In a panel at Liberty University, David Nasser spoke with Andy Stanley about the theological basis for being closed while other churches in the area, including Grace Community Church, stay open. Stanely responds:
There is a theological basis for this (closing down church until 2021) and this is where I part ways with some of those folks, John in particular, perhaps. I’ve never met John MacArthur, so, you now…all I know is what I’ve read, I guess, like most people.
“You should go to his home,” interjects Nassar, to a visibly surprised and uncomfortable Stanley who seems horrified at the idea
John said some not so nice things about me, not by name, but he’s made some comments about those who have decided not to meet for the rest of the year. He said that we aren’t really a church and we don’t know how or don’t care about shepherding our people, so I’m like ‘wow that’s a lot from someone I’ve never met’. but that’s ok.
Stanley goes back to the theme of ‘what does love require of us’ which is the basis for them shutting down. Stanely argues that ultimately it requires sacrifice for the community.
“So again, I think the church always looks better when we are defending other people’s rights, rather than defending our own. The church always looks better when it is giving away, rather than demanding our way, and this is what Jesus modeled.
People on the other end of this argument, I keep hearing them say over and over ‘the Lord commanded us to meet. The Lord commands us to meet.’
He does not. He commands that we lay down our lives for our friends, that we do what’s best for others.. even the apostle Paul said this when describing Jesus in his letter to the Philippians, he said he who was equal with God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped. In other words Jesus, this is amazing…Jesus never played the god card. He never said ‘ok by the way, I’m god’? Right?
And again to quote peter who dedicated his experience with Jesus to mark ‘for even the son of man- and we’re his body so remember this- even the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life for ransom for many.
So the local church as a representation of Jesus, this is a premier moment. this is a premier moment for the local church in America culture, and the question is what are we going to do with this moment?
And demanding our way, demanding our rights is antithetical to everything Jesus taught an everything Jesus did. So we think (not gathering until 2021) is an expression of Christ’s likeness.
In a clip that’s certainly worth a ‘viewer discretion is advised,’ Todd White made some startling claims about God’s intention towards humanity, saying that the infinitely holy and perfect God, the Lord of Lords, desires to be the equivalent of his creation’s sexual climax.
Steven Kozar of the Messed up Church continues to do the yeoman’s work by posting this video of Todd White making the comments during his August 31 service. First the salient clips, which are edited, and then the longer context uncut afterward.
God’s in you watching pornography….But they’re stepping into these areas because they don’t have intimacy with God…..He sees it, he’s right there in bed with you. He’s right there in bed with you and he’s seeing it all and he’s watching you…..He waits until you reach climax, God (says) ‘if he only knew me…if he only knew me. If he only desired to know me, I would be his climax.
By the way Todd makes it sound, God’s snuggled up in bed while dirty deeds are being done, reclining on the pillow while you pull up a “best of” list from pornhub. After that nasty business is finished, God is grieving afterward, a helpless, whiny, deity. He’s like the nerdy kid with a crush watching the most popular girl in school hanging out by her locker with her boyfriend, while he pines away in existential teenage angst.
“if only she knew me…what a guy I was…all my qualities….I would make her so happy…happier than that dumb jock could. If only she knew me… I would treat her right… I would be her cli-“
ANYWAY. If Todd White never uses that analogy again, it’ll be too soon.
In an interview reminiscent of Joel Osteen repeatedly saying “I don’t know” to CNN’s Larry King’s questions about the exclusivity of Christ, a visibly uncomfortable Lecrae hemmed and hawed his way through an interview asking about whether he’d go to a gay wedding and ultimately whether or homosexuality is a sin, serving as a damning indictment against the once-favored son of TGC and showing himself ashamed of God’s word.
In an interview with DJ Vlad, posted in part below, the host pressed Lecrae on his opinion of Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy making statements that are pro-family and against homosexuality, wanting to know if he agrees with them.
