People flocked to Protestia over the weekend to see what was new about Steve Lawson. But in the audio transcript released by the Rolex of Polemics Watchblogs revealed far more about a new, growing heresy in the church than it did Steven Lawson.
Before you read this, I’d encourage you to go read the article on the free side of Protestia INSIDER, so you have the context. If you’re lazy, I’ll provide the context to you the best I’m able.
CATCHING YOU UP ON LAWSON
The gist of the story is that the elders of Trinity Bible Church in Dallas, the former church hangout of Steve Lawson, gathered together the congregation for an update on what was happening with him. I should mention (in case the USPS delivers your mail under a rock) that Steve Lawson was a prominent preacher on the Reformed(ish) Evangelical circuit, frequently preaching in the orbit of John MacArthur’s Grace Community Church (GCC) and Josh Buice’s G3 organization. Lawson was heralded as the Alpha Dog of expositor-preachers, marketing himself (and being marketed by his contemporaries) as the exemplar for pulpit preaching.
Lawson was busted in a five-year relationship with a woman more than half his junior (roughly the age of a granddaughter), who also happened to be an employee at the Grace Community Church bookstore and a former student of the MacArthur school Lawson was on the board of. The girl’s family purportedly forced Lawson to come forward under the threat that they would do it for him, and he was summarily bounced from public life. Grace Community Church denounced all knowledge, as did all of Lawson’s friends and associates, who deleted all traces of him from their websites and deleted all of his material (apparently, truth isn’t valid once the messenger is disqualified from ministry).
In the carnage of the fallout, it was revealed that Lawson wasn’t even a pastor of the congregation nor an elder. Lawson had insisted that his role would be nothing more than paid speaker, as he was apparently willing to offer the church nothing but stage presence. Called to not bother with marrying and burying, and citing a previous bad experience in the pastorate, Lawson insisted on being full-time pulpit supply, which the church advertised as “Lead Preacher.”
A SUMMARY OF THE AUDIO TRANSCRIPT RELEASED BY PROTESTIA
The best way to summarize the elders’ statements to the congregation would be (1) Day Late, Dollar Short, (2) Blame, (3) Celebrity Culture, (4) Excuses, (5) Messed up ecclesiology, and (6) messy discipline.
DAY LATE, DOLLAR SHORT
It doesn’t appear that the congregation was kept abreast of what was happening with Lawson, as the details the rest of us already knew (mostly thanks to Protestia) appear to have been provided to the congregation as though they didn’t know it.
It was recalled to them how the family of Lawson’s paramour demanded he come clean or else, and how Lawson contacted one of the TBC’s elders on the phone to give them the skinny. But the skinny was even skinnier than it should have been, and he didn’t confess all of it, allegedly. And according to the elders, “no one had prior knowledge.”
This conflicts with statements made publicly elsewhere, especially by some within the Grace Community Church orbit, who allege that at least two complaints (or cautions of concern) were made to GCC leadership (or, at minimum, leaders of Lawson’s OnePassion Ministry who may or may not have reported it to their counterparts at GCC) regarding the behavior of Lawson with his paramour as observed around. Protestia has not been able to substantiate the veracity of these claims, although I have spoken directly to those who insist they are true (and one who lodged such a complaint).
Lawson wrote a letter to the church at that time. And according to the elders, “…We dealt with this quickly. We dealt with it biblically. We conferred with many other godly men, again to include John MacArthur.”
BLAME
As Protestia pointed out in their article, “A good statement should state what happens in sufficiently clear (and not salacious) terms so that no speculation is needed, the manner in which the pastors responded to the exposure, and the clear consequences of the actions…Trinity’s statement and subsequent silence did not meet those criteria, and this is why people have had a difficult time letting it go…”
The elders, apparently unwilling to consider the possibility that it’s their handling of this crisis that has led to it being a bigger sideshow attraction than what it had to be, took a side-swipe at “Internet mobs,” telling them, “We will only yield to the scriptures and not to the mob on the internet. We are only gonna tell you what we need to tell you.”
Clearly, the church is on a need-to-know basis, and the elders believe they need to know very little. And given that everything we know has been leaked to us, the TBC elders think the public is entitled to know nothing at all.
