Good riddance! There, I said it. NewSpring Church has officially joined the ranks of spiritual circus tents that have packed up and left the Southern Baptist Convention, and frankly, the SBC should be sending them a thank-you note, not a love letter.

Cue the anguished howls of the woke elite within the denomination. From the slick-haired denominational strategists to the limp-wristed Twitter theologians, they’ve all suddenly discovered their passion for institutional unity—but only, it seems, when liberal megachurches start walking out the back door.

Where were their tears when doctrinally sound, Bible-believing churches left? Where was their righteous indignation when faithful pastors and elders, grieved by the SBC’s progressive slide, dusted off their sandals and walked away? Silent as a tomb. But now that the high-dollar, high-production, skinny-jean stage shows are leaving, they mourn like Jerusalem after the exile. Not because of lost orthodoxy. Because of lost revenue.

NewSpring didn’t leave because they were too pure for the SBC’s direction. They left because even the ever-wobbling SBC finally started stiffening its spine against the feminist creep seeping into the pulpit. And NewSpring has a woman teaching pastor—a title soaked in theological doublespeak and marketed as technically not violating the Baptist Faith & Message, though it absolutely does.

It’s the same old scam, “We don’t technically have a woman senior pastor… just one who teaches and preaches regularly. You know, like a senior pastor.”

This is the same NewSpring founded by Perry Noble, the ex-pastor who once tried to turn Sunday mornings into a Las Vegas revue. The man who infamously misquoted Scripture, preached with all the depth of a kiddie pool, and built a reputation on rock-concert worship and self-help pep talks masquerading as sermons.

Perry Noble didn’t feed sheep. Instead, as Spurgeon predicted in his day, he entertained goats. He wasn’t a shepherd. He was a ringmaster. His fall from grace—a self-inflicted implosion involving alcohol abuse and marital failure—was less a shock and more a formality. NewSpring should have collapsed under the weight of its own spiritual frivolity. But instead, it doubled down.

Instead of repenting and rebuilding on the Word of God, the church kept its house of cards standing by pretending it had matured. They tossed Noble aside like a used napkin, then painted on a new face, kept the fog machines, and rolled forward with their charismatic, self-help machine.

And now, years later, when the SBC even suggests that the office of pastor means what Scripture says it means, NewSpring clutches its pearls and writes a public breakup letter, dripping with false humility and PR polish: “We don’t want our affiliation to distract from the Great Commission.”

Please. The only thing NewSpring distracts from is sound doctrine. They’ve been doing that for decades. If this is what they call the Great Commission, then Joel Osteen is a five-point Calvinist.

But what really exposes the charade is the response from SBC insiders—particularly those chronicled in Liam Adams’s piece from The Tennessean. Suddenly, these voices who never uttered a peep when small, solid churches left over real concerns about critical race theory, Resolution 9, Ed Litton’s plagiarism, or the ERLC’s leftist meanderings—now they can’t stop hand-wringing over NewSpring.

Where were they when churches were dropping in droves because of then president, JD Greear’s apologetics for homosexuality? Where were they when churches were in mass exodus over Ed Litton’s plagiarism scandal? Where were they when churches across California, Texas, and Tennessee stepped away from the SBC because they could no longer in good conscience support its leadership failures, its double standards, or its flirtation with cultural Marxism?

Nowhere. Nowhere at all.

No, now it’s different. Because now it’s big numbers that are leaving. Now it’s big money walking out the door. NewSpring boasts over 10,000 members and thirteen campuses. Thirteen stages. Thirteen giving kiosks. Thirteen live-streamed sermons dressed up in leather jackets and emotional manipulation. That kind of operation pays dues. That kind of machine oils the SBC gears. When they leave, it’s not theology that’s threatened—it’s funding. It’s influence. It’s access. It’s market share.

You see, the SBC has long been a strange hybrid of doctrinal federation and political machine, and nothing exposes that schizophrenic identity more than moments like this. When solid, quiet churches exit, it’s barely a footnote. But when the flashy megachurch with a woman teaching pastor and a fog machine bigger than most baptistries leaves? That’s a crisis.

The irony is thick enough to choke on. The SBC brass has spent years begging the world to take them seriously by flirting with progressive talking points, issuing statements about racial sensitivity, and holding panel discussions that feel more like CNN than a Baptist conference.

All in the name of cultural relevance. All in the name of outreach. All in the name of engagement.

And now the very churches that were supposed to be their gateway to the cool crowd are walking out, because even the SBC’s tepid baby steps back to Scripture are too much for them.

NewSpring, Saddleback, Elevation—they were never the crown jewels of Baptist life. They were golden calves with good lighting. And the fact that their exits are seen as tragic by anyone with a seminary degree only proves how far the bar has been lowered. These weren’t churches pushing the envelope. They were burning it.

So again, let me say it plainly: good riddance!

If your church needs a woman teaching pastor to thrive, it isn’t thriving. If your leadership strategy involves more marketing than theology, it isn’t leading. If your public statement sounds more like a corporate resignation letter than a doctrinal stand, you’ve already chosen your reward.

And if you think that losing NewSpring is the tragedy the SBC should be weeping over, maybe the real tragedy is that you were ever trusted to lead anything eternal in the first place.