The Bible To Social Fads"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fby-catering-to-rick-warren-the-southern-baptist-convention-subverts-the-bible-to-social-fads%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1527483&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/Screen-Shot-2022-06-23-at-1.27.14-PM-1024x591-1.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>For seven years, scandals and public <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/07\/01\/southern-baptist-elites-may-be-woke-but-southern-baptists-are-not\/\">rifts<\/a> have <a href=\"https:\/\/spectator.org\/evangelicals-social-justice-woke\/\">rocked<\/a> the declining Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). The spectacle of division and embarrassment continued at the just-concluded annual meeting of Baptists in Anaheim. <\/p>\n<p>Now, for the first time, the establishment class of the largest and ostensibly conservative protestant denomination in America is visibly divided against itself. Albert Mohler, the president of the denomination\u2019s flagship seminary, has publicly broken ranks with SBC elites who have rushed to defend megachurch pastor Rick Warren. Warren is accused of violating the denomination\u2019s doctrinal standards.<\/p>\n<p>Warren\u2019s Saddleback church boasts some 20,000 in attendance, making it the largest congregation in the SBC. His 2002 publication, \u201cThe Purpose Driven Life,\u201d with more than 30 million copies sold, is one of the bestselling nonfiction books in history. <\/p>\n<p>Warren\u2019s openness to the political left is evidenced by giving the invocation at Barack Obama\u2019s inauguration in 2009 and attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. In Davos, Warren <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=bQL7bacD6g4\">met<\/a> and befriended National Institutes of Health head Francis Collins, a <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/10\/08\/nih-director-francis-collins-isnt-a-national-treasure-hes-a-national-disgrace\/\">pro-abortion bureaucrat<\/a> who <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/03\/17\/how-partisan-politics-captured-and-fractured-the-evangelical-industrial-complex\/\">joined<\/a> with former SBC chief ethicist Russell Moore to criticize Donald Trump voters. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On May 6, 2021, Warren\u2019s Saddleback Church ordained three women as pastors, in defiance of both the clear teaching of the Bible and Article VI of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 (BFM 2000). The latter states, \u201cWhile both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.\u201d Rather than reprimand Saddleback, SBC Credentials committee chair Linda Cooper asked the convention to appoint a committee to study the meaning of the word \u201cpastor\u201d and report back to the convention next year. <\/p>\n<p>In a surprise appearance, Warren <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=MBsT1zFmC3E\">addressed<\/a> the convention: \u201cWelcome to Orange County, with 149 Southern Baptist churches, 90 of them started by Saddleback . . . it is customary for a guy who is about to be hung to let him say his dying words.\u201d Then this: \u201cI have no intention of defending myself . . . I am most like Christ when I refuse to defend myself.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Warren then read a prepared \u201clove letter\u201d to Southern Baptists. He said he\u2019s planted \u201cthousands\u201d of churches \u201caround the world.\u201d \u201cI\u2019ve had the privilege for 43 years of training 1.1 million pastors. Sorry friends. That\u2019s more than all the seminaries put together.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>By my <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Xo4lSv20vgk&#038;t=1403s\">calculation<\/a>, that comes to 71 pastors trained per day for 43 straight years! One wonders if the churches planted and pastors trained, whatever the actual numbers, have also adopted a pick-and-choose posture toward the Bible and BFM 2000 articles, as modeled by Warren and Saddleback.<\/p>\n<p>Warren then chided messengers who frown upon the liberties Saddleback has taken with clear scriptural teaching: \u201cAre we going to keep bickering over secondary things or are we going to keep the main thing the main thing?\u201d Warren did not specify the \u201cmain thing\u201d referenced.<\/p>\n<h2>What Is a \u2018Pastor\u2019?<\/h2>\n<p>Mohler <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1ImXhQ8Hr6c&#038;t=310s\">responded<\/a>, \u201cI served on the committee that brought the BFM in 2000 that was overwhelmingly adopted by this convention. . .  If we eventually have to form a study committee over every word in our confession of faith then we\u2019re doomed, we\u2019re no longer a confessional people. .  . the words mean what Southern Baptists said in the year 2000 \u2026 [that] \u2018pastor\u2019 is the most easily understood word among Southern Baptists for pastoral teaching and leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cooper, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=266GFybQhc8&#038;t=1270s\">answered<\/a>, \u201cI know what pastor means but to some of our Southern Baptist churches pastor means a spiritual gift that is given to many people.