Lecrae, clearly not wanting to discuss any of this, engages in a bit of shucking and thriving, dancing around the answers in hopes of maintaining a burgeoning career and the approval of the world, putting on some comically clueless facial expressions and awkwardly asking Vlad “Does he still stand by that today?” as if our Lord’s view on marriage and sex and family is somehow not true yesterday, today, and forever. Seriously. The man looks shook to his soul.
Quickly confronted with a follow-up question over what the hip-hop-artist would do if his son were to come out as a homosexual, Lecrae puts on a masterclass of Matthew 10:33.
Quickly confronted with a followup question over what the hop-hop-artist would do if his son were to come out as a homosexual, Lecrae puts on a masterclass of Matthew 10:33.
My thing is like this, I don’t… like… my brother’s gay..you know what I’m saying? And I don’t…I don’t condemn him. I don’t look down on him for him being attracted to [the same sex]. I don’t condemn him, you know what I’m saying? Like, if anything we will dialogue so that I can have a better understanding. Cuz’ I don’t profess to be like ‘I got this all figured out, and I know the way this should be.’ Like, I’m trying to read the bible, I’m trying to have conversations with people, and I’m trying to understand, you know the perspective, you know what I’m saying?
And I feel like anybody who wants to come at a person negatively, like, if you were a Christian and you came at me negatively, then it’s like you’re not giving me the grace and the space to be a learner. You know what I mean? Help me, you know, give me the grace and space to learn, and that’s how we move forward.
Lecrae is 40 years old and has claimed to be a Christian for half that. He’s rubbed shoulders with the who’s who of Christian leaders for nearly the whole time, and he still doesn’t know that homosexuality is a sin? Is he ignorant, or just a coward?
“You can point something out to me and say ‘hey, this is what it says, Lecrae. You should know better, you should know this.’ Well, you know, give me the grace and the space to take my time and to understand the perspective on it and to understand why these people think this way and like, that’s the perspective I have. I’m more of a learner and I give people the grace and the space as I’m processing and as I’m learning and just walk with people through that, you know what I mean? Just be a life-long learner, man.
Vlad asks Lecrae if he’d be in his son’s gay wedding if he were asked to, and he totally would.
My thing is this. I want to support my son and let him know that I love him, you know what I’m saying? Let him know that I care about him. So for me it’s not about–my son’s going to know it’s not about a wedding,- it’s about, like, my dad being supportive of who I am as a person through and through, you know what I’m mean?
Unbelievably, he then proceeds to compare the sinfulness of a homosexual lifestyle to a preference between which sports his son is going to play.
Like, it’s not about do you agree with this decision or do you agree with this decision. You know what I’m saying? My son wants to play football and not basketball. I don’t like that…you know what I’m saying? I’m like ‘Bruh, I want you to play basketball, I don’t want you to play football. But I love you.’ You know what I mean? So even if I prefer you play basketball, I love you the person, so I’m going to rock with you the person, and I’m gonna walk with you. I’m a still be with you for the rest of your life.”
So, you know what I’m saying I don’t know. You know, there’s some people who are not seeing, not going to wedding because they just didn’t like the spouse. Was that ok? You know what I’m saying? Like I just don’t like your spouse. I don’t like the fact that they’re older than you or younger than you. That’s some preferential type of stuff. And I mean like, give people the grace and the space to navigate that. ‘Why he can’t marry her? Oh, cuz I think she’s a golddigger’ well..you know..walk through this. You know what I’m saying?
It is quite evident that everyone knows exactly what he is saying.
Now I get it to form the standpoint of like..is it wrong or is it right, and that’s where I will say there’s so much nuance to it for me, in term of like….is marriage uh…..uhh…are we talking as a government sanction situation? Are we talking about two Christians, because if it’s two people who believe in the bible and they’re holding to what the bible says, well then now I’m like “what do you believe the bible says about this?
If you don’t believe the bible, then cool why am I having this conversation with you? You know what I’m saying? It’s like, you do what you want to do.
Lecrae has said the quote he loves and lives by is “If you live for peoples acceptance, you’ll die from their rejection.”
