Category: Evangelical Stuff

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Breaking Evangelical Stuff News Op-Ed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Docent has been a humongous help to me, saving me literally hours each week and improving the quality of my preaching dramatically. These guys are the real deal. I give them assignments and questions on everything from interpretation to cultural analysis to illustration, and they get me thorough answers, always on time. They are outstanding scholars and really “get” my job as a communicator. I often have people remark to me, “How many hours did you spend on that sermon? Where do you get time to do all that research?” Ha. Thanks, guys for making me look so good!

JD Greear, Endorsement now memory-holed from Docent website

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

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

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

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

We wrote of Vermulen…

“…in his same bio brags of “awards” by the now-woke Mere Orthodoxy, uber-woke Alan Noble, and the pro-LGBTQ Calvin College. He also explains that he worked with Ronnie Floyd (SBC Executive Committee President), Mark Driscoll, and Matt Chandler. The latter has his own page at Docent Research Group. Vermulen brags that his Catholic-driven work to invade American Reformed Theology has wrought him $194,530 in grants alone from Catholic or Social Justice organizations. This does not count the money he has made writing other people’s sermons. These facts demonstrate that there is significant money being put into invading America’s pulpits.”

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

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

Exegesis is sermon material, folks.

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

We wrote, concerning Docent Group…

But to be clear, we do not know what they charge to be the plagiarists-for-hire because their clientele is very select; megachurch preachers who seem particularly incapable of handling the Scripture, and who aren’t savvy enough intellectually to understand that what they’re being handed is a Marxist cliff-notes version of sermon exposition.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
Evangelical Stuff News Op-Ed

More Pathetic “Fact Checking” of Megan Basham’s Shepherds for Sale

As Rush Limbaugh liked to say, “Liberals cannot survive in an unrigged contest in the arena of ideas.” Leftism succeeds not on its own merits but by masquerading itself and fooling people into supporting policies they don’t actually agree with. It succeeds by convincing people to act contrary to their interests and values, and it does this through various well-worn epistemological and rhetorical deceptions, exploiting people’s vulnerabilities to change their voting behavior.

In the political arena, tools for exploitation include divisive identity politics, class envy, hyperbolic scare tactics, and good old-fashioned character assassination. Leftist evangelicals are willing to use the same tactics, but they usually get the ball rolling with scripture twisting and Jesus-shaming emotional subjectivism. These uniquely effective tools for manipulating undiscerning believers often do the trick and avoid the need to resort to the more obvious political tools.

Yet evangelicals are a stubborn bunch. The possibility that regular churchgoers –  rather than be shamed into voting in opposition to their values – might instead tie their evangelical betters to the leftism they’ve long smuggled into the church is a red alert, four-alarm fire that must be put out. Megan Basham’s Shepherds for Sale, a book that is shooting up bestseller lists, has conducted a no-knock raid and set a fire in the left’s church kitchen, threatening to expose the secret recipes, identify by name the Big Eva sous-chefs, and cause pew-sitters to leap out of the pot before it reaches boil.

Big Eva is not worried about Basham merely providing for readers a list of leftist policies opposed by churchgoers. Many writers have done that. They are afraid of a book that successfully ties those policies around their necks. They know that normal believers do not support the left’s green agenda, borderless illegal immigration, “pro-life” being defined downward into meaninglessness, or churches bowing to COVID authoritarianism. Having long ago realized they couldn’t win the hearts and minds of faithful Christians in the arena of ideas, the left resorted to Manchurian subterfuge – empty Christianity and its leaders of moral and ethical content and replace them with a poison-laced counterfeit. Much like Democrats thought they nominated Joe Biden but wound up with Vice President Word Salad, evangelicals have blissfully trusted their Christian leaders only to find those leaders trading the church’s collective witness for thirty pieces of silver and an invitation to the next New York Times cocktail party.

Basham’s book has blown the whistle – not for progressives in mainline churches waving trans flags – but for traditional evangelicals discovering they’ve been the frogs in progressive evangelicalism’s slow boil. These churchgoers thought their leaders were stomping on the cultural brakes as the country careened towards the socialist cliff, but now see that not only are many leaders not braking, they are actually stepping on the gas.

They’re Not Sending Their Best. Or Perhaps They Are?

Pushback against Basham’s book has, thus far, not involved any particularly heavy hitters on Team Big Eva. Rather, opposition has been from the swarm of unabashedly leftist “Christians” in the Twittersphere or from Big Eva lieutenants like Gavin Ortlund and Warren Cole Smith – both sufficiently beholden to the establishment yet helpfully unknown to nearly everyone Shepherds for Sale was written for. Regular pew-sitters don’t know the Gavin Ortlund who theologizes behind Russell Moore and who doesn’t share their belief in young earth creation, the Bible’s account of a worldwide flood, or their well-grounded suspicion of big government’s climate science and COVID agendas. They don’t know Warren Cole Smith, president of Ministry Watch, who – despite positioning himself as some sort of objective watchdog for Christian ministries – unreservedly pals around with partisans like The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta and Christianity Today’s Mike Cosper. Functional ecumenism of the flavor practiced by Smith (he settled on Anglicanism after bizarrely accepting it as an “middle way” between Baptist and Roman Catholic) aptly represents the defenseless target Christianity leftism thrives on. Although frankly in Smith’s case, the answer might be that he’s simply running interference for his friends.

