Why the SBC Should Remove Saddleback

 By Denny Burk

Published October 10, 2022

Over the weekend, a friend sent me a post from one of Saddleback Church’s social media accounts announcing that their new female teaching pastor would be delivering her first sermon on Sunday, October 9. Her sermon streamed live yesterday on YouTube, and I took some time to watch it myself last night. If you are interested in watching it, this link is cued up to her husband’s introduction to her message, and her message follows immediately after.

I don’t know either of them personally, but if you take time to watch the message, you are going to see a husband and a wife that seem as sweet as they can be. You are also going to find a topical message geared toward self-help that includes no mention of the gospel. I’m certain that she and her husband believe in the gospel and share it elsewhere, but for whatever reason it was not part of this particular message.

But my focus in this post is not on the message itself but on the issue that came before Southern Baptists in Anaheim last summer and that will no doubt be before us again in New Orleans next June. Saddleback is a Southern Baptist Church. Southern Baptist Churches are defined in part by having “a faith and practice which closely identifies with the Convention’s adopted statement of faith.”  Our statement of faith, The Baptist Faith and Message, says that “While both men and women are gifted for service in the church, the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”

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