A judge who issued a restraining order against a California church opening during the pandemic and who threatened to arrest and fine the first 1000 people who showed up had his plans thwarted when another church came to the rescue, with members driving over 150 miles to attend the service and be counted as among the first to be arrested, sacrificing their bodies and freedom to free up members of the church under fire to attend and worship unmolested.
The move comes after a California judge declared that anyone who gathered under the church roof of Godspeak Calvary Chapel would be severely punished, issuing a restraining order against the church and its pastor, Rob McCoy after the local government sued McCoy and his church for holding in-person services of up to 200 people, which violates Covid-19 shutdown restrictions.
The attorney for the county also demanded that Pastor Rob McCoy be thrown in jail for opening his church this past Sunday and also requested that the judge order armed police officers to physically block entrance into the church to prevent congregants from attending.
Liberty Counsell President Matt Staver, whose firm is closely following the proceedings, explained that this was the first time that there has ever been such an order placed against a church.
The judge issued a restraining order against him, the church, and 1 through 1,000 John Does. He issued the order and said, ‘anyone acting in concert with any of these individuals.’
The John Doe orders and the in-concert language means that anybody who dares go into that church building, at any time in the future, until this judge gives his blessing, will be held in contempt of court. There are already penalties and fines of $1,000 a day, and now this contempt that they would hold over you, for going into the building for worship or prayer, would result in you going to jail as well under this court order.
This has never happened before in America.
At the news of the fines and the restraining orders issued to potential John Does, 2500 people attended the service on Sunday. Staver recounts:
Part of this group was another church that drove two hours to this church to be the first 1,000 people to be arrested so that the people inside could have their worship services.”
It is an incredible thing that church members from another congregation, whose church wasn’t being attacked and subjected to this persecution, drove two hours to stand outside in the parking lot during the services to voluntarily receive citations or face arrest so others could worship inside, in defiance of Governor Gavin Newsom’s tyrannical and anti-christian policies.
Beth Moore has been relatively silent through most of last week’s protests and riots over the death of George Floyd, with only a few general comments here and there. She supports the protest, of course, and reveals that many of the staff at Living Proof Ministries have been marching, and she hopes to join them soon.
But as far as what those protesters will look like for Beth, what she thinks Christians should be doing once they are there, how we interact with others, and what role our faith should play in our motivations for attending, we no longer have to guess.
It’s nice to know that we have some clarity from Mrs. Moore regarding these matters. To summarize:
If you think of the protests as a mission field where you might share the gospel of Jesus Christ with people you encounter there- don’t
If you’re going to “love on them”- don’t
If you’re going to lead people in prayer- don’t
If you want to be a “Christian voice in the crowd”- don’t
If you want to share God’s love- don’t
If you want to witness to people – don’t
Just be a warm body to march and fight violence and racism, but keep your Jesus and the gospel out of it.
Of course, it should go without saying that this from advice from Kristen only applies to White Christians. If you are a Black Christian, you can go and preach the gospel, pray with people, share god’s love, and witness all you want.
If you’re not a person of color, then don’t even think about it.
In the March 25th editorial for Christianity Today, the progressive rag known for giving a platform to every weird and liberally insidious bent, Editor-in Chief Daniel Harrell chastised Christians who are still having in-person church services, writing:
Even if we do practice stringent hygiene and social distancing, coming together as congregations in the face of this pandemic actually mars our witness. Rather than looking courageous and faithful, we come off looking callous and even foolish, not unlike the snake handlers who insisted on playing with poison as a proof of true faith.
Later in the article, Harell commends the notion that instead of physically gathering as a body, we should be practicing “online church” and “the virtual body of Christ,” ostensibly to not look silly or foolish to the unbelieving world who will view our gatherings as dangerous and destructive to our witness. (As if many things we currently do in our services aren’t already considered foolish or strange to the unbelieving pagan- think what happens during communion, or the fact that we worship as God a man they believe has been dead and rotting in the ground for 2000 years. )
We reached out to Harrell and asked what he would say to the belief that far from having church services in these times making us look silly, they reinforce to the unbelieving world how serious and important our services and ordinances are to us? Or the fact that snake handlers are abusing and twisting the scriptures to propagate their hucksterism, whereas congregations meeting on the Lord’s day are not. He did not respond.
