Several days ago, progressive gadfly Erin Harding announced she had graduated from the Southern Baptist Conventions’ Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. This would not be that surprising, except for the degree she got: her BA in Pastoral Ministry.
When asked how it was that SEBTS was graduating ladies with a pastoral ministry degree, seminary president Danny Akin explains that they only train and teach them to be pastors, but don’t recommend them to be pastors. If however, an autonomous local church ‘assesses the biblical qualifications and the fit’ of a woman pastoral candidate and hires her on as a pastor, in part based on her pastoral ministry degree, that is their business- SEBTS just equips them.
In many ways appealing to the Danvers Statement is a return to 1979, this practice of pointing to their statement of faith while doing the exact opposite. Akin is literally arguing that the position of SEBTS is that women should not be pastors, all the while training them as pastors- able to pursue any degree program. To quote Landon Jones: “If it’s true that ‘a degree isn’t an endorsement of biblical fit for a position’ then why allow women to get the degree in the first place if they are not fit by nature? It’s basically an ecclesiological war against his denomination, with Akin readily acknowledging they may go and be pastors elsewhere, it just won’t hopefully be with the SBC, even though the SBC currently has hundreds of women pastors on staff within their churches.
Furthermore, Akin says that “Men or women who meet the qualifications for admissions to @SEBTS/@CollegeSE can pursue any degree program.” But that is not true. Take for example a Master of Arts in Ministry to Women. According to the school, admission is limited to WOMEN, and not men, showing that he’s willing to do it for some courses, but not others.
Given the many ways SEBTS has become the red-headed stepchild of the SBC on account of their progressive view, this should not surprise anyone.
After being in the headlines for the better part of two years over claims that they were covering up sexual assault and dismissing and punishing the victims, Liberty University, home of disgraced former president Jerry Falwell Jr, reached a settlement with 20 of the 22 women who accused them of wrongdoing.
Jerry Larkin, the lawyer for the Jane Does who filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that the University was violating federal anti-discrimination law Title IX by failing to process and investigate credible claims of sexual assault and harassment allegations properly, acknowledged that “the case is now settled” but not disclose what the terms were, noting that it was never about the money for the plaintiffs, but rather about the exposure that would spur Liberty on to action.
“While there are large provisions that the plaintiffs will continue to be able to talk about, there is no non-disclosure agreement that would prevent them from telling their stories in the future, but the terms of the settlement itself and the conduct of the mediation are both confidential”
In a statement put out by Liberty, they say they’re committed to doing what they can to “make things right” and reveal several of the strategies and initiatives they put in place even before the settlement was reached, including:
“over $8.5 Million in security upgrades, including the installation of security cameras, blue lightboxes, and enhanced campus lighting, along with the launching of a cell phone app for emergency reporting”
Crucially, rather than just throwing money at the problem, the university also launched reviews of its policies and procedures as it relates to Title IX , such as :
“Additional mandatory training for students and employees. There will also be changes to Liberty’s amnesty policy. The existing policy is now being revised to better communicate — with respect to reports of sexual harassment and/or assault— that Liberty does not discipline parties who engage in behaviors, in connection with that sexual harassment and/or assault, that would have otherwise violated its student honor code.”
There is no word yet on the next course of action for the two Jane Does who did not settle.
After being found guilty back in December 2021 on two counts of possessing child pornography, Josh Duggar, the former 19 Kids and Counting star and professing Christian, is about to hear his sentence on May 25. On May 11, both the defense and prosecution submitted sentencing memorandums in the Western District of Arkansas Federal Court in Fayetteville requesting that he serve very different sentences.
Being found guilty of possession and distributing Child sex abuse material (CSAM), These vessels for Duggar’s horrific masturbatory fantasies depicted child sex abuse involving children ranging from 18 months to 12 years of age, with FBI Agent Faulkner describing them as “in the top five of the worst of the worst that I’ve ever had to examine.”
Taking into account the totality of his past abuse and the lengths he went to possess it the prosecution asks that he serve 30 years, though the maximum allowable is 20, on account of several ‘enhancements’ that affected their recommendation and make it all the more serious.
These enhancements include “all prior acts of sexual abuse committed by Duggar, the four-level enhancement for visual depictions of sadistic and masochistic conduct, the five-level enhancement for engaging in a pattern of activity and the determination of the number of images involved in the offense.”