A little background: Warren Cole Smith is president and sole employee of Ministry Watch. His site ministrywatch.com, part of 501c3 non-profit Wall Watchers in North Carolina, saw it’s revenue climb from $50,173 in 2018 to $419,041 in 2021. Despite dedicating itself to Christian ministerial transparency, Ministry Watch (like many of the ministries on their long list of ratings) is funded anonymously, primarily through Donor Advised Funds like WaterStone and the American Endowment Foundation. In 2021, Smith’s $121K salary (and $31K in “employee benefits”) represented nearly 34% of Ministry Watch’s total expenses – expenses which included $119K in “contract services” (likely independent writers), $1900 a month in “information technology,” and $3750 a month in “management” expense.

Presumably as part of Warren Cole Smith’s stated quest for Christian accountability, he recently detoured to the opinion pages of never-Trumper Jonah Goldberg and Steven Hayes’ The Dispatch to publish a 3000-word review of Shepherds for Sale. Smith teased the review five days before the book’s release while responding on X/Twitter to an openly hostile and anti-Trump post from self-professed Basham fact-checker pastor Ben Marsh, making clear Smith’s review would similarly be using Trump as its foil and predictable evangelical-shaming cudgel. While producing eye-rolls from rank-in-file churchgoers who largely remain committed to voting red in 2024, Trump-shaming from left-leaning Christians continues to signal to secular elites that they haven’t lost their pet evangelicals.

Another Ham-Handed “Review”

Smith opens his piece with a swing at whataboutism. Ignoring that the book is specifically addressing a leftist agenda covertly entering churches, he claims that the premise of the book is “fatally flawed” because, well, the right also tries to influence churches. Setting aside for the moment the mountain of Jesus and John Wayne-themed literature attacking the right’s relationship with evangelicalism, Basham’s book is unapologetic and clear about its concern. She defines specific items of the leftist agenda, discusses the theological particulars that make the agenda unpalatable to evangelicals, and unpacks the evidence linking the agenda to specific evangelical leaders. She blames evangelicalism’s problems on leftism. Smith blames it on “departing from the Gospel to pursue ideology and political activism.” Basham reached a specific, tangible conclusion, but Smith demands she advocate for the same Great Commission-neutralizing “gospel versus ideology” toothlessness that has brought contemporary Western civilization to the brink of moral collapse. Rather than critique her book on its stated terms (a journalistic demand he makes of Basham a few paragraphs later), Smith’s opening Kelleresque critique insists Basham’s book is only credible if it grants the very premise the book was written against.

Matthew 18 Journalism

Smith tries to discredit Shepherds for Sale with personal appeals, first admitting that he “knows most of the people she criticizes in this book” before reminding readers that “Basham’s descriptions do not match the people I know” and that she “gets a whole host of basic facts wrong” by failing “an opinion journalist’s most basic duty to understand and convey the perspectives of people with whom he or she disagrees” (a standard Smith ironically fails to meet). Under this invented and illogical standard, Smith implies Basham had a duty to call everyone mentioned in the book before publishing. Yet Basham’s book is not merely a work of “opinion journalism.” It is a work of investigative, polemical journalism featuring bad actors who have spent their careers confining their bad press to pages of pesky discernment websites, very often by flushing their stash as soon as they receive the Matthew 18 phone call Smith demands. The “allow them to explain” prohibition on secular investigative journalism’s no-knock raids sounds pious to believers suffering as “love your neighbor” Stockholm Syndrome Christians (Discovery Institute’s John G. West coins this term in his terrific review). Yet rather than promote transparency and unity, it merely allows an offender time to retreat back into the motte (see Christianity Today’s bias-hiding policy change on staff political donations that Smith uses to imply their underlying bias no longer exists), regroup, and return to the bailey soon after.

Discredited Protesters

Smith cites the comically dismantled, self-important, “Does she think I’m even a Christian?” whiny video struggle session of California pastor-turned-YouTuber Gavin Ortlund, the aftermath of which saw online retail pages for Shepherds for Sale fill with Ortlund-defending one-star reviews at a far higher volume than Ortlund’s relatively short presence in Shepherds for Sale possibly justified. Shortly thereafter, Ortlund’s kind and reasonable façade was shattered as he was caught stirring animus against Basham, calling her a “relentless troll” his followers on Discord.

The quibbling of Samuel James and Phil Vischer’s juvenile and collectivist “rebuttal” likewise received unqualified endorsements from Smith, before again genuflecting at the alter of Trump Derangement Syndrome, claiming that Basham’s “true” narrative (despite her explicitly denying it multiple times in the book) is that “Christians who don’t support Donald Trump have lost their way.”