In contradistinction to this viewpoint that we might as well be snake-handlers for refusing to give up our services in exchange for interwebs church, we wrote in An Urgent Plea to Not Call Your Livestream Service ‘Church’ Tomorrow of how the two cannot be favorably compared as if they are equal. JD Hall writes:
For the love of all that is good and pure, please do not refer to your livestream tomorrow as “online church.” Please do not tell your church members that it will be “just like going to church, but in your pajamas!” Please do not tell your church members that they will be doing church “in their homes.”
and further
We orthodox-type pastors have been busy pleading with people for years that watching church services online is not the same as actual church. You’ve heard all the arguments…
-A church is an “ecclesia” and an “ecclesia” is an assembly; staying in your home is not “assembling.”
-You can’t – or at least shouldn’t – be observing the ordinances (communion and baptism) by yourself. These are ordinances given to the church, not to individuals. And by the way, -if these things can’t be observed, you don’t have a “church” at all.
-The power of the preached word is somehow special in the assembly. It is more effectual than that which you see on screen. And no, we can’t explain that. But we believe it’s supernatural.
-Lord’s Day worship is corporate in nature. Everyone engaging in private worship at the same time is still not corporate worship. It’s just time-coordinated individual worship.
Those are all good, and true, arguments. But here’s the thing, those rules don’t change because of a pandemic.
Watching the computer at the same time in individual homes doesn’t magically become an “assembly” just because coronavirus exists. A contagious virus doesn’t somehow make a Bible study with no right to observe the ordinances into a “church.” If we are serious about what is, and what is not church, then we have to admit that logically, coronavirus doesn’t change any of that.
Please, please be careful about how you advertise your livestream church-substitute. Keep in mind that however you advertise your livestream will be used as a reason to stay home from church after the coronavirus threat is over.
In the March 25th editorial for Christianity Today, the progressive rag known for giving a platform to every weird and liberally insidious bent, Editor in Chief Daniel Harrell made some unflattering comparisons and chastened Christians who are still deciding to have church services in these trying times, writing:
Even if we do practice stringent hygiene and social distancing, coming together as congregations in the face of this pandemic actually mars our witness. Rather than looking courageous and faithful, we come off looking callous and even foolish, not unlike the snake handlers who insisted on playing with poison as a proof of true faith.
Later in the article, Harell commends the notion that instead of physically gathering as a body, we should be practicing “online church” and “the virtual body of Christ,” ostensibly to not look silly or foolish to the unbelieving world who will view our gatherings as dangerous and destructive to our witness.
We reached out to Harrell and asked what he would say to the belief that far from having church services in these times making us look silly, they reinforce to the unbelieving world how serious and important our services and ordinances are to us. Or the fact that snake handlers are abusing and twisting the scriptures to propagate their hucksterism, whereas congregations meeting on the Lord’s Day are not.
We will update this post if and when he responds.
In contradistinction to this viewpoint that we might as well be snake handlers for refusing to give up our services in exchange for interwebs church, we wrote in An Urgent Plea to Not Call Your Livestream Service ‘Church’ Tomorrow of how the two cannot be favorably compared as if they are equal. JD writes:
For the love of all that is good and pure, please do not refer to your livestream tomorrow as “online church.” Please do not tell your church members that it will be “just like going to church, but in your pajamas!” Please do not tell your church members that they will be doing church “in their homes.”
and further
We orthodox-type pastors have been busy pleading with people for years that watching church services online is not the same as actual church. You’ve heard all the arguments…
-A church is an “ecclesia” and an “ecclesia” is an assembly; staying in your home is not “assembling.”