\u201d Cooper\u2019s response exposes the core cause of theological compromise of the wider <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/03\/17\/how-partisan-politics-captured-and-fractured-the-evangelical-industrial-complex\/\">evangelical industrial complex<\/a> \u2014 that phalanx of luminaries and institutions associated with Presbyterian Pastor Timothy Keller. <\/p>\n<p>It encompasses not only the SBC but also the Presbyterian church in America, many non-denominational congregations, and every major evangelical publishing house, including the venerable and once-stalwart Eerdmans, which joined in this year\u2019s homosexual Pride festivities. The touchstone of doctrine for Cooper is not the Bible, the BFM 2000, the Christian tradition, nor anything boasting ancient roots, but the committee\u2019s current reading of what \u201csome of our Southern Baptist churches\u201d believe and practice.<\/p>\n<p>We are witnessing the step-by-step genuflection of the last major conservative Christian institutions in America before the same insidious force leftists have succumbed to for 200 years. That\u2019s what Southern Baptist theologian Timothy George <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=tQ5ZDwAAQBAJ&#038;pg=PA336&#038;lpg=PA336&#038;dq=timothy+george+imperialism+of+the+present&#038;source=bl&#038;ots=Gg4fFFRx15&#038;sig=ACfU3U0N5oLr4vP5pYs4LnNnABBHV91e8g&#038;hl=en&#038;sa=X&#038;ved=2ahUKEwiXs6L62Lz4AhWJKkQIHZClAeYQ6AF6BAgaEAM#v=onepage&#038;q=timothy%20george%20imperialism%20of%20the%20present&#038;f=false\">called<\/a> \u201cthe imperialism of the present.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On both sides of the ocean, from the heady days when the father of Protestant Liberalism Friedrich Schleiermacher (d. 1834) held forth at Trinity Church in Berlin to Brooklyn Heights\u2019s national sensation, Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) to that sometime Presbyterian, sometime Baptist preacher at Riverside Church in Manhattan, Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969), to today\u2019s Joel Osteen, progressive preachers have made the satisfaction of contemporary sensibilities, not the Bible or doctrine, priority number one. Why do they do it? Because, in business terms, measured in bodies, buildings, and bucks, at least for a time, it works.<\/p>\n<h2>Catering to the Culture<\/h2>\n<p>The fawning protection of Warren by SBC establishment elites in Anaheim is just the tip of the iceberg. For more than a <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/03\/17\/how-partisan-politics-captured-and-fractured-the-evangelical-industrial-complex\/\">decade<\/a>, Keller and SBC entity heads have sought, found, and employed \u201cwinsome ways\u201d to reach contemporaries deemed capable of keeping evangelicals on the \u201cright side of history,\u201d namely the blue communities of college-educated, Democrat-voting denizens of the nation\u2019s cities and blue enclaves scattered across the fruited plain.<\/p>\n<p>That population has drunk deeply from the well of second-wave feminism that lacks patience with ancient Biblical distinctions between the proper roles of men and women in the church. The businessperson\u2019s hyper-alertness to the satisfaction of contemporary customers, and preservation and expansion of market share, best account for why Cooper cited the committee\u2019s reading of contemporary views about the word \u201cpastor\u201d rather than either the Bible or Article VI of her own denomination\u2019s confession in defense of Saddleback.<\/p>\n<p>Christians anchored to the Bible and the confessions of faith crafted to protect and preserve the teaching of the Bible, have always, eventually, come to recognize such progressive catering to culture as sub-Christian lapses from the faith once delivered to the saints. If history is any guide, the SBC\u2019s current iteration of this old pattern shall meet with a similar fate.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<div class=\"article-author-description fst-italic\">\n  Mark DeVine is a pastor, former missionary in Bangkok, Thailand, and a theology professor in<br \/>\nAlabama. He is the author of &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Bonhoeffer-Speaks-Today-Following-Jesus\/dp\/0805432612\/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=bonhoeffer+speaks+today&#038;qid=1584320486&#038;sr=8-1\">Bonhoeffer Speaks Today<\/a>&#8221; and &#8220;<a>Shalom Yesterday, Today, and Forever<\/a>.&#8221;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For seven years, scandals and public rifts have rocked the declining Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). The spectacle of division and embarrassment continued at the just-concluded annual meeting of Baptists in<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":969,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1527483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/969"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1527483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1527483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1527483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1527483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}