Saddleback Church

Words of the Week – Should Women Be Church Pastors, Teachers, and Leaders?

I just read an article about the Southern Baptist Convention cutting ties with Saddleback Church, founded by now retired Pastor Rick Warren, for defending women in the role of church leaders, particularly as pastors. This has been a long-standing controversial issue. There was a member in my own fellowship who had the same concern, so I had done some previous research on it. A lot of the controversy stems from Apostle Paul’s writings. On the one hand Paul writes in 1 Timothy 2:12, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must