After blaming the “Internet mob,” the elders blamed members of the congregation who have been upset at their stonewalling of information and handling of the crisis. The elders stated, “We’ve had people leave the church, we’ve had people that were here because of Steve Lawson. I will tell you this: man’s heart is an idol maker. Man’s heart is an idol maker.”
After accusing the congregants of idolatry, the elders blamed Lawson for their unique ecclesiological scheme of a pastorless congregation, saying, “…the Lord has really revealed this and sort of torn back the curtain. Steve, as well as he preaches, was the impediment for us to hire other pastors. And the Lord has removed that.”
In other words, Steve is guilty of having been such a good preacher that he became an impediment to the elders finding the church a new pastor. As though Lawson can’t rightly be accused of enough sin, they’ve now heaped upon him the sin of being really good at preaching, making the elders content with breaking Biblical protocol on how a church is supposed to operate.
The elders also blamed the men who have turned down their offers to serve as pastor, stating, “We’ve made financial offers. We’ve been real serious about this. We’re going to continue to be serious and intentional. But there was an impediment. These men, for whatever reason, didn’t want to come.”
CELEBRITIES WANTED. INQUIRE WITHIN
I know a thing or three about preachers, which is that they covet both really nice shoes and pulpits. It’s not hard to find a pastor, especially when the church has bucks in the plate and butts in the pew, and so I surmise that perhaps the elders were aiming above their pay grade, trying to land a celebrity with the gravitas of Steve Lawson or John MacArthur. Does anyone else find it hard to believe a pastor couldn’t be found to take a church that even Steve Lawson thought suited him? One wonders what their standards are.
The elders seem to have ruled out hiring a normal human being from places where normal human beings may be found. The elders told the congregation, “We are fishing in some pretty good ponds. We know a lot of people. We want a man who fits with us theologically. We want a man whose heart is after the Lord. We want a man who has the heart of a servant. We want a man who has a wonderful family. And that’s what we desire, so we would ask that you would pray for that.”
It appears that wherever the elders are “fishing” to find a pastor, the pond isn’t the church. It seems bizarre, does it not, that a church with allegedly “the finest expositor in the world” hasn’t a single man in their almost four-digit congregation who could be raised up to pastor? Good preaching doesn’t make disciples, I guess.
Also not in the running seem to be the elders of the church. Are these elders not apt to teach? Perhaps these are the “businessman elders” and not the Biblical kind of elders, but I’m not sure. Few could be sure, I suppose. And they aren’t talking.
EXCUSES
Why was Steve not a pastor? The elders explain this by saying, “There was a reason why he wasn’t an elder. Number one, he didn’t want to be an elder, and we weren’t led to make him an elder.”
Well, I suppose that settles it. Lawson – who can rule the Bible out of order by his own personal preferences, didn’t want to be a pastor or elder. And so engaging in the hermeneutic of celebrity, the elders submitted to those preferences.
But further, the elders say, “We weren’t led” to make him an elder. This might very well be true if the word ‘him’ in that sentence is italicized to show emphasis; they weren’t led to make him a pastor (but then, they should have been led to make someone a pastor, at least). What were they led by to not have a pastor at all? It wasn’t the Scripture, and it wasn’t the Holy Ghost. I’d like to know who or what led them.
They continue, “I know that has been a stumbling block for some people, but that’s true. He was not the pastor, he was a lead preacher.” Ah yes, the Biblical church office of “lead preacher,” just as the Scripture teaches us. Jesus told the Apostles to appoint Pastors, Lead Preachers, and Deacons in every church, I guess. Jesus gifted to the church, “Apostles, prophets, pastors, lead preachers, and evangelists,” I suppose is the message.
Or is it possible that the Scripture’s teaching on ecclesiology doesn’t apply if a celebrity expositor graces your pulpit each Sunday?
The elders explained, “He said himself he did not want to marry or bury. He had pastored in Mobile, and he wanted to have a ministry that was more peripatetic, teaching and working at the seminary.”
Of course, it’s acceptable for a man to avoid marrying and burying should he not feel called to serve the church in this capacity. And it’s definitely okay to focus on a peripatetic (itinerant or short-term) ministry and to teach at a seminary. But this argument from the elders needs exposition all of itself because it’s a complicated text that needs exegeted.
GOD’S DESIGN FOR WEEKLY WORSHIP
God designed the church to gather corporately together. As a part of that weekly gathered assembly, the church takes part in certain acts together, including worship, teaching, and preaching (particularly as it relates to singing psalms and hymns together) and the Lord’s Supper.