-You can’t – or at least shouldn’t – be observing the ordinances (communion and baptism) by yourself. These are ordinances given to the church, not to individuals. And by the way, -if these things can’t be observed, you don’t have a “church” at all.
-The power of the preached word is somehow special in the assembly. It is more effectual than that which you see on screen. And no, we can’t explain that. But we believe it’s supernatural.
-Lord’s Day worship is corporate in nature. Everyone engaging in private worship at the same time is still not corporate worship. It’s just time-coordinated individual worship.
Those are all good, and true, arguments. But here’s the thing, those rules don’t change because of a pandemic.
Watching the computer at the same time in individual homes doesn’t magically become an “assembly” just because coronavirus exists. A contagious virus doesn’t somehow make a Bible study with no right to observe the ordinances into a “church.” If we are serious about what is, and what is not church, then we have to admit that logically, coronavirus doesn’t change any of that.
Please, please be careful about how you advertise your livestream church-substitute. Keep in mind that however you advertise your livestream will be used as a reason to stay home from church after the coronavirus threat is over.
Paige Patterson was instrumental in the so-called Conservative Resurgence in the SBC a generation ago. Along with Paul Pressler and a few other leaders, Patterson championed Biblical inerrancy and used the springboard of Adrian Rogers’ election to the SBC presidency to painfully but successfully begin eradicating the SBC of its non-inerrantists.
In reality, the Conservative Resurgence – more than anything – demonstrated that claims of inerrancy are not synonymous with Biblical conservatism. With the hardcore (and often unethical, deceitful, underhanded and plainly sinful) denominational warfare against the “liberals” behind them, the old guard rested in comfort knowing that they had won the Convention from the bad guys. In reality, while the classical liberals with conscience and fortitude resigned (or were fired) with integrity, many of the less-than-honest liberals simply signed on the dotted line of inerrancy and went underground. Social progressives like Russell Moore simply don’t rise to the very top of the SBC iconoclast without more than few liberal professors dripping their worldview into the caldron of his educational experience. Likewise, Paige Patterson’s tenure at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary demonstrates that it takes more than inerrancy to be a Biblical conservative.
Patterson, while holding to a few of the more frivolous eccentricities of fundamentalism, like a total prohibition against alcohol consumption among students, enrolls Muslims and enrolls Mormons at the SBC-subsidized seminary. Because the sacred calf of Patterson’s strand of fundamentalism is ‘soul-winning,’ these shockingly bizarre enrollments have been done in the name of evangelism and have received applause from the current generation of SBC messengers who grew up believing the Conservative Resurgence was a black-and-white, dragon-slaying conquest of good versus evil and Paige Patterson walked on water by the wonder working power of Scriptural inerrancy. And yet, the only world where enrolling Mormons and Muslims in an SBC seminary can be considered “conservative” is the bizarro land of Southern Baptist celebrity leadership.
Likewise, Patterson earns conservative credentials for his position against female preachers (and good on him), but doesn’t guard the pulpit against doctrines flatly at odds with Christian orthodoxy.
PATTERSON EMBRACES CAMPBELLISM
Patterson has routinely rejected traditional Southern Baptist positions on a whole host of issues, but most recently, has apparently rejected the conservative Southern Baptist position against the heresy of the Campbellites, and has chosen to have a prominent Campbellite celebrity soon speak at the seminary chapel. Simply put, Patterson would have been widely repudiated for this decision in the Southern Baptist Convention among our founders as a denominational liberal.
Preaching at SWBTS chapel on October 26 (2016) is Alan Robertson, a Campbellite preacher who is best known as the cleanly shaven Duck Dynasty brother. Like other Campbellites, Alan Robertson teaches that we are justified by baptism. In other words, he teaches that baptism saves. While the Robertson clan may be popular among a wide swath of American Christian culture and in conservative, flag-waving politics, his doctrine is fundamentally opposed to the Sola Fide-drenched Gospel of Christian orthodoxy, not to mention to Southern Baptist teaching. A conservative Southern Baptist female cannot preach at Southwestern (the author of this article is in full agreement, by the way), but a Campbellite preaching a false Gospel can. Patterson’s so-called “conservatism” is fundamentally schizophrenic.