In short, the fact that he previously admitted to molesting four of his sisters, the fact that some of the images depicted sadistic and masochistic conduct against the children- ie not just naked children, but images and videos of them being tied up with rope and men having torturous sex with them, being anally penetrated, being shown locked naked and crying in dog cages, being whipped, and one sequence involving a girl being cut and bleeding from her stomach- the fact that this wasn’t a brief, one-time search for the material, but rather he engaged in sustained and long-time efforts to keep and receive it, and the number of images kept, which the government says is over 600.
Interesting, Duggar’s lawyers dispute this, saying it should only be 127 images and therefore a lighter sentence. They reason that some of the files downloaded were zipped files and were corrupted and could not be opened. So while a folder may have contained 40 images, the fact that they were not viewable should mean that he never actually ‘possessed’ them and should not count towards the total.
In giving testimony to highlight how serious it is, challenging the notion that having a few watched images is a ‘victimless crime,’ one of the mothers of one of the victims that Duggar downloaded and watched (and was later rescued, many are not and are still unknown, still being abused) addressed the harm it caused her daughter, writing:
I can find no words to express the fury I feel at those who participate in this evil, or my scorn for any attempt to minimize the responsibility by feeble claims that the crime was “victimless”. My daughter is a real person. She was horribly victimized to provide this source of “entertainment”. She is exploited anew each and every time an image of her suffering is copied, traded or sold. While the crime is clearly conscienceless, it is hardly “victim-less”.
I asked my daughter what she most wanted to ask of the judge. Her request: “Please, don’t let them pretend no-one’s getting hurt!”
She had some words for the defendant as well: “don’t you know no one should do that to a little girl! Don’t you know it hurts!”
The prosecutor also cites how Duggar has shown no interest in receiving counseling or therapy for his actions, making him a far greater risk to re-offend, and thus need to keep away from society longer. The motion states that “Duggar has a deep-seated, pervasive, and violent sexual interest in children…and a willingness to act on that interest.”
Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, he continues to protest his innocence, and that he’s been framed. Prior to and during the trial, several family friends, including his wife and mother submitted letters to the judge asking for leniency.
His wife Anna Duggar wrote things like: “Joshua sees the best in people and is willing to walk alongside them to help make their dreams a reality. I ask that you consider reuniting us as a family again soon” while his father in law described him as “very gentle, kind, and polite to everyone” and asked, “please be merciful to this young man that has a wife and seven children that love him and need him.”
As such, with a previously-hoped-for lighter sentence off the tables, his lawyers are asking for a five-year prison term followed by supervised release.
Given all the enhancements present, it is unlikely he will get his wish, with many legal experts expecting a sentence somewhere betwe 12-14 years.
TGC contributor Jackie Hill Perry, author of the recently released book ‘Holier Than Thou: How God’s Holiness Helps Us Trust Him‘ was found on Twitter ironically promoting and sharing her thoughts on a very unholy TV show which she has seemingly watched all the way through; the adult-rated ‘Ozark.’
This is a show where less than three minutes into the very first episode, a semi-nude man receives oral sex and then starts thrusting into a woman. Three minutes. The first episode. And she kept on watching after that.
Because make no mistake, Ozark is a filthy, filthy, filthy show. Not only is there tons of cursing, between 20-50 F-bombs an episode along with various other 4 letter words, and a fair amount of violence, the show is rife with sex scenes galore, including many graphic homosexual ones, resulting in it being rated 18+ in many countries
As per IMBD, some of the more egregious content includes: (warning, graphic descriptions ahead)
…Brief nudity shown by an older woman during a short sex scene with a much younger man. As well as another casual sex scene with an unclothed couple (no nudity, covered by sheets).
An email with an amateur porn video is sent and opened in one scene. The webcam video details sexual actions of a man and a woman from the back with only the buttocks shown. It is shown twice. The video is discussed between two men later on. It is played in multiple episodes. A man masturbates in his car and fantasizes about a prostitute giving him oral sex.
A pregnant woman is seen pole dancing at a nightclub. Her breasts are clearly visible.
An old man is walking down to the water naked, only his backside is shown with a towel covering the front. A nude poster is seen on the wall next to a door. A topless girl is seen in a bar. A homosexual oral sex scene takes place in a motel room, a man giving another man a blowjob and you hear him gargle and choke when the man ejaculates in the other guy’s mouth. No visible nudity.
A stripper has sex with a man in a private room until a woman interrupts them, she can briefly be seen nude.