Clearly, God would have the congregation come together, circle up, and, in a corporate fashion, observe these Means of Grace. There is a certain purpose in the preacher being the one doing the marrying and burying, just as there are the song-leaders not being hired guns from a nightclub down the street just because they happen to be good on the guitar. The privilege of preaching in the church comes with the duty of serving the church. Anything less than that is not pastoral preaching because it takes a pastor to engage in pastoral preaching.
I once had a couple stop attending, telling me it was their sacred duty to find the church with the best preaching, and the best preaching around was John MacArthur on the Internet. I had personally cleaned their toilet the week before while we gathered at their home to minister to them after surgery. I’m unsure if MacArthur had ever cleaned their toilet, of if he would, if given the opportunity.
The reason why the regular preacher should be your pastor is because pastors are bound by conscience and commission to care for you; Itinerant preachers are not. Itinerant preachers (while there’s a point to it) also don’t know the people in the congregation and, therefore, are relegated to firing cartridges he preloaded into the sermon six-gun, hoping that there’s a target around that might get hit by his pistol-tricks.
A pastor knows whose mother died last week (because he probably did the funeral), and having wept with them, preaches a sermon on mourning. An itinerant preacher is relegated to non-specific sermons on non-specific things for non-specific reasons. Those sermons are usually really good, though, because he’s preached them a thousand times before, and the act has become quite polished. And then he’s praised by the congregation for being such a good preacher.
The sermon of an itinerant preacher is like watching a Netflix comedy special; by the time you see the act, it’s already been sifted and sorted and perfected and made to look quite easy. The sermon of your regular pastor is like watching that same comedian, but in the back room of the Laugh Factory on a Thursday evening, with a mandatory two-drink minimum, working out the lines and fumbling at first deliveries. And that’s all real pastors have: first deliveries. They’re not as good, but at least they’re authentic and timely.
What does it say about a preacher who says, “Sure, pay me to preach every week. But I’m not about to sully my suit for you people. Let the dead bury their dead”?
The elders continued, “I think the answer [to whether or not they’ll get an interim pastor] is we’re always open to that, but we’re looking for people that will be here full-time. And we have a group of men that have been coming and preaching, as you know.”
In this peculiar ecclesiastical scheme, the congregants wondered if they could get an interim pastor. Bless their hearts, they just want a pastor of any kind, considering they haven’t had one in years. I bet Jesus would “look at them as sheep without a shepherd.”
Another reason they chose Lawson to replace an actual pastor, as they explained: “…Steve became more full-time, partly due to COVID his wings were clipped and couldn’t leave. We didn’t have any ability to fly people in. So that’s how that really came together.”
I’d like to ask at this point why on Earth the elders would need to “fly people in” during Covid. Aren’t they in Dallas? (they are). Does Tom Buck live near there and head up the G3 preaching seminar thing? Yep. Does Dallas have a few seminaries? They do.
I think we all know the reason for this. The elders insisted on a celebrity, and celebrities must be flown in. The celebrity flights were grounded during Covid, apparently (point of order; they really weren’t).
The elders told the congregation that “the Lord will lead” them and to pray because “You can’t start a church without a leadership team. So, I think the Lord will make that clear when the time comes. Is that fair, guys?”
Of course, you can’t have a church without a pastor, either. But the elders seemed fine with that for several years. But yes, the “leadership team” thing is important, or else Paul would not have spent so much time in the Bible discussing “leadership teams.”
I found it interesting that in clearing up questions the congregation had about the membership process, they said, “The whole reason why we wanted time, and we want time to go by, is because you need time in any relationship to get to know us.”
A great way for a church to get to know their elders is to hear them preach every week. You can really get to know a man that way. Another way that can happen is if your “lead preacher” is also your pastor, and he marries and buries people in the congregation three generations deep.
ON LAWSON’S DISCIPLINE
The elders claimed, “We disqualified him, and we would now say permanently from ministry.” Can you disqualify a man from ministry because he happened to have preached at your church at some point? Say whatever you want about the ecclesiological scheme of Trinity Bible Church, but it’s novel for sure.