Balance on the Daily Wire

Smith returns to whataboutism in arguing that Basham’s narrative about bias at Christianity Today (whose editorial staff donated exclusively to pro-abortion candidates in 2015-2022) was somehow required to include similar information on political contributions from Basham employer The Daily Wire’s employees to Democrats during the same period – donations that were almost entirely from the company’s California-based entertainment employees rather than its editorial staff. Yet Smith clairvoyantly discovered that the essential Christianity Today/Daily Wire donation comparison he wanted was “intentionally omitted” because it “didn’t fit Basham’s preconceived narrative about Christianity Today.” One wonders why Smith doesn’t understand that Basham’s employer displaying the kind of political balance he demands of her book only serves to bolster her journalistic credibility in establishing Christianity Today’s leftward bias.

Moore Reaching

Smith’s defense of Russell Moore – perhaps the biggest shepherd for sale in the pasture – is even more shameless. Moore is the current editor-in-chief of Christianity’s so-called “flagship” publication, Christianity Today, and former head of the ERLC, the lobbying arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. Despite Moore’s unique and central platform relative to Christian public issues, Smith laughably expects readers to believe that, with a Supreme Court decision on evangelicalism’s generational political priority imminent, Moore had “unplugged from American politics and social media” and was too busy “traveling in Europe and intentionally off the grid with his family” to say a single public word about the historic overturning of Roe v. Wade for weeks. This is the same Russell Moore who wasted no time rebuking the SBC as “evil and stupid” for their clumsy attempt at firing his protégé Brent Leatherwood after Leatherwood praised Joe Biden for “selflessly” stepping down from the 2024 presidential race.

Guinness Quote Was Accurate

Smith goes on to nitpick his way to a defense of the Trinity Forum, insinuating that an organization that recently platformed a “Christian” supporter of gender mutilative surgeries on children could be unfairly maligned by a claim that they could possibly think “too evangelical” might mean “unsophisticated.” Smith reportedly reached out to Trinity Forum founder Os Guinness, who confirmed that Basham’s quote (in which he casts believers not voting as failing the duties of Christian citizenship) was indeed accurate. Yet Smith assumes that Basham’s conclusion that the Trinity Forum is clearly not serious about advocating for God’s law in the political sphere) is dependent on Guinness’s quote rather that merely contrasted with it. In truth, Basham never stated nor implied that Guinness was speaking about the Trinity Forum when he talked about Christians advocating for God’s law. Smith simply inserted this fictional context in order to paint Basham as a liar.

When publisher Harper Collins reached out to Guinness, he reaffirmed the need for and purpose of books like Shepherds for Sale, stating, “There is no doubt that the subversion of Evangelicalism is the prime goal of the radical left, and superfunding is a leading tactic du jour. We must be vigilant. Faithfulness is the issue of our times, the radical left is our open adversary, and we must not be seduced.” Yet Smith expects his readers to conclude Guinness might not stand opposed to the Trinity Forum’s shift towards radical compromise. Soon after, he offered an endorsement of the book:

Some will quibble over details, but no one should miss the powerful warning in this book. We face a gathering storm, as Winston Churchill warned a century ago, but this time the enemy is inside as well as outside the gates. Every convinced and unashamed Evangelical should read, ponder, and pray over this important book.

Os Guinness, author ‘The Magna Carta of Humanity’

He Said, She Said, But Warren Knows She’s Lying

Smith characterizes as false Basham’s in-person account of being concerned with World Magazine’s former editor-in-chief Marvin Olasky suggesting (much like Tim Keller) that being pro-life might involve voting for a pro-choice candidate who would reduce abortion by covering childcare and paid family leave. Despite Smith’s attempt to credential his objection to Basham’s account with his relationship with his former boss, Olasky did not deny Basham’s account but instead offered a general recitation of his pro-life bona fides and suggested Basham’s recounting could have referred to the editorial team “discussing our (World’s) news coverage of the 2020 election, which meant taking seriously the views of evangelicals on both sides of the political divide.” Not only does Olasky not actually deny Basham’s claims, but Smith obviously has no way to determine the truth of Basham’s recollection, settling instead on “that’s not the guy I know” as his evidence that Basham must be lying.

Pay No Attention to The Ghoul Behind the Curtain

Finally, Smith addresses COVID-19 Apostle to the Evangelicals Francis Collins. Rather than expressing any concern about Collins’ indefensible spiritual abuse of Christians (and his NIH’s ghoulishly evil experimentation on aborted baby parts), Smith instead quibbles over Basham’s sentence about Ed Stetzer describing in a 2021 podcast Wheaton’s Billy Graham Center’s partnering with the Biden NIH and CDC occurring before the sentence in which she stated they “went on” to publish the deceptive and abusive “Coronavirus and the Church” website. While the website was online before the podcast where Stetzer described his organization partnering with the federal government under Biden, this fact has nothing at all to do with the real truths Smith is intent on distracting readers from: Stetzer’s Trump and Biden-era partnerships with the CDC and NIH director gave cover to Francis Collins, a truly evil enemy of Christ. In light of Smith’s clairvoyant thesis that Donald Trump is the “true hero” of Shepherds for Sale, it should be noted that it was the Biden administration, not Trump, that pushed the pinnacle evil of COVID authoritarianism – take it or you’re fired “vaccine” mandates.

Despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth from wannabe Big Eva white knights and the Twitterverse Christian left, Megan Basham’s book remains solid and is – dare I say – essential reading for American evangelicals. Of course, to Never Trumpers like Warren Cole Smith and friends, any book daring to name evangelicalism’s leftist interlopers rather than perform the expected and sacred duty of dressing down Trump-voting Christians is to be discredited by any means necessary, including professional assassination of its author. Yet evangelicals who are suspicious (and know in their gut) that Basham should fear not. Warren Cole Smith’s silly “review” fails to land even a glancing blow on Basham and can easily be dispatched into the garbage with the rest of the Shepherds for Sale’s whiny protests.

Categories
Church Evangelical Stuff News Op-Ed SBC

The Pew-Sitter’s Guide to SBC ’24

Another year, another SBC Annual Meeting. Technically, the “Convention” only exists for a Tuesday and Wednesday every year as thousands of messengers descend on a metropolitan convention center to discuss and debate business. While readers and supporters of Protestia are wisely suspicious of the kind of institutionalism that characterizes the world of the SBC, 2024’s business starts tomorrow, so without further ado, Protestia presents the 2024 Pew Sitter’s Guide to SBC ’24.

Highlights and Lowlights from the Book of Reports

Giving to the SBC’s Cooperative Program (the general fund) declined by 2.39% in the 2022-2023 fiscal year versus the 2021-2022 fiscal year, while “undesignated gifts” reported by cooperating churches grew by 1.92%, possibly indicating that churches are shifting their giving away from the SBC. Reported attendance grew by 6.47%, but this likely resulted from a lingering rebound from post-COVID attendance declines. The state conventions that reported (excluding OK, FL, GA, KY, SC, and Northwest Conventions) reported an average of 1.8 million weekly “participants” in “online worship.”

Despite the Bible’s clear teaching that the body of Christ contains one ethnicity (Gal. 3:28), the SBC’s “Southern Baptist Ethnic Research Network” has categorized cooperating churches by racial categories (“Asian,” “Black,” “Hispanic,” “Other,” “Anglo,” and “Unknown”), and provided a chart of SBC committees and trustee boards by general racial categories. The committee and trustee charts notably have no “unknown” column, raising the question of whether the SBC has been requiring its officers to categorize themselves by skin color upon appointment.

The SBC Executive Committee (EC) confusingly reported that the US Justice Department’s investigation of the EC opened in the wake of 2022’s Guidepost report, and the so-called “abuse apocalypse” was concluded with no action to be taken right before the SBC’s lawyers reminded everyone that the DOJ is still apparently investigating “the SBC as a whole.”

The EC stated that it did not plan to take legal action against interim president and CEO Willie McLaurin, who, during the background investigation pursuant to his consideration for the regular position, was found to have falsified his resume and education. The EC did not disclose the terms of the “post-employment” (severance) agreement it approved for McLaurin.

Over the last year, the Credentials Committee has recommended kicking out (disfellowship is a no-no word, perhaps “dis-cooperate”?) five churches – one for non-cooperation on charges of racism, two for non-cooperation on charges of mishandling abuse allegations, one for no financial support for five years and non-cooperation on a doctrinal concern, and only one (one!) for “having a female functioning in the office of pastor.” The hundreds of other SBC churches with lady pastors have apparently been spared the chopping block this time around.

In response to a 2023 motion that, if approved, would require typical non-profit financial disclosure from SBC institutions (like what is reported on an IRS 990), the EC kicked the financial transparency can down the road, reporting that “the Committee on Convention Finances and Stewardship Development discussed the matter during its September 18-19, 2023, and February 19-20, 2024, meetings and will consider the matter again during its June 10, 2024, meeting.”

In addition to the EC’s recommendations on the 2024-2025 allocation of Cooperative Program giving to the various entities and the EC operating budget, the EC reminds the messengers in the Book of Reports that it stood in opposition to the Law/Sanchez Amendment even as it forwarded it to be debated and voted on by the 2023 messengers. The Law Amendment, as it’s been commonly called, would add to the requirements for a cooperating SBC church to “Affirm, appoint, or employ only men as any kind of pastor or elder as qualified by Scripture.” The 2023 SBC messengers in New Orleans overwhelmingly approved the Law Amendment, but the EC and many high-profile, connected SBC figures have argued against it.

Notably, the SBC Constitution has similar language in Article III, deeming churches that affirm homosexual behavior to be outside friendly cooperation, so language requiring adherence to biblical gender requirements is a norm, not an exception.

