Rick Warren, founder of megachurch Saddleback, on Tuesday defended the right of Baptist churches to have women pastors after his California church was disfellowshipped earlier this year by the Southern Baptist Convention.

Warren asked the denomination to reverse the decision.

“We should remove churches for all kinds of sexual sin, racial sin, financial sin and leadership sin – sins that harm the testimony of our convention,” Warren told the convention.

But churches with “women on pastoral staff have not sinned,” he said. “If doctrinal disagreements between Baptists are considered sin, we all get kicked out.”

The SBC voted Tuesday on Saddleback’s appeal at its annual meeting in New Orleans, but the results of the balloting were not expected to be announced until Wednesday.

Saddleback began ordaining women in 2021 and in May appointed Katie Edwards as campus pastor of its flagship Lake Forest location. Warren retired as lead pastor last year and was succeeded by Andy Wood, whose wife, Stacie Wood, serves as a teaching pastor. The church is led by an all-male elder board.

“If you think every Baptist thinks like you, you’re mistaken,” Warren, author of the bestselling “The Purpose-Driven Life,” told the convention.

“What we share in common is a mutual commitment to the inerrancy and infallibility of God’s word and to the Great Commission of Jesus Christ,” he said. “No one is asking any Southern Baptist to change their theology. I’m not asking you to agree with my church. I am asking you to act like a Southern Baptist, who have historically agreed to disagree on dozens of doctrines in order to share a common mission.”

The credentials committee determined that four churches were “not in friendly cooperation” with the Southern Baptist Convention because they have women on staff using the title of pastor.

The Executive Committee ousted five churches in February, but only two of those expelled because of having women pastors — Fern Creek Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky and Saddleback — opted to appeal.

Two other churches, Calvary Baptist in Jackson, Miss., and St. Timothy’s Christian Baptist in Baltimore, were disfellowshipped over women pastors but did not appeal the decision.

The convention also heard an appeal from Freedom Church of Vero Beach, Florida, which the Executive Committee ousted for what it said was a failure to address a situation of sexual misconduct. The church said it had addressed the issue, but a committee representative disputed that.

The SBC Executive Committee asked former Southern Baptist Seminary President Albert Mohler to defend the stance against women pastors.

In 2000, the Southern Baptist Convention adopted a new Baptist Faith & Message doctrinal statement that said “the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”

Those words were inserted because “30 years ago this issue threatened to tear this denomination apart,” Mohler said.

“It’s a matter of biblical commitment, a commitment to the scripture that unequivocally, we believe, limits the office of pastor to men. It is an issue of biblical authority,” Mohler said. “It is one that has actually led to the unity of the Southern Baptist Convention as Southern Baptists have gone forward with an issue of clarity here which has greatly made our doctrine and order a matter of unity and harmony. It is the unity and harmony of the Southern Baptist Convention that is now at stake.”

Mohler argued that the Southern Baptist Convention needs to disfellowship churches that have a woman who holds the title of pastor. Southern Baptist churches are considered independent and autonomous, not ruled by a denomination, but they agree to cooperate with churches in “friendly cooperation” doctrinally to support mission work.

In other business Tuesday, the Southern Baptist Convention re-elected President Bart Barber to a second one-year term.

Barber received 68% of the votes to Stone’s 31%.

Houston pastor Jarrett Stephens, nominating Barber, said he has spoken with “compassion, composure and conviction” in insisting on reforms over sexual abuse.

Barber has described himself as staunchly conservative and among other things used his presidential sermon earlier Tuesday to briefly address LGBTQ issues. “Boys can’t become girls,” he said. “Marriage is between a man and a woman.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.