RICK WARREN SAYS HIS CHURCH IS NOT ...

... Southern Baptist but then redacts his statements. What is this all about?

Saddleback Community Church is the largest congregation in the Southern Baptist Convention. But is it really Southern Baptist?

Pastor Rick Warren told a group of high-profile journalists in May that the 40,000-member church no longer is a member of the Southern Baptist Convention. But he retracted that statement Aug. 20, saying he misspoke.

I'm a Southern Baptist pastor, my church is a Southern Baptist church, my family is a Southern Baptist family, and we're proud to be Southern Baptist! For twenty five years I've know Rick Warren and Saddleback to be Southern Baptist. Everyone I know who goes to Saddleback says they're Southern Baptist.

In the original May 23 interview, Warren responded to a question by Rebecca Haggerty of NBC's "Dateline," who asked in what denomination he grew up.

Warren responded: "My father was a Baptist pastor. I grew up in little tiny churches of less than 50 people. I call myself an evangelical. We are – "

Haggerty apparently interrupted with another question: "Your church is not a Baptist church?"

Warren responded: "No – it was. In the early years, when we first got started, it was a part of the Southern Baptist Convention. One out of ten churches in America is an SBC church, and the reason the denomination's so big is that every church is totally independent. The denomination has no control over it. So basically we cooperated with them in their missions program, but now we're doing our own missions program."

I think I understand this, I believe it's mega-barn speak for "we're dyed-in-the-wool Southern Baptists except when we're being interviewed by the MSM."

I take issue with Rick's take on "the reason the denomination's so big" though. It isn't because each local church is free to do whatever it wants (many churches are disassociated each year for a variety of reasons); it's big because its people are dedicated to the whole counsel of God and go out and tell others about what they've learned.

The vast majority of this takes place out of the limelight at thousands of small to medium-sized churches each week.

A "transcript" of the interview, which was posted on the website of the widely rspected Pew Forum for Religion and Public Life in May, was altered to delete the declaration at Warren's request, a Pew spokesman said. The revised "transcript" does not indicate it was altered and no explanation is offered on the website.

Those of you who read my piece on the Amazon rain forests and the death dealing vines that inhabit them will understand when I say this - evidently the vine on the trunk of Saddleback has dug in deeper than I thought.