The International Mission Board (IMB) blew off messenger-approved motions to “Request International Mission Board to study the long-term effects of the Covid vaccine requirements on missionaries” and “allow missionaries to abstain from vaccinations that bind their conscience” with cookie-cutter responses that amounted to “none of your business.”

Lifeway Christian Resources released a Kingdom Men Rising Bible study in response to “toxic notions of masculinity in many corners of culture” and a book of Daniel study by J.D. Greear. They didn’t report how much of the study was sourced from Docent Research Group or if Ed Litton had also “authored” a Daniel study.

Likewise, Lifeway’s reporting on Women’s Ministry is an absolute dumpster fire, reporting on events and Bible studies from false teachers like Priscilla Shirer and Kristi McLelland, “periods are crucifixion parables” Jen Wilkin, and SSA (same-sex attracted) lesbians Jackie Hill Perry and Rebecca McLaughlin.

The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) predictably avoided any talk of abolishing abortion in favor of supporting the nebulous “culture of life.” ERLC president Brent Leatherwood mentioned the difficulty and pain caused by his kids’ school being the target of “transgender” shooter Audrey Hale, but not why he militantly opposed the release of Hale’s writings for public examination and scrutiny.

Recommendations/Commentary on Proposed Resolutions

Resolutions are not binding on, well, anything or anyone. They are merely public statements approved by the gathered messengers and thus represent the SBC’s “view” during any given year. They also provide a window into the prevailing zeitgeist of both the messenger body and the Resolutions Committee that sorts through and determines what the messengers will be voting on.

On Integrity in SBC Leadership: This resolution is too loose with its scriptural application (applying specific verses about elders to “leaders”), but its principles are generally correct. Unfortunately, it misses an opportunity to tighten further the definitional boundaries of pastor/elder/overseer and instead sticks with “leaders.” Even so, it largely outlines a standard all Christians should uphold. Recommendation: Yes.

On Defending Religious Liberty: While generally a restatement of standard Baptist understanding of religious liberty (a restriction on government power rather than moral permissibility for individuals), the parts of the resolution decrying state religion and blasphemy laws certainly make it look like the resolution was written to oppose the real or perceived positions of Christian Nationalism and what might be termed neo-theonomy. The debate continues, but this is a convention of Baptists, and religious liberty is a Baptist distinctive. Recommendation: Yes.

On Just War and the Pursuit of Peace: This resolution is quite the word salad. It primarily restates a bunch of historical Baptist and Christian positions on war. Recommendation: Yes.

On Justice and Peace in the Aftermath of the October 7 Attack on Israel: The term and concept of “antisemitism” has been broadened beyond any useful distinction. Yet this resolution generally states the appropriate Christian position, even as it doesn’t go far enough in distinguishing between the modern political state of Israel and the called people of Abraham (“Christians,” as we like to call them) or identifying the particular evils of Islam that motivate Hamas. Recommendation: Yes.

On the Pro-Life Ethic in a Post-Roe Society: This one takes the same position championed by the Pro-Life movement for its entire existence – no blame for the mother who chooses death for her unborn child, blaming abortion on lack of economic opportunity and affordable health care, and a call for “collaborative partnerships between civil society and government.” Recommendation: No, without substantial equal protection overhaul.

On the Ethical Realities of Reproductive Technologies and the Dignity of the Human Embryo: A very interesting resolution, considering it follows a Pro-Life resolution that (as most SBC abortion resolutions do) avoids any language that might hint at equal culpability for the mother in the death of her unborn child. This one takes a long overdue aim at the process of In Vitro Fertilization that has resulted in millions of frozen embryos that will undoubtedly face death and encourages adoption rather than producing millions of death-bound children in hopes of bringing some to birth. Recommendation: Yes.

On the God-Given Rights and Responsibilities of Parents: A resolution seemingly in response to the recent uptick in government interference in parents’ rights to raise their children, particularly as it relates to education and the evils of “transing” kids. Recommendation: Amend to fix language about the state “promoting good” (the state “praises” or “commends” good, a notably less active role) according to 1 Peter 2:14. Also, amend the or remove unnecessary and confusing language encouraging the state to “partner with the family” in protecting parental rights.

On the Danger of Abusing Non-Disclosure and Non-Disparagement Agreements: Throwing a bone to abuse survivor advocates (ironic since only consenting adults can sign legal agreements), this resolution is a toothless virtue signal. Far from resolving to condemn these typical employment legal agreements, this resolution loosely condemns legal agreements that “prevent victims of abuse from speaking the truth of their experience,” “oppress or harm individuals,” “promote unnecessary secrecy, or deter accountability,” or “perpetuate harm or injustice.” It’s non-specific, emotionalized, and patronizing. Recommendation: No.

On Evangelism and the Great Commission: Not sure why the SBC needs a resolution to restate the purposes of the North American Mission Board and the International Mission Board. Recommendation: No.

On Appreciation for Indianapolis: The typical appreciation resolution for the host city. Recommendation: Yes.

