Rick Warren, one of the best-known Evangelical pastors in the United States, has been an advocate for women in the American Baptist world for some years now.
While the vast majority of pastors in Evangelical churches are still men, Warren has launched a website with videos designed to encourage the promotion of women in governance and to challenge arguments that the ministry of pastor is reserved for men.
The subject is his primary concern. And that's why the Saddleback Church, the evangelical megachurch he founded in 1980 in California, has been excluded from the powerful and conservative Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).
That decision, which was made last year, was reconfirmed at the SBC's annual meeting on June 13-14 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Warren pleaded with the 12,000 SBC delegates on the first day of the meeting to readmit Saddleback, which remains one of the largest churches in the United States with 57,000 congregants.