A stripper is hired to seduce a man into having sex with her. She walks in and the stripper is wearing a strap on and the man is sucking on it. The man also appears to be wearing a bra and panties. A woman takes a video of this. She then shows it to the man’s wife.
An elderly couple has sex in a darkly lit room. We see them thrusting and then we hear them orgasm and moan. We also see the woman’s breasts, but the man’s nudity is not seen by viewers.
A man is seen masturbating while he’s listening to a dead man’s voice. A man and woman have sex in the bathroom of a bar, there is thrusting, moaning, and male rear nudity and female rear nudity but they are clothed.
It makes you wonder why Jackie Hill Perry- pushed by BigEva as a mature Christian thought leader and who speaks of the need to be holy and guard one’s thought life and against sexual sin, thought this show was something that needed watching. Was the plot really that good? That captivating? Why not turn it off three minutes in, knowing that if that can happen so early, there’s likely going to be a lot more?
And then have the temerity to publicly admit it, like it’s not a big deal that you’re watching naked people have sex on film as part of your entertainment proclivities. Like there aren’t a million other pieces of edifying media that you could be watching instead that don’t have men graphically giving each other oral sex or multiple scenes that take place in a strip club. Sad and disgraceful, but not unexpected.
In the article “The Third Way is Dead. Long Live the Third Way!” TGC C author Chris Watkin seeks to deconstruct bad versions of “the third way” while promulgating a better understanding of it. In particular, he tries to defend Tim Keller of all the nastiness and criticism he’s been getting these last few days over his instance that voting for the abortion-loving Democrat is not problematic in the least.
Taking it one step further, Watkin suggests that given that no political party is perfect- each will have bad things about it, there is nothing wrong with either voting for or campaigning for either party, so long as you call out bad beliefs. This is similar to something David Platt also once said, when he told his congregation If You Can’t Live with Other Members Voting and Campaigning for Democrats, You Should Leave.
Theological engagement asks questions like: how does the complex truth of the Bible, with its overarching story of creation, fall, redemption, consummation, and with all its details and nuances, relate to the categories and structures of modern ontology, epistemology and politics? Political reality deals with questions like: who I should vote for at the next election.
If I begin by thinking things through theologically, I will see that no political party perfectly mirrors a full-orbed biblical view of God, humanity, society and the world. I may still vote for—even campaign for—one party, but my political vision and vocabulary will not become subsumed under that party’s agenda, nor will I stop pointing out when it takes positions that are contrary to the Scriptures. Insisting on the Bible as a third way does not stop me from being politically passionate; it stops me from becoming a political poodle.
Of course, this ignores the question of “how bad does a party have to be where openly campaigning for them is objectively theologically intolerable?” After all, one party openly sanctions the murder of a million babies a year.
A 3-year-old girl has died of botched exorcism in a San Jose church, according to officials, with the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner’s office ruling Arely Proctor’s death a homicide caused by asphyxiation.
The death happed a few months ago at Iglesia Apostoles y Profetas, where her grandfather Rene Huezo led the small congregation. Her mother believed that the little girl was demon-possessed, and so stuck their fingers down her throat to induce vomiting and therefore purge the demon, choking her and drowning her in her own vomit. The Police report reads:
Accusations of demon possession came because the little girl would periodically wake up and cry:
Three-year-olds cannot be possessed or afflicted by demons, and this is the tragic result of a theology that has abused and twisted the word of God to its own sad ends.
So much to unpack here. Austin New Church in Austin, Texas decided to ignore the Lord’s personal pronouns for their mother’s day service, re-writing the song ‘Good Good Father; with the ostensibly titled ‘Good, Good Mother, with the house band performing the abomination while the congregation listens on.
i want to be free of this pain (a texas methodist church singing "you're a good good mother") pic.twitter.com/2QHPUvRoSN
— Woke Preacher Clips (@WokePreacherTV) May 12, 2022
The name of the church should ring a bell for discernment wonks; it is the name of the church that Brandon and Jen Hatmaker founded in 2008. Hatmaker is the popular I’m-pretending-to-be-a-Christian-but-I’m-actually-a-pagan mommy-blogger and podcaster that is quickly climbing the ranks from “Gadfly False Teacher” to “Arch-Heretic,” while continuing to out herself as a vessel of inhabitation for shifty-eyed swine who’d rather not go off a cliff.