I once invited a Southern Baptist associational missionary to an ordination service for one of our elders, but came a week late and then spoke up and said magisterially, “On behalf of the Southern Baptist Convention, [so-and-so] is now officially ordained.” I waited for him to leave and then told the congregation, “Okay, so that’s not a thing. Ignore that.”
The ecclesiology in this entire situation is bizarre and disjointed. They have preachers in official positions within the church but not a pastor. They have elders, who also are not pastors, apparently. They have congregants who (from the transcript’s context) haven’t been able to become members yet. The members they do have became members by elder fiat. And the members who received the fiat of elder approval, are not on a need-to-know basis for church disciplinary matters, which Jesus very explicitly teaches in Matthew 18 is the purview of the church at large.
We can only surmise that Steve Lawson didn’t preach on ecclesiology much.
The elders claimed they “disciplined him” (again, that’s not their job, but the congregation’s), and “The next phase is the ball is in his court to show repentance.” Then they added, “With regard to Matthew 18, what you don’t get to see many times, and we’ve seen this in the short time that we’ve been a church, is when you enter into Matthew 18, for example, we’ve never gotten to the end of that process because the person leaves.”
The end of the process of Matthew 18 is – in fact – the church congregation deciding whether or not the penitent person is penitent. At Trinity Bible Church, they don’t seem interested in the Bible at all, even when they cite the Biblical passage they’re not following. Not only has the congregation not been given the power to decide this matter, but they’ve been told very bluntly they’ll find nothing out unless the elders see fit to inform them.
Being unable to judge Lawson’s heart during five years of undercover sin, the elders have now obtained the magical ability to judge Lawson’s heart from afar, stating, “I’ll just tell you right now, as the guy who’s closest to him. He says he’s repentant, and I don’t think he is.” He explains, “I’m just telling you right now. He will tell you he is until I see him, until he goes to his wife and he goes to his family, I don’t care who else he says he’s repentant to.”
Ah, yes. The “until I see him repentant, he’s not repentant” thing. Not even the Pope could attribute to himself such power.
The problem is that the accounts of the elders (who have done nothing but cast blame on (1) the idolatrous congregation, (2) pastors who’ve turned them down, (3) Steve Lawson for tricking them in some ill-defined way, (4) Covid, and (5) Internet mobs), is contested by those close to Lawson and who are working on his repentance plan.
Credible sources have reached out to Protestia after their article was published, and Protestia added an addendum that reads as follows:
Since publishing a portion of the transcript of the TBC meeting, individuals with credible knowledge of Lawson’s current situation and state of affairs have materially refuted claims and information provided at the meeting.
Notably, those rebutting the claims made by TBC elders indicate that a group of men has been counseling and shepherding him in TN as he works on reconciliation with his wife and family, and that he has been cooperating all along.
SOLO EXPOSITO
A proper estimation of this controversy cannot be had without seriously evaluating the extent that an idolization of preaching has affected the outcome of the entire ordeal.
While the notion of “idolizing” has gone much too far in evangelicalism, becoming a catch-all term to describe focusing on one thing to the neglect of others, there’s a legitimate case to be made here that idolatry is not too steep a term to describe what’s occurred.
Over the last decade or so, extreme focus has been placed on the act of preaching (or exposition), and much has been made of the preacher (expositor). Books, conferences, homiletics courses, and many different corners of specialization have been propagated to an evangelical world that’s largely forgotten the significance of what happens behind the pulpit in the gathered assembly. For the most part, this renewed focus has been very good.
After all, mainstream evangelicalism has been swallowed almost whole by a seeker-friendly church-growth methodology that has minimized the importance of the preached word. But as with all good things, temperance is a virtue.
In the case of Steve Lawson, we see a church that appears so caught up on the celebrity of an expositor who gave little attention to the book that was being exposited on matters relating to the church. We see a church so caught up on a man to preach that they didn’t stop to consider the necessity of a man to pastor.
There’s nothing to suggest the elders strongly considered Lawson’s wishlist of demands summarized as “just don’t make me serve the congregation except through preaching” because of his powers of exposition, except that it would be absurd to think that’s not the case. It seems almost certain.