Abuse Reform

It is safe to say the bloom is off the rose concerning the SBC’s 2021-initiated sex abuse reform adventure (it could be argued that the adventure started in 2018 after the veneration of Rachel Denhollander and the Houston Chronicle published their “Abuse of Faith” series the next year). What began as a craven power move as SBC institutionalist Grant Gaines used the crying and Mike Stone-kneecapping Hannah-Kate Williams as a prop to guilt messengers into approving the Sex Abuse Task Force (SATF) resulted in an expensive, nothing-burger investigation by Guidepost Solutions that featured primarily cases of consenting adults later characterized as abuse. The characters who consolidated power under a “we’ll fix the abuse crisis” banner eventually admitted both that there was no coverup by the SBC on responding to abuse and that promises to increase so-called accountability were not in keeping with either Baptist church autonomy or common law justice.

Note: While the outside world (who is watching, the SBC reminds us) seems to think the SBC’s “abuse crisis” is something akin to the Catholic priest pedophilia scandal, the headline cases in the SBC (Lyell/Sills, Hunt) are situations involving consenting adults. Tellingly, the “victim” who helped launch the sex abuse reform circus (and torpedo 2021’s conservative presidential candidate) wasn’t even mentioned in the Guidepost investigation.

The Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force’s 2024 recommendations curiously admit that it doesn’t care whether or not the reason it was commissioned (an abuse “crisis” in the SBC), stating, “Regardless of the appropriate description, the primary issue we’ve confronted is the fact that up until very recently, the largest Protestant body in the United States had no meaningful plan to help its churches prevent or respond to sexual abuse.” The task force’s recommendations echo the broad claim the SBC president made on CNN, that those who reported abuse (carefully described as “experienced abuse” to avoid any legal/criminal claim) were ignored and attacked.

Not to be deterred by the sham that the entire exercise has become, the ARITF will recommend that the messengers approve an expansion of the SBC’s Essentials: Sexual Abuse Prevention and Response Training curriculum to help churches combat sexual abuse (its least controversial ask, even as nothing in the curriculum would have impacted the primary cases chronicled in the Guidepost report).

Most tellingly, the ARITF will recommend the controversial “Ministry Check” website be launched through an independent 501c3 dubbed the Abuse Reform Commission (ARC). The group’s independence purportedly shields the SBC from financial accountability in case the ARC drops someone on the list of bad guys who is not actually a bad guy. Yet the ARC Ministry Check site will only include people either criminally convicted or successfully sued for abuse (all public data that would be in any standard background check), this effectively makes the Ministry Check website nothing more than a much more expensive Google alert-style list of offenders – just like the one the Executive Committee was excoriated for in the SATF-commissioned Guidepost report. And, of course, the ARC will depend on grant money given by pressuring SBC messengers.

After millions of dollars wasted, vicious and false headlines maligning good Southern Baptist churches as either supportive of or purposefully ignorant of the “scourge of abuse” in their midst, the main consequence of all of this politicking has been exposing the faithful giving of churches to an endless parade of lawsuits from ambulance-chasing lawyers happy to represent claimed abuse victims against an SBC Executive Committee that foolishly waived attorney-client privilege. Recommendation: No to everything the ARITF wants to do, or at the very least yes to expanding ministry curriculum related to helping churches with abuse matters, and NO on everything else.

The Cooperation Group

In the waning moments of 2023’s SBC Annual Meeting, James Merritt and a gaggle of former SBC presidents camped out at a floor microphone to offer a motion to allow SBC president Bart Barber to appoint a “broadly representative task force” to study how to apply Article III of the SBC Constitution requiring the determination of whether or not a church is “in friendly cooperation on questions of faith and practice.” This motion was made with no time left for amendment or debate and in the wake of the messengers overwhelmingly passing the Law Amendment and disfellowshipping Saddleback Church for employing women as pastors.

Unsurprisingly, the “Cooperation Group,” which featured members from churches that openly and unapologetically employ women pastors, brought back recommendations that seemingly disagree with the will of the messengers on egalitarian issues, in keeping with earlier signaling that they believed the SBC constitution needed no changes. The group’s recommendations are suspect, although they did not recommend any changes that would stop potential further amending of the SBC Constitution. Recommendation: No to every Cooperation Group recommendation.

Presidential Candidates

It is no secret that the SBC presidency is passed between men who have shown enough fealty to “the platform.” For instance, the Cooperation Group motion passed in 2023 was originally the idea of megachurch pastor Clint Pressley (a close associate of Merritt), who suggested it publicly leading up to the 2023 meeting before backing out and forcing Merritt to bring the motion to the floor himself. Unsurprisingly, Pressley is among the declared candidates for SBC president this year.

Bruce Frank – Frank is the pastor of the multicampus megachurch Biltmore Church in Asheville. He chaired the Sexual Abuse Task Force (SATF) commissioned in 2021 that hired Guidepost Solutions and resulted in a report based around “trauma-informed” justice and has placed the SBC in the crosshairs of lawsuits from both David Sills and Johnny Hunt. Frank has taken every woke position expected from a platform megachurch influencer, made most obvious in his most popular (yet clownish) sermon entitled “Jesus Wasn’t White,” and notably tried to promote wokester Marcus Hayes to take over at FBC Naples. He’s basically JD Greear 2.0.