TRADITIONAL SOUTHERN BAPTIST REJECTION OF CAMPBELLISM
The Southern Baptist Sunday School board produced anti-Campbellite material for many years in order to educate Southern Baptists on the danger of their unorthodox doctrine and false gospel. Southern Baptists and Campbellites had great antipathy from the time of Alexander Campbell until the 20th century Revivalist movement gutted the SBC (and most of the rest of evangelicalism) of doctrinal distinctives and theological depth. Baptists responded not only vitriolically to Campbellism because their teaching that Baptism saves, but because their ‘Restorationist Movement’ fanaticism caused many Baptists to go the way of Landmarkism in response. That a Campbellite would preach in a Southern Baptist seminary truly would have astounded the founders of the Southern Baptist Convention – and not only the founders, but the early twentieth century leaders as well.
The document above is a pdf from the SBC Sunday School Board in 1900 providing “one hundred reasons for not being a Campbellite.” But apparently, our forbears couldn’t have anticipated the appeal of reality television celebrity status that has so bewitched Paige Patterson.
Southern Baptist antipathy toward the Campbellites come from a few points of grave theological disagreement:
First, Campbellites were founded by Alexander Campbell. Campbell and his father absconded from the Baptist faith in 1834, soon founding the Campbellite religion. Their chiefest initial claim is that no denomination was correct and that the “institutional church” lacked the apostolic authority to baptize (similar to the apostasization of Roger Williams). The solution was to restore the true and apostolic church, the actual church of Jesus Christ that went back to Galilee (a number of sub-christian sects were founded during the “Restoration Movement” during this time period, including Mormonism). Secondly, the Campbellites approved baptism done in the name of Jesus only, as opposed to the Triune formula used by Christian orthodoxy, leaving them open to charges of Sabellianism (the Robertson clan, for example, uses the Jesus-only formula). Third and most egregiously, Campbellites taught that Baptism saved – and not merely saved in the wider sense of an exhaustive Ordo Salutis – but that Baptism in fact justified (Campbellites still teach this today). The theological difference between Baptists and the Campbellites are in fact far, far greater than Baptists and Lutherans (who believe in baptismal regeneration but keep in tact Sola Fide) or other paedobaptists. Fourth, Campbellites taught that in order to be saved, one must be baptized by a Campbellite minister (they still teach this today) and that one must be a member of a Campbellite church to remain saved (most still teach this today). Fifth, there were other less significant differences, like their forbidding musical instrumentation, that are not heretical but still are greatly annoying to Baptists.
Baptists hammered Campbellites with sermons, books, lectures, Sunday School materials and advertising propaganda that warned them to flee from their false doctrines and warned others to stay away from Campbellites. Heck, they even suggested that maybe Campbellites acted the way they did because they were inbred. But perhaps to sum it up best, here’s screenshots of an anti-Campbellite poem published by the SBC Sunday School Board.
While the truly-traditional Southern Baptists might have had a particularly polemical vibe that is off-putting to modern day practitioners of soft-Christianity, it’s nonetheless amazing that in a little over one hundred years an SBC seminary president would be having a Campbellite preach to seminary students. Is there a good reason? Perhaps Campbellites have changed their doctrinal stances or repented of their teachings? Have Southern Baptists changed their doctrinal position? Has believing that Baptism saves less heretical than it was a hundred years ago? Of course, the answer to all of these questions is no. The only thing that changed is that Southern Baptists, post Conservative Resurgence, have been lulled to sleep with the fairy tale that the good guys won – and because of that, theological liberalism is far from us. In fact, some of those who led the Conservative Resurgence have demonstrated the willingness to compromise and nearly each and every important doctrine that we hold dear.
And unfortunately, Paige Patterson is willing to compromise on the very Gospel itself.