There’s also nothing to suggest that MacArthur’s association with Lawson played a prominent role in the elders’ choice of an anti-pastor for the congregation, except that – again – it would be absurd to think that’s not the case. When the elders mentioned (referencing Protestia’s transcription) that they had been seeking wise counsel from MacArthur regarding the public relations crisis, one has to wonder if they sought MacArthur’s advice in their ecclesiastical scheme. Did no one at Grace Community Church know that the Trinity Bible Church elders had chosen to opt out of Biblical ecclesiology?
It’s clear that the reason the elders thought they had a divine right to craft a pastorless church was because – in their mind – a really good preacher was good enough. It turns out that’s not the case. This is the hair-brained idea of Sola Exposita. It is more than a bad idea to establish a church centered on preaching to the exclusion of other things; it’s dangerous.
THE SPEAKER-DRIVEN CHURCH
C. Peter Wagner’s Seeker-Driven Church, which he passed down to Rick Warren and Bill Hybels, which went on to swallow up the evangelical church, has received much criticism (and that’s a good thing). The notion of centering the church on the felt needs of people whose felt needs are unconverted is sure to lead to everything but genuine conversion.
Giving people what they want is seldom giving people what they need.
We have to acknowledge in Reformed(ish) Evangelicalism that a new cult has arisen, in which what people want is to gorge themselves like ticks on fine preaching and then digest it over the next week and return for another gorging. But gluttony of any kind has to be discouraged.
At first, the contrast with Seeker-Driven Christianity is a welcome and joyous one. People want more of good preaching. They’re attending the closest church with a celebrity preacher known for celebrity preaching, they’re listening to old sermons by R.C. Sproul on the way to work, they’re tweeting quotes excerpts from John MacArthur, they’re rocking out to Spurgeon Jams at the gym, and their evangelism consists of emailing their friends Paul Washer’s Shocking Youth Message.
How exciting.
But if that’s all they want, to the exclusion of – oh, I don’t know – having a dad-blasted pastor, then accommodating them isn’t commendable. They must be given that which they don’t want…a pastor whose time and attention on sermons is fixed by the responsibilities required of him pastoring to souls.
Lawson’s elders said, “I can tell you this. There is no accountability program as legalistic as you could make it, that would have ever prevented Steve from this dual life of sin that he was living. He was living a lie. He wasn’t practicing what he was preaching and he lied to everyone in his life. He kept this a secret. And so the Lord revealed it.”
This is, far and away, the worst statement made in Protestia’s transcript. It was entirely due to the “peripatetic” relationship the Trinity Bible Church elders consented to that Lawson could lead an undetectable double life. He was too important to be bothered with having people get to know him, whether in California or Texas because he was jet-setting from one place to the other because prophets have important places to be. It is doubtless that a shepherd tethered to sheep can get into too much trouble without the sheep figuring it out.
The unique ecclesiastical scheme of Trinity Bible Church was not ancillary or peripheral to Steve Lawson’s demise; it was a cause of it. That claim doesn’t diminish Lawson’s personal culpability, but it was this arrangement by TBC that allowed him to continue in sin undetected for so long.
The Speaker-Driven Church, if it is not soon squashed, will lead to as much harm as the Seeker-Driven Church. Biblical Christians simply need to be above it, and that will require being okay with a pastor who’s no Steve Lawson.
This article was first published at Insight to Incite. If you appreciate my work, please consider a one-time gift of your choosing by clicking below. Or even better, please subscribe to Protestia Insider.
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16 responses to “Steve Lawson, Sola Exposito, and the Speaker-Driven Church”
All of this pearl clutching is very stupid. There are lots of denominations. Some denomination somewhere will still accept Steve Lawson as a minister, and you know it. The whole idea of whether he was a pastor or elder or not, and can this local church disqualify him from ministry for all other churches, oh they can’t but its only because he wasn’t an elder or pastor or maybe even a “member” by some gooberish definition…..no, the reason they can’t disqualify him from ministry for all churches is there are many different denominations not a papacy.
As to “It was entirely due to the ‘peripatetic’ relationship the Trinity Bible Church elders consented to that Lawson could lead an undetectable double life.” FALSE. ABSOLUTELY FALSE. You know who is really to blame for Lawson? G3. G3 should have vetted him and the church he was supposedly pastor at before foisting him onto the national scene. You know who else is at fault? PROTESTIA. You know why? For years you idiots kept posting images with quotes from Lawson on twitter. Every time I went to your twitter page it was miles and miles of Steve Lawson quotes. So you and G3 are actually more responsible than the fake church he was fake pastor at, because you made him a household name!!!!! You pushed his BAD Calvinist theology from hell, which is what led to his adultery because if you believe God predestined all sins, they you sin sin sin.
