How Many “Shepherds for Sale” Were Bought by Docent Research Group?

In an attempt to defend himself from the thesis of Megan Basham’s Shepherds for Sale, JD Greear repeatedly relied on claims of poor memory or inarticulate phrasing. But a deep dive into the Protestia archives reveals something more sinister. It’s highly likely Greear didn’t write his own words and, therefore, isn’t familiar with what the Docent Group provided for him to say.

As previously covered by Protestia, J.D. Greear’s voluminous retort to Megan Basham in response to her well-documented claims in Shepherds for Sale largely relied upon claims of bad memory, poor wording, and a ‘maturing’ of his views. This has raised the collective eyebrow of evangelicalism, which has rightly and instinctively found this defense incredulous. What writer doesn’t remember what he has written? What pastor doesn’t remember what he has spoken? This would be akin to a songwriter not knowing their own lyrics. It’s more implausible than a Bigfoot sighting at a disco rave. It seems unbelievable, which leads many logical people to assume the most likely cause is that Greear is lying.

Yet doing our best to presume truthfulness on the grounds of Christian charity, we will ‘hope all things’ (1 Corinthians 13:7) that this is not so. There is, however, another very plausible explanation for Greear’s inability to recall words that found their way into his sermon manuscripts, and the explanation need not send anyone too far out on a limb. As Basham would say, “We have the receipts.”

Flashback to 2021 when Jeff Maples of The Dissenter (previously, Reformation Charlotte) first reported that Ed Litton – then the president of the SBC – had plagiarized material from JD Greear (and also Tim Keller) word-for-word. Predictably, Litton characterized the accusations as coming from “unnamed sources” (despite their being irrefutable video evidence) and despite the sources being very much named. Justin Peters wrote at the time, “Unnamed sources? My name is Justin Peters. Let’s add to my name the names of Gabriel Hughes, Jeff Maples, Jordan Hall, Tom Buck, Tom Ascol, Josh Buice, Phil Johnson, and literally dozens upon dozens of others who have been talking about this…”

Coming to Litton’s rescue was Greear himself, who alleged that he was ‘flattered’ that his sermons had been stolen and that he had given Litton permission to “shoot his bullets if they fit Litton’s gun.”

But then, something interesting happened. We uncovered that Greear was unabashedly advertising the fact he was not writing his own sermons. Greear had been very clear in the past that using material from others without citing them as sources was plagiarism, but he immediately began to scrub that material. He took down an article defining and rebuking plagiarism, but was later forced to put it back up (likely edited, but we don’t have the original) after people noticed and were outraged.

Jeff Maples, again first to the punch, discovered that Greear admits without any degree of hesitation that he purchases sermon material to – and we quote – “make myself look good.”

Where does that quotation come from? It comes from a blurb from Greear himself on a now-deleted advertisement for the Docent Research Group, a sermon-writing mill staffed by far-left activists, homosexuals, self-avowed feminists, never-Trumpers, full-blown Democrats, and Critical Race Theorists. We wrote a thorough expose’ of Docent in a 2020 post entitled “Docent Group: A Progressive Take-Over of America’s Pulpits.”

The advertisement from Docent, including Greear’s endorsement and confession, was scrubbed following the Litton plagiarism scandal, but it’s still available on The Wayback Machine. Greear wasn’t alone. Other endorsees include Tim Keller and Mark Driscoll, who wrote, “Docent has been invaluable to me. I think I have had them do nearly everything but cut my grass.“

JD Greear regurgitating Docent Group-provided material explains why he can’t remember using certain words he claimed in his response to Basham he doesn’t even know how to pronounce. Not only is this highly plausible explanation slightly more charitable than assuming he’s straight-up lying, but Greear farming out his pastoral responsibilities to the Docent Group actually explains far more about how he arrived at his seeming leftist blackout. At least, it does when you know more about the Docent Group.

As we explained at the time, the Docent Group seems to have intentionally targeted megachurch pastors and approached them to offer content creation. The list of those who have endorsed or used Docent not only includes Greear, Driscoll, and Keller but also Pastors Craig Groeschel, Judd Willhite, Matt Carter, Austin Stone, Dave Nelson, Roger Patterson, Patrick Kelly, Ryan Rush, Vic Pentz, and David Swanson. Every name has been a proponent of Social Justice and Critical Theory. The question is, were these Docent customers proponents of leftist ideologies before or after they started letting Docent Group write their material, or (like Greear) would they be as surprised as anyone else about what they’ve been saying?

