At their annual meeting on Tuesday in New Orleans, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) overwhelmingly upheld the decision of their Executive Committee to remove Saddleback Church, a megachurch in California previously pastored by Rick Warren, from the nation’s largest non- Catholic Christian denomination.
The vote was 9,437 — or 88 percent — in favor of disfellowshiping Saddleback from the Southern Baptist Convention. Less than 12 percent — only 1,212 members — voted against the recommendation of the Executive Committee to expel the church because it had opted to allow a woman to fill the role of teaching pastor. Also removed from the SBC was Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, for the same reason. Freedom Church of Vero Beach, Florida, was ousted because the church had not removed its pastor, considered to have been credibly accused of sexual misconduct.