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Also “biblical ecclesiology” in your article is just “Calvinist Baptist ecclesiology.” Other denominations wouldn’t agree with your ecclesiology anymore than they would Steve Lawson’s church’s ecclesiology. Its very weird that you call it “biblical ecclesiology” especially when you were participants in popularizing Steve Lawson.
“C. Peter Wagner’s Seeker-Driven Church, which he passed down to Rick Warren and Bill Hybels, which went on to swallow up the evangelical church,…”
Blaming this on seeker sensitivity is also not going to work. This was an explicitly Calvinist church. Steve Lawson was the speaker because they wanted vile Calvinist brainwashing. Same reason he was always at G3; same reason Protestia was always quoting him on twitter.
Calvinism is at fault. Steve Lawson preached that God predestines ALL THINGS INCLUDING YOUR SINS….and then he had a 5 year affair because he convinced himself that GOD PREDESTINED THE AFFAIR. PERIOD!!!!!!!!!!!! PERIODO!!!!!!
You Calvinist heretics are all just running damage control trying to find something else to blame it on. And that’s why the fake church is now claiming that he wasn’t even a member or pastor etc. to give CALVINISM AN EXCUSE. And Calvinist feces brain publications like Protestia, and G3, will trumpet this false narrative to save the Doctrines of disGrace.
I am almost envious of the confidence with which you misrepresent Calvinism. But then I realize that would be like being jealous of a man for winning a fight against a scarecrow.
Tell me you know nothing about Calvinism without telling me you know nothing about Calvinism. So, because God elects or chooses who to save, he’s responsible for sin. If only that objection had been handled in a New Testament letter written to the church in Rome in the 9th chapter verses 19 and 20. Oh well, since you made that tremendous accusation I have to acquiesce to your point that Paul crushed more than two thousand years ago. My goodness, I guess I am a provisionist after all. Phew, that feels better. Now, I’m in control of me! My will thwarts and trumps God’s will! I guess on the day of judgment I can look at all the goats and thumb my nose at them because I was a little smarter, or a little holier than they were. I did my part. They didn’t. Suckers!
So you believe that God predestined Steve Lawson to have a 5 year affair, just like Steve Lawson believed which is why he did it.
First, I noticed you dodged the scripture and went directly to a deflecting question that deals with feelings. How you feel trumps the what the Word of God actually says. I get it. That alone means I shouldn’t respond to you. But I’ll play along with the hopes that it helps you.
Again, you have no idea anything about the doctrines of grace. You really do need to look into something you hate to make sure you understand it. You’re absolutely blending soteriology with the heart of mankind. God calls mankind from death to life with an effectual call regenerating him and giving him a new heart. Without God’s effectual call mankind cannot respond. Because he cannot he will not. His will doesn’t desire it. His heart desires only evil. But when an effectual calling from God has been given he cannot resist it because he will not. His will has been moved to desire God because at the moment of his regenration he’s given a new heart that desires to please God. That’s the soteriology piece of the puzzle.
Now to the issue of sin in the life of believers. Your true issue is the culpability of sin for a sovereign God. In other words, how can a God who is fully sovereign over salvation and who the Bible clearly teaches ordains all things not be responsible for sin in the life of mankind. I’ll put it simply. God ordains all things for our good and His glory. The wicked are but clay in his hands as much as the redeemed. He uses all things to glorify His great name. To say that God caused Steve Lawson to sin is a lie. Steve Lawson wanted to sin in his heart so God ordained it for him to find the end of his desires which is death. Death of relationships. Death of his platform. Death of his ministry. Why? To get him to repent and live. Steve will live forever whether in heaven or hell. Every man needs to work out his own salvation with fear and trembling so I would never assume where he stands with the Lord. However, Steve’s sin is on Steve because Steve’s heart desired it, plotted it, and brought it to action. Then he hid it. And the Lord exposed it. So, is God responsible for Steve’s sin? No. Steve’s responsible for his own sin. Especially if he’s a believer because he’s no longer a slave to sin obeying it’s commands. He’s been given the Holy Spirit who convicts us. So, he’s without excuse. To the unregenerate, their heart is a factory of idols, its wicked. God simply doesn’t intervene in their sinful desires. But he does use their sinful heart to accomplish His will.
well weitten. Pendulum swings, not properly dampened, typically swing into another error. Seeker-driven to Speaker-driven is another good example.