The Docent Group writer credited by Tim Keller for “cultural context” content creation is Catholic sociologist Brad Vermurlen, who literally wrote a book (promoted by The Gospel Coalition) explaining how evangelicalism could be used to bring about what is best described as a progressive political movement. His bio at the time included lectures on – and we kid you not – “Religious and Secular Organizations in Progressive Political Activism.”

We wrote of Vermulen…

Other Docent writers, like Caleb Murphree, are homosexuals. Most are just run-of-the-mill Social Justice activists like Robbie Foreman, Drew Tucker, Zack Neilsen, Grayson Pope, Jared Wilson (who wrote that when Trump became president, the evangelical church lost its ‘gospel witness’), Heather Joy Zimmerman, and more. Ashley Gorman, another Docent writer, attends Greear’s church, and when she isn’t producing sermons for megachurch pastors, she is busy bashing the pro-life Christians in now-deleted posts. And if you’re wondering what kind of “conservative, Biblical” material they provided for JD Greear, consider that they also produced material for far-left CRT organization The Witness. We would encourage you to scour social media of all the names mentioned above to determine for yourself their political usefulness to ideological liberalism [Editor’s Note: Please know that hyperlinks and screenshots are all provided here].

It’s here that defenders of plagiarism-for-hire will say (as they said last time) that Docent only provides research, not sermon writing. And that would be as much a damnable lie as it was last time. Besides the admission that they do everything but cut Mark Driscoll’s grass, it was Jared Wilson who explained that he provided “exegesis” for Docent, “One client I worked for only wanted sermon illustrations, pages and pages of them, no exegesis, no reference excerpts.“

Exegesis is sermon material, folks.

The founder of Docent, Glenn Lucke (he protected his tweets following the Littleton scandal), went way back as a Social Justice proponent and wrote the forward to a book praising Social Justice Warrior Richard Pratt (curiously, Lucke has been repeatedly praised and promoted by Albert Mohler). Another board member of Docent, James Gordon, wrote during the heat of the George Floyd riots that his “only goal is racial equity” and that he would, referring to the arson in America’s major cities, “light the first match.” He also stated, “According to my definition, black people can’t be racist.” Joy Harris, Docent’s administrator, also worked contemporaneously for Michael Wear’s “Public Square Strategies” (Wear was Obama’s “Ambassador to America’s Believers,” whose job it was to tour churches and tell them why they should vote for Obama). Interestingly, JD Greear’s Summit Church was one of the places Wear came to preach. Amber Bowen, also listed on the Docent website at the time, worked for the progressive Dark Money “Intersect Project” at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

We wrote, concerning Docent Group…

Docent’s charge for their services appears to be quite the bargain once we understand the ideological truth behind the curtain: Megachurch pastors aren’t the customers. They are the product.

Fast-forward back to today. JD Greear repeatedly seems taken by surprise by the fact he’s been teaching Critical Theory. His occasional warnings about Critical Theory seem far less articulate or learned than his in-depth, subtle but forward, super-articulate, and quite adept promotion of Critical Theory over the course of several years – seen in dozens upon dozens of sermons and lectures. It almost seems as though whenever he’s playing conservative, he’s spit-balling, but when he’s playing liberal he’s suddenly a homiletics genius.

It’s clear that Greear’s hot-takes, which have done no shortage of damage to churches like First Baptist Church of Naples, Florida, lean left almost instinctively. Yet it could likewise be true that his views are indeed unclear if we define unclarity as him double-mindedly speaking out both sides of his mouth.

The evidence not only suggests but, in fact, screams that – if Greear does not honestly remember what he said – it is because he didn’t write the words he spoke. Considering Greear has admitted to using Docent Group for his content creation, and considering Docent Group is comprised of liberal anti-believers who have published their explicit plans to commandeer evangelicalism to drive it leftward, Megan Basham’s accusations in Shepherds for Sale must be perceived as more astute today than yesterday.

As quoted above, Greear said that he hired Docent to produce his material to “make him look good.”

Our honest question to JD Greear: “How’s that working out for you?”

Share on Facebook

Tweet

Follow us

Save

About Author

Staff Contributor

See author's posts