Mike Keahbone – Sporting an impeccable record of Abuse Inc. narrative promotion, Keahbone is part of the Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force (ARITF) along with fellow abuse warrior Todd Benkert, 2022’s follow-up group tasked with deciding what to do with the recommendations offered by the SATF after the dud that was the Guidepost report. Keahbone has planted his flag on abuse response, as well as a consistent appeal to intersectionality by way of his Native American heritage (see 2022’s Resolution 4). Keahbone’s unknowns are substantial, but what is known is objectionable, to say the least.

Jared Moore – Moore is far and away our pick for SBC president, as he has the courage to take on the most difficult cultural and theological battle facing contemporary evangelicalism – the intrusion of homosexuality into the church by way of unbiblical “Side B” (“same-sex attraction” Christianity). Not only has Moore had the seriousness and decency to interact with pew-sitting polemics websites like Protestia, but he has publicly debated the issue with anyone who is willing. He pastors a small church like most in the SBC and has the theological chops and personal integrity to bring about the real change needed in the convention, but unfortunately, this makes him a long-shot candidate in a sea of messengers that often respect institutional influence rather than biblical fidelity.

Clint Pressley – Pressley is the Senior Pastor of Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte. He was the first to announce his candidacy, but as a close associate of both gay preacher-affirming, pyramid-scheming James Merritt and “He Gets Us” NAMB president Kevin Ezell, he’s been a reported SBC presidential possibility for many years. Pressley has been swimming in the woke side of the pool since at least 2014, defending his church’s hiring of an illegal immigrant (with requisite support for open borders) in 2018, quoting woke SBTS professor Jarvis Williams’ claim that Jesus “died for an interracial bride” in a sermon, and has previously expressed support for Russell Moore and Matthew Hall’s labeling of so-called “racial justice” as a “gospel issue.” Of course, this is consistent with what the standard world-synchronized, Ezell-Greear-Moore-Floyd platform position has been for many years. On a brighter note, Pressley has expressed support for the Law Amendment’s clarification of a male-only pastorate as a condition of friendly cooperation.

David Allen – Allen is a former SWBTS professor purged during the ill-fated and problematic tenure of Adam Greenway, where he worked for 18 years as a teacher and Dean of both the School of Theology and School of Preaching. He is now at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary. Allen is a theological conservative who would likely be an excellent choice, especially given his apparent willingness to confront institutional company men like Adam Greenway.

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Evangelical Stuff News Op-Ed

Christianizing the Climate Cult

“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire” is no doubt a familiar idiom for discerning Christians. For climate alarmists, the idiom is no doubt, “Where there’s smoke, there’s an opening for Marxism.”

The latest smoke pointing to another SBC seminary fire came in the form of a video of a pagan earth worship ritual performed at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Atmospheric scientist, evangelical Christian, and aggressive Twitter blocker Katharine Hayhoe – along with five other panelists – was subject to the bizarre ritual before the discussion commenced.

Upon realizing this was the same Katharine Hayhoe Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary had platformed in 2021 to teach seminary students the gospel-centeredness of radical climate ideology, journalists and social media discerners took it upon themselves to figure out that SEBTS had vouched for and exposed their students to someone who believes mankind is “digging up and burning fossil fuels that are wrapping an extra blanket around our planet causing it to warm” and who has laughably asserted that “the temperature of the planet has been as stable as that of the human body” (despite easily available evidence to the contrary).

Turns out, much like Francis Collins has served as COVID Hysteria Apostle to the Evangelicals in the last few years, Katharine Hayhoe has been busily carrying the Gospel of Climate Change to unsuspecting churches and seminaries for well over a decade – a message attempting to get Christians to elevate environmentalism to the same “gospel issue” status as every other leftist concern infecting the church (racial “reconciliation” and CRT, #metoo feminism, LGBTQ acceptance). Unsurprisingly, the supposed victims of climate change (women, minorities, the poor) are the same “marginalized” groups harmed when Christians fail to gospelize every other leftist pet issue, and the proposed solutions (forced redistribution of resources, intersectionality, anti-capitalism) are largely the same.

Pew-sitters should be forgiven for seeing red flags when a self-described Christian and pastor’s wife is also a recent Time Magazine Most Influential Person, one of Fortune Magazine’s Top 50 Leaders, and recipient of the United Nations’ so-called Champions of the Earth award. She worked with “protect trans kids” Don Cheadle to produce the Showtime documentary series Years of Living Dangerously, which featured a who’s who list of Hollywood liberal hosts presuming climate change was the cause of any and every natural disaster, drought, or less-than-ideal environmental reality. Aside from usual topics like blaming extreme weather and supposed rises in sea levels on human industry, the series takes aim at fracking, the coal industry, and (with apocalyptic “logic” that would make Al Gore proud) blames the “Arab Spring” protests of the early 2010s on global warming making wheat unaffordable.