Last time we caught up with her, she was celebrating homosexuality, and being pro-transgender. She also became a woke racial justice warrior by saying, “the center of the church has failed to be black, gay, and transgender, and lamenting the death of notorious pro-abort Ruth Bader Ginsberg, giving her the benediction, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
The church describes itself as “a progressive, affirming, gospel-centered community of people driven by inclusion and social justice….We believe community is based on belonging, not beliefs.“
While they are no longer pastors there, it doesn’t take much to see how badly they ran it into the ground.
In lieu of a sermon, Samantha Beach Kiley, one of the pastrixes there, invited her mother Nancy L. Beach to share and teach together. Beach is best known for becoming the first woman ordained as a teaching pastor at Bill Hybels’ multi-site megachurch Willow Creek. They spent their time reframing the Lord as a woman while saying stupid things like:
“When we observe the Sabbath, we are responding to the whisper of our mother god who longs to stroke our hair.”
Hours after learning that over 70 ‘pro-life groups’ like National Right to Life and their state subsidiaries, along with the ERLC, released an open letter opposing the bill to abolish abortion in the state, disparaging Louisiana abolitionists for going too far in their efforts to abolish abortion and give pre-born babies equal rights protection under the law, SBC presidential candidate Tom Ascol condemned the ERLC’s betrayal, while his challenger Bart Barber condemned those upset at getting betrayed.
and further proof that It is time to change the direction of the SBC!
The bill, HB813 amended the Louisiana homicide codesto define “unborn child” as “an individual human being from fertilization until birth,” and “person” as “a human being from the moment of fertilization.” These redefinitions would classify abortion as homicide by including preborn children among those protected by the laws against murder, and therefore women who kill their babies in the womb would be subject to the same fines and punishments as those who kill their babies out of the womb.
The ERLC fought tooth and nail against it, saying that abortion is a tragedy not only for the child, but for the aborting mother, who is also a ‘victim’. The letter they sent said:
“let us be clear: we state unequivocally that any measure seeking to criminalize or punish women is not pro-life and we stand firmly opposed to such efforts…We will continue to oppose legislative and policy initiatives that criminalize women who seek abortions…”
However, by signing his name to this, Brent Leatherwood, the acting head of the ERLC, is expressly going against the will of Southern Baptist messengers, who passed a resolution at SBC21 which explicitly states: “we affirm that the murder of preborn children is a crime against humanity that must be punished equally under the law.”
Whereas Ascol thoroughly condemned the move, Bart Barber did not, releasing instead a video where he didn’t address it directly, but rather nagged and chastised all the people who are getting on the ERLC’s case and not playing nice.
Why would any Southern Baptist find it disagreeable for us all just to celebrate together the impending end of Roe v Wade? Unless they’re just stuck in the accusative case and the kickative mood. pic.twitter.com/xenBGGqFJU
There’s no right to abortion in the Constitution and it’s a… good idea in terms of morality to set Roe v. Wade aside because it was atrocious ethics and morals to declare that people are not people. That’s always been a bad idea, and it has been in terms of abortion, it’s high time.
I’ve got to say that my experience since this announcement has been made is that every single person who is on Southern Baptist Twitter, who’s in my timeline, is elated and celebrating at the news that Roe v Wade is perhaps about to be overturned. Something that we’ve longed for for so long, prayed for spoken about for so long.
It’s sad and counterproductive to me that anybody would take this moment of pretty much universal celebration in the Southern Baptist Convention, and turn it into a moment of accusation and attempted division of people in the convention.
Can we not take a moment with one thing and just all celebrate together something good that God has done? Anyway, I hope that we can, and I’m ready to rejoice with anybody in the Southern Baptist Convention who will rejoice with me about the end of Roe v Wade, and yet another step toward the end of abortion in the United States.
It’s unsurprising that Barber, who was instrumental in trying to see the resolution to abolish abortion crushed at the general conference, would not like how much flack the ERLC is getting over. But by having his attention focused on the wrong thing, Barber has once again shown he is unqualified to lead the convention.
Just days ago Louisiana lawmakers advanced a historic bill that would not only criminalize abortion but classify it as a homicide. HB813, or the “Abolition of Abortion in Louisiana Act of 2022″ was voted by a committee 7-2 to give it a vote in the House of Representatives. This was historic, as it was the first true abolition bill to pass committee in any state in the nation so far.
The Governor, Attorney General, and the vast majority of legislators in the state claim to be pro-life, with the Republicans outnumbering the Democrats 2-1 in both the House and the Senate. Lifelist ranks Louisiana as the second most ‘pro-life state’ in the nation. According to witnesses, nearly 200 abortion abolitionists were present in support of the bill, with less than 8 for the pro-choice side.
Despite this, the bill was defeated after an amendment was adopted that absolutely gutted the bill and rendered it useless and toothless. Pro-life State Rep. Alan Seabaugh, who supported HB813 as originally written in the committee hearing, filed the amendment to destroy it. The final tally was 65 voting in favor of gutting the bill and 26 against, prompting the bill’s author, Rep. Danny McCormick, to pull it from consideration.
How is it that politicians who were championing it were now voting against it? They’d been getting pressure all week from pro-life groups, but the bill’s fate was sealed when earlier in the day, over 70 ‘pro-life groups’ like National Right to Life and their state subsidiaries, along with the ERLC, released an open letter opposing the bill, disparaging it for going too far in its efforts to abolish abortion. They were ideologically joined with far-left women’s rights groups and Planned Parenthood, the apex predator of the baby-killing world, who also opposed the bill and declared unequivocally that they could not support it. Planned Parenthood was pressuring its supporters to defeat the bill and The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission was doing the exact same thing, both pushing from different sides to attain the same goal.
Why?
Because it amended the Louisiana homicide codesto define “unborn child” as “an individual human being from fertilization until birth,” and “person” as “a human being from the moment of fertilization.” These redefinitions would classify abortion as homicide by including preborn children among those protected by the laws against murder, and therefore women who kill their babies in the womb would be subject to the same fines and punishments as those who kill their babies out of the womb. Equal protection under the law. Equal justice. Either it’s a baby, or it’s not.
The authors of the bill reasoned that you can’t decry this act as the “murder” of an innocent baby, and then have absolutely zero consequences for those who indulge. They assert you can’t give a baby in the womb the same rights as a baby out of the womb would have, and then just shrug your shoulders when someone melts them in a chemical bath or dismembers them and turns them into a chopped up slurry of blood and brains.
But the ERLC and 69 other groups said you could. They explained in the letter while it’s true that babies are victims of abortion, so are the mothers as well, and it would not be fair to the mothers to enact consequences upon them for their actions, writing:
“…Abortion has taken the lives of more than 63 million unborn American children. But the tragedy of abortion isn’t limited to the unborn child who loses her life. The mother who aborts her child is also Roe’s victim….
Women are victims of abortion and require our compassion and support as well as ready access to counseling and social services in the days, weeks, months, and years following an abortion.
As national and state pro-life organizations, representing tens of millions of pro-life men, women, and children across the country, let us be clear: We state unequivocally that any measure seeking to criminalize or punish women is not pro-life and we stand firmly opposed to such efforts.
…we must ensure that the laws we advance to protect unborn children DO NOT HARM THEIR MOTHERS…turning women who have abortions into criminals IS NOT THE WAY. (Capitalized emphasis theirs)
and:
We will continue to oppose legislative and policy initiatives that criminalize women who seek abortions, and we will continue to work for initiatives that protect unborn children and policies that provide and strengthen life-affirming resources for abortion-vulnerable women.
In short: it’s not really murder, and it’s not right to punish the mothers when they’re not really killing human beings.
This is particularly egregious on the part of Brent Leatherwood, the acting head of the ERLC, given that it expressly goes against the will of Southern Baptist messengers, who passed a resolution at SBC21 which explicitly states: “we affirm that the murder of preborn children is a crime against humanity that must be punished equally under the law.”
We reached out to SBC Presidential candidate Tom Ascol for comment, given that the ERLC is their lobbying arm, and he decried their actions, writing:
I find this letter a tragic betrayal of the most vulnerable people among us—unborn babies. How can an organization be genuinely pro-life if it argues against the criminalization of murdering human life? How can an organization be Christian if it regards those who murder those who bear the image of God as “victims”? That the ERLC of the SBC has joined this group of organizations is issuing this morally flawed letter is appalling and an affront to cooperating SBC churches and further proof that It is time to change the direction of the SBC.
JD Is back and explains what he’s been up to and how the Lord has been using him in a new role as he steps away from polemics, Phil Johnson rebuking Andy Stanley, a bit about his court case, whether or not women can lead corporate worship, the SBC response to the SCOTUS leak, and whether or not JD will get kicked out of the 2022 SBC Convention.
