Rick Warren Apologizes To Women, Admits He Hasn’t Exegeted Scripture in 53 Years
In the hot heat and at risk of being booted from the Southern Baptist Convention over his church’s promotion and proliferation of women pastors, Rick Warren has continued his blistering attempts to upend a hundred and fifty years of Southern Baptist beliefs by seeking to remake the denomination in his own obstreperous image, with the famed braggart who once claimed he added more to the church daily than Jesus did, now offering up an “apology” to women, while at the same time showing what a sad and scurrilous man he is.
Remembering how catastrophically bad a preacher and teacher Rick Warren is doesn’t take much. Famous for peddling to the church the poison and spiritual strychnine that is The Purpose Driven Life for over thirty years- a damaging and unbiblical theology that has seeped into tens of thousands of churches, he was mostly dormant for the last decade but then has reinserted himself into the conversation as a warrior for women preachers.
Saddleback has been the subject of a few controversies over the last few years, after it was uncovered that they have several gay-affirming church leaders on staff who run a gay-affirming ministry for parents of LGBTQ+ children (the same as Andy Stanley’s North Point Church) and for having a “Blacks Only worship service” where no white members were allowed in, so the “black fold” could have a “safe space” to “heal.” They also came under fire after they blasted white Christians for having ‘no discernment’ and accusing them of not caring about black people.
In his public apology, which reads more like a bitter, self-promoting, attention-getting screed than anything, he constantly alludes to his great accomplishments and resourcefulness. He also condemns complementarians as ‘angry fundamentalists’ who are not acting in obedience to the Holy Spirit like he is and specifically notes, “My biggest regret in 53 years of ministry is that I didn’t do my own personal exegesis sooner on the 4 passages used to restrict women. Shame on me.”
That he hasn’t exegeted those four verses in half a century is an insightful admission. Pulpit & Pen makes this salient point:
His post got me to thinking, not about the legitimacy of Warren’s arguments for females in the pastorate, but about just how unqualified Warren himself is to hold the pastoral office. Consider his opening words:
“My biggest regret in 53 years of ministry is that I didn’t do my own personal exegesis sooner on the 4 passages used to restrict women.”
What was he doing in 53 years of ministry if he wasn’t exegeting the scriptures? Warren says that there are only four scriptures which are used as the basis of complimentarian theology! Did Warren not preach through these few passages in over five decades of ministry? Wouldn’t he have been forced to exegete these passages as part of his sermon preparation?
Warren’s statement just goes to show what a snake oil salesman he really is and has been all these years. Warren’s sermons and books are far from exegetical masterpieces. Frankly, he’s become one of the world’s most influential Christians by preaching manipulative, feel-good sermons that are far from exegetically faithful. At least now he’s finally admiting how little exegetical work he has done.
He should indeed be sorry for that.
The fact that he has a library bigger than most houses has not helped him a whit. Given the shallowness, scripture-twisting, and overall poor construction of decades of Warren’s purpose-driven sermons, are we to believe that he has been exegeting scriptures this whole time for all his sermons and that these four verses are the only ones he passed on and failed to exegete properly?
You’ll never convince us of that.