Hayhoe was recently appointed Chief Scientist at The Nature Conservancy, a dark money environmental activist group that reportedly provides green credentials and “look the other way” cover for big corporate donors like BP, Chevron, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Exxon, and Dow Chemical. Despite these clear conflicts of interest, she makes a living producing commissioned doomsday climate reports for local governments and activists to scare them into forcing “climate action.” In 2019-2020, she co-produced a “you’re all gonna die” report for the government of Alberta to frighten citizens into accepting heavy-handed government control of energy. The report featured the same ridiculous claims of historical climate consistency, blamed accidentally ignited wildfires on global warming, and was thoroughly dismantled as junk by Alberta’s own Friends of Science.

Hayhoe’s quest to smuggle enviro-Marxism into evangelical churches under the auspices of “creation care” is not without allies. Author of the upcoming children’s book “My Guncle (gay uncle) and Me” and out-and-proud “gay pastor” Jonathan Merritt has similarly tried to leverage scripture to pressure evangelicals into supporting the climate alarmist agenda. In his 2010 book Green Like God: Unlocking the Divine Plan for Our Planet, Merritt unironically laments the inverse relationship between commitment to conservative Christianity and commitment to environmental activism.

Hayhoe’s husband Andrew Farley is the egalitarian, hyper-grace-promoting heretic pastor of The Grace Church in Lubbock, TX, the so-called “Church Without Religion.” Farley teaches that believers need not confess and ask forgiveness when they sin, that believers no longer struggle with the flesh once saved, and that believers are infused with God’s righteousness (“like God in spirit”) upon salvation rather than declared positionally righteous by imputation.

Whether she’s arguing for leveraging COVID-19 authoritarianism for climate activism, claiming that “God’s creation is speaking to us” and “telling us it’s running a fever” (an absolutely idiotic claim), or blocking anyone and everyone who even begins to challenge her positions or behavior, Katharine Hayhoe and her false teacher husband should be marked and avoided by all discerning believers. Increased fossil fuel development and access is the key to helping the poor, and the cult of climate alarmism has no place in the church.

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Evangelical Stuff SBC Scandal

Willie McLaurin Resigns as Interim President of SBC EC Amidst Resume Scandal

Willie McLaurin, the interim president and CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee (SBC EC), has voluntarily stepped down from his post. The resignation came after revelations of falsified credentials on his resume, which he had admitted to SBC EC leaders.

McLaurin, who had claimed on his resume that he held degrees from North Carolina Central University, Duke University Divinity School, and Hood Theological Seminary confessed on Thursday that this was untrue. This discovery followed weeks of investigations initiated by search committee members.

According to a statement shared by the Baptist Press, Phillip Robertson, SBC EC Chairman, and Neal Hughes, EC Presidential Search Committee Chairman, verified that McLaurin did not graduate from their schools.

In addition to resigning from his interim position, McLaurin is also no longer a candidate for the position of SBC EC president. In a resignation letter, McLaurin apologized for his actions, asking SBC members for forgiveness.

“To the Southern Baptists who have placed their confidence in me and have encouraged me to pursue the role of President & CEO of the SBC Executive Committee, including pastors, state partners, entity servants, colleagues, and SBC African American friends, I offer my deepest apologies,” wrote McLaurin.

Jonathan Howe, vice president of communications for the SBC EC, expressed his sorrow and asked the community for their prayers, stating, “Today has been an incredibly hard day for our Southern Baptist family.”

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Evangelical Stuff News Op-Ed

We Will Forgive You When You Go Away

Imagine for a moment the hubris it takes to piously lecture the faithful on forgiveness and grace mere months after tarring us as selfish, un-Christlike grandma killers. To demand under the color of Christian obedience the very grace, humility, and forgiveness denied others as you cozy up to secular power requires a special form of narcissism.

Enter Christianity Today.

The same publication whose editors and writers heralded their moral superiority on all things COVID – including decrying the now-proven lab leak theory, platforming mad scientist Francis Collins, and recommending “resources” that are to this day pushing the “pandemic of the unvaccinated” tripe – is now demanding Christian forgiveness include zero accountability for those who provided “Jesus cover” for the freedom-crushing COVID-era spiritual abuse perpetrated on the Christian church.

In the article by fund Ukraine forever ERLC neocon Paul D. Miller, he claims “we got things wrong” before doubling down on his rebuke of believers who employed data, common sense, and (most importantly) scripture and therefore had it right the whole time.

Apparently copying and pasting from 2021, Miller writes:

…it was right to treat COVID-19 as a serious emergency and to act with an abundance of caution. Flippancy about masks and social distancing, especially early on when we did not know much, was unwise. Treating the virus as unimportant or unthreatening was grossly insensitive to older and immunocompromised people who were at extreme risk.

Miller apparently can’t figure out that our “flippancy” and “gross insensitivity” in deciding for ourselves and our families the virus’ importance and