Over the past several weeks, a curious narrative has been circulating on X: that 9Marks—Mark Dever, Jonathan Leeman, and their network—was never woke. According to defenders, claims to the contrary are slander, exaggerations, or selective memory. They insist that while 9Marks may have expressed some empathy or pastoral sensitivity, they certainly never promoted the social-justice ideology that swept through evangelicalism in the mid-2010s.
But the internet has a long memory, and the church has an even longer one.
Newly unearthed audio (much of it from a pastor’s meeting in May 2015) demonstrates that 9Marks has been advocating for and adopting woke presuppositions (standpoint epistemology, racialized systemic injustice) for over a decade.
The proof isn’t hidden in anonymous rumors or Foggy Memories™. The receipts are public, recorded, published, transcribed, and in some cases proudly promoted by 9Marks itself. From pastor meetings, to interviews, to recommended reading lists, to COVID political activism, the ministry consistently imported CRT-infused assumptions into its pastoral theology and exported those assumptions into thousands of pulpits.
This isn’t an opinion. This is the record.
And the record is overwhelmingly clear: 9Marks was super-woke—one of the most influential pipelines of social-justice theology into conservative evangelicalism. Their own words, teachings, and pastoral training materials prove it.
The Current Denials Are Historically Absurd
The revisionism began in earnest in October–November 2025, when calls for an honest accounting of the record were met with incredulous denial:
Recently appointed 9Marks President Jonathan Leeman went further on Sean DeMars’ Room for Nuance podcast (which is apparently the clearing house of choice for historical revisionism on the last decade of evangelical wokeness), suggesting critics were applying a racial “One Drop Rule”—claiming that any minor expression of empathy was unfairly construed as wokeness:
But Phil Johnson, who was inside the Shepherds Conference Q&A discussions that ignited this entire debate back in 2019, was having none of it, reminding DeMars:
“His aggressive promotion of Divided by Faith was hardly ‘one drop.’
It was more like a fire hose.”
Megan Basham summarized the situation:
“We did witness what we definitely did witness…
The constant insistence that we did not is dishonest and discrediting.”
Exactly.
The revisionist strategy depends on collective amnesia. And that strategy collapses immediately as soon as you revisit what 9Marks was actually teaching.
As recently as 2019, Mark Dever was openly claiming that “single-issue voting” (abortion) has been one of the greatest banes to racial unity in the United States,” and that because pro-life presidents have not ended abortion, black voters should be free to vote pro-choice if they believe the candidate will “help my people and my community.”
Of course, Roe was overturned a mere three years later, disproving Dever’s entire premise, and likely led to Jonathan Leeman expressing open regret for advocating the same position.
Nine Devastating Marks from the 2015 9Marks Pastors’ Meeting
A recently re-surfaced audio recording from a 9Marks pastors’ meeting provides the clearest possible window into the ministry’s internal worldview as it relates to the woke issues of the past ten years.
If one wanted evidence that wokeness was discipled into pastors through supposedly “faithful ecclesiology,” the extended remarks from multiple 9Marks-affiliated pastors remove all doubt.
Here are nine key themes, in their own words. Note: The transcribed videos may contain minor spelling or transcription errors.
I. Systemic Racism as Established Fact, Not Debate
Pastors were repeatedly urged to acknowledge, teach, and apply systemic racism as a present-day pastoral reality, as encouraged by Brian Davis:
- “Our history shapes who we are today… systemic issues are real.”
- “White people have had the freedom to pretend racial injustice is a non-category.”
The implication was unmistakable: denying systemic racism is itself pastoral negligence.
II. Race-Based Pastoral Care
Pastors were instructed to engage in ministry according to racial category:
- “You must understand what it means for him to be black.”
- “Ask your black members: What has life been like for you as an African American male?”
This was not a call to treat all believers as one in Christ. It was a call to treat black members as fundamentally other, requiring unique pastoral strategies.
III. Sermons Should Reflect Systemic Injustice—Weekly
One pastor shared concerns about only addressing racial issues during crises. Mark Dever responded:
- “In your sermon applications and prayers, regularly raise systemic or ethnic imbalance…
You don’t need answers—just pray about it openly.”
This is not exegesis. This is sociology grafted onto the pulpit.
IV. Dever Elevated Racial Issues Over Religious Liberty
One pastor explained that members considered racial tension more urgent than religious liberty. Dever openly affirmed this instinct, referencing the Supreme Court upholding the legality of gay marriage:
- “In a Sunday morning prayer, Baltimore riots may be more immediate and pressing than a Supreme Court ruling.”
This matches Dever’s later public rhetoric that religious liberty concerns were, in his view, a matter of relative “white privilege.”
V. White Supremacy Taught as the Default White Condition
In one of the most revealing statements in the transcript, a pastor insisted:
- “As white people, we have a deeply entrenched supremacist mindset…
- “It’s been the whole history.”
This was stated as fact, without qualification, in a room full of pastors, with no pushback other than Mark Dever asking how the pastor might lead his congregation in confessing their white supremacy.
If that’s not wokeness, nothing is.
VI. Leeman’s Acts 6 “Systemic Racism” Interpretation
Jonathan Leeman took Acts 6, the distribution problem between Hebrew and Hellenist widows, and turned it into a parallel for contemporary systemic racism:
- “The apostles recognized the ethnic dividing line…
This is a big deal.”
This is precisely the kind of racialized hermeneutic evangelicals spent the next decade trying to correct.