Anti-calvinists like you seem incapable of containing your hatred, and lack any and all self control when it comes to not spewing forth your hatred on articles that don’t even mention Calvinism or discuss the doctrines.
Self control is a major segment of the fruit of the spirit. Go back to scripture, pray for the Lord’s peace in your life, and may He bless you.
Steve Lawson specifically preached that God predestines all sins. It was played in videos of his opponents days after the scandal broke, to show he did it because he believed he was predestined to. Calvinists and Augustinian Catholic priests can always hamster themselves into believing God predestined their sexual sins, which is why Catholic priests and Calvinists engage in clerical sexual abuse more than any other groups.
So very true, Titus. And I find it especially hypocritical that JD Hall is writing these stories. The same JD Hall who refused even in court to own up to what he did even to the extent of the finances of his former church (“not my fault that the church didn’t keep good financial records” when I bought many personal items and charged it to the church.) Pot meet kettle.
I appreciate the write up. One point of contention that I might have with your thoughts regarding the ecclesiology of TBC. You seem to equate senior pastor or lead pastor above pastor. I’m not sure how TBC defines “elder” but Biblically speaking pastor, elder, bishop, and overseers as the same role. So, if there are “elders” at TBC they haven’t been without a shepherd. In the small church model perhaps what you’re describing makes sense or is reality. But in the mega-church model there are numerous elders, some of which as you pointed out might just be businessmen. If that’s the case then I’d argue that they’re not Biblically qualified to fill the office. Our church ecclesiology is made up of a plurality of elders. Everyone who comes as an elder whether lay elder or on staff must preach regularly. We define regularly as quarterly at a minimum because the congregation will not recognize an elder in name only regardless of how often they do hospital visits, funerals or weddings. To pastor you must preach. If I leave, as the lead or senior pastor, then our constitution demands that we first evaluate our current elders to step up as first among equals. If none is found to be qualified or called then we can look outside. So, the question is, why aren’t any of the elders of TBC being considered to fill the role as lead pastor. Surely one of them had to be named as first among equals, right? If not, why not?
I forgot how Ligioneer Ministries is also at fault for also pushing Steve Lawson and his hyper-calvinism on us for so long, and also apparently neither vetting him nor his fake church because they were so enamored with his ability to indoctrinate stupid people into Calvinism.
I used to attend the church in Mobile while he pastored and I sat in the front rows weekly. The church was FULL of Lawson-worshippers. So much so that if an elder was filling in for him while he was out, multiple people would walk out once they saw it wasn’t him preaching. Many people also left because they saw exactly what you speak of in this article: a man who was SO laser focused on expository preaching and doing worship the “correct way” (his words) that he was not meeting the needs of the church and her people. He was so snooty that it drove him crazy when elders would show up in jeans to work in the office on weekdays, get visibly annoyed and call out people while preaching because they were unwrapping candy too loud (actually happened), and in my opinion looked down upon smaller churches. People would just laugh at these things and call them quirks because “that’s Lawson”. On his last sermon he thanked people for allowing him to be a circle peg fitting in a square hole. Looking back, it’s wild how he and everyone else knew how big-headed and celebrity-like he acted, but it was all ok I guess because he was such an excellent amazing expositor. After he left, to me it seemed elders didn’t want to go that route again because they didn’t hire Dustin Benge as the next pastor (and he did not push back at all, he’s a very kind and understanding man in person from what I could tell). Funny thing is MANY people were furious when it was told in the church meeting that they weren’t hiring Dustin. In my opinion Its because so many people wanted another Lawson and it seemed Benge’s style of preaching was close to that. Although I think the man they did hire ended up being a joke and caused more people to leave (he’s not pastor there anymore). Don’t know why I’m rambling, but all of this has weighed on me a lot. Which is hilarious being as I no longer go anywhere.
Concerning church discipline, I sat in on a service where they officially disciplined a deacon (I think) who was in a relationship with a woman outside his marriage. It had been going on a while. Just ironic that Lawson did the same thing and it’s months later with no word on church discipline on him.
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