Ouster of Saddleback and Fern Creek from SBC over women pastors is affirmed
Linda Barnes Popham speaks at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in New Orleans on June 13. (RNS photo by Emily Kask)
Delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting affirmed a decision to expel two Southern Baptist churches, including Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in Orange County, California, because they employed women as pastors. The churches had appealed to the meeting, the denomination’s ruling body, to be allowed to remain.
Both churches were denied by a strong majority of the delegates, known as messengers.
The body affirmed the ouster of Saddleback by a vote of 9,432 to 1,212. The vote went against Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, by 9,700 to 806.