VII. Endorsement of CRT-Adjacent Literature
Recommended resources included:
- The New Jim Crow (Michelle Alexander)
- The Collapse of American Criminal Justice (William Stuntz)
These are foundational works for progressive criminal-justice activism and systemic-racism theory. Also recommended was Thabiti Anyabwile‘s Front Porch (although pastors seemed to be instructed to “not represent it to others” and not print “Front Porch” on materials).
VIII. Unqualified Slander of Police
To the laughter of other pastors in the room, pastor and Gospel Coalition Council member Garrett Kell told a story about how a white police officer let him slide on not having current registration and proof of insurance, and claimed that if he had been black, he’s sure the same white officer would have removed him from his vehicle and things would have “been very different.”
IX. Dever Comparing Mount Vernon to Auschwitz
Perhaps the most gratuitous moment came when Mark Dever discussed visiting Mount Vernon and said he wondered whether black Christians experienced it like a trip to Auschwitz, because slavery’s cruelty “lasted longer than the Holocaust.”
This is textbook social-justice rhetoric: dramatic moral equivalence, exaggerated historical framing, and a reliance on emotional narrative over historical precision.
This Matches Everything 9Marks Was Doing Publicly
The transcript doesn’t reflect a one-off meeting. It reinforces everything that was publicly visible from 2014–2020, as Pulpit & Pen and other polemics/discernment websites documented.
2018: “9Marks, Mark Dever, and Fabian Socialist”
This article quoted Dever expressing admiration for Fabian socialist thought—especially its communal moral vision—which clearly influenced the ministry’s social-justice framing.
2019: “9Marks & SBC Leaders at a Cultural Marxism Conference”
The article documented 9Marks leadership participating in conferences structured around oppression, systemic injustice, privilege, and race.
2019: Thabiti Anyabwile’s Oppressor Rhetoric
P&P republished a Capstone Report article documenting Thabiti’s explicit claims that “white, heterosexual, Christian men” were society’s oppressors. Dever continued to publicly affirm and platform Thabiti throughout this period.
2019: SBC & Social Justice Evidence Compilation
This report connected numerous SBC, TGC, and 9Marks efforts that advanced racialized social-justice categories.
Everything P&P warned about is precisely what the pastors’ meeting transcript confirms.
The Shepherds Conference Clash Wasn’t a Misunderstanding
In a now-deleted 2018 blog entitled,”Social Injustice and the Gospel,” John MacArthur wrote:
Over the years, I’ve fought a number of polemical battles against ideas that threaten the gospel. This recent (and surprisingly sudden) detour in quest of “social justice” is, I believe, the most subtle and dangerous threat so far.
The subtle dangerousness of the threat demonstrated itself clearly at the 2019 Shepherds Conference, where MacArthur famously said, “I’ll fight error, but I don’t fight my friends,” allowing Dever to distance himself from the social justice critique, labeling the social justice threat as merely “political differences.”
Yet as Jon Harris recently pointed out:
- Thabiti repeatedly called social justice a gospel issue.
- Dever claimed theological agreement despite “political differences.”
- Therefore, Dever placed a soteriological deviation in the category of “secondary matters.”
That’s not neutrality. That’s drift.
The COVID Era Exposed the Underlying Ideology
Jonathan Leeman scolded churches for gathering during lockdowns and soon after marched in a BLM protest on the Lord’s Day. Phil Johnson confirmed this repeatedly, noting that Leeman was proud of it.
Meanwhile, Dever told pastors:
- “Stick happily with the government.”
This was not a momentary lapse. It was theological application of the racial and political assumptions cultivated in the preceding years.
The 9Marks Internship Was a Pipeline for Woke Pastoralism
Phil Johnson reminded:
“By 2017 he [Dever] was blending woke doctrines into his internship training.
It was a huge mistake.”
The pastors’ meeting transcript confirms the internship was shaped by:
- CRT assumptions
- systemic injustice narratives
- partiality framed racially
- generational guilt categories
- elevation of ethnic identity
- race-based hermeneutics
- recommended CRT literature
- political deference to progressive narratives
Hundreds of interns went home to churches across America carrying these frameworks.
The “Never Woke” Revisionism Is Not Honest
It is possible for leaders to repent. It is possible to admit mistakes. It is possible to course-correct.
But it is not possible to rewrite the public record—especially when we have:
- X posts
- books
- sermons
- pastors’ meetings
- conference panels
- COVID activism
- recommended reading
- social-media advocacy
- and the entire TGC/Front Porch ecosystem promoting the same worldview
To insist now that 9Marks was “never woke” is not just misguided.
It is false.
9Marks Was Woke. Extremely. Openly. Systemically.
This is not about assigning motives.
This is not about judging hearts.
This is not about refusing grace.
This is about telling the truth.
The transcript proves that 9Marks:
- taught systemic racism as fact
- urged regular pulpit applications of systemic injustice
- racialized pastoral care
- affirmed white “supremacist mindsets”
- elevated racial issues above religious liberty
- appealed to CRT literature
- endorsed Thabiti as the premier voice on race
- reinterpreted Acts 6 and Galatians 2 racially
- compared American history to Auschwitz
- encouraged BLM-adjacent activism
- downplayed religious liberty concerns
- trained interns in these frameworks
This is not “never woke.”
This is archetypal wokeness—just delivered in gentle Reformed tones.
If 9Marks wants trust restored, there is only one path:
Stop denying what happened.
Acknowledge the error.
Repent clearly.
And return to biblical ecclesiology without the sociological baggage.
Evangelical churches don’t need perfection.
But they do need honesty.
And the record is too clear, too public, and too extensive to deny.
