Thousands of Southern Baptists voted overwhelmingly to affirm the expulsion of Saddleback Church, the epitome for decades of a modern conservative evangelical megachurch because Saddleback Pastor Rick Warren ordained women, Southern Baptist Convention officials said Wednesday.

The Southern Baptist Convention has voted to enforce a doctrine for male-only pastors, rejecting an impassioned appeal from the Rev. Rick Warren to reinstate his megachurch, which an SBC governing panel expelled in February for employing a female “teaching pastor.”