In 2023, during the annual meeting, several churches were disfellowshipped from the Southern Baptist Convention for openly defying the denomination’s statement of faith, the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 (BFM2K). Among these churches was the infamous Saddleback Church, one of the largest Southern Baptist churches in the history of the denomination, formerly pastored by Rick Warren and currently led by Andy Wood. At the meeting, the SBC adopted a motion to select a committee to study the BFM2K and “clarify” the denomination’s already abundantly clear stance on women pastors.
The Baptist Press announced yesterday twenty members who would be on the committee to study the BFM2K and make the decision about what to do with churches that have women pastors. Among the twenty is Jason Paredes, the pastor of Fielder Church in Arlington, Texas, who stands in open defiance of the denomination’s statement of faith and declares that he voted against the disfellowship of Saddleback while bragging about having women pastors in his church.
“One thing you’re gonna hear about that concerns me it is the disfellowshipping, the removal of Saddleback Church in California from the Southern Baptist Convention, because they have female pastors,” he told his church in the clip below. “And I want to just say publicly that I am in disagreement with that decision. I voted against that decision”
He later told his church that “We unwaveringly, unequivocally, gratefully have female pastors in this church. And we believe that that decision is scripturally accurate.”
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The fact of the matter is that Jason Paredes and his church should be the first on the list to be disfellowshipped from the Southern Baptist Convention. One Southern Baptist pastor, Nate Schlomann, gets it, and urges Southern Baptists not to play the game, but to simply pass the Mike Law Amendment at the next annual meeting which would codify the complementarian position on women pastors into the denomination’s by-laws.
Schlomann rightly argues that the game the leftists in the denomination are trying to play is rigged. However, Schlomann and other conservatives may be too optimistic. The Southern Baptist Convention in recent years has demonstrated a willingness to compromise biblical truths for the sake of superficial unity.
Another pastor chosen for the committee is Gregory Perkins, who has also openly opposed the decision to disfellowship churches with women pastors. Perkins, lead pastor, The View Church in Menifee, CA and current president of the National African American Fellowship, pulling the race card, argues that many of the 4000 Southern Baptist churches that his organization represents have women pastors, and that disfellowshipping them “disproportionately impact” African American churches.
While the denomination is currently split between conservatives and leftists, even many of the center-right will ultimately “go along to get along” by voting to keep defiant churches in fellowship. The true conservatives, at this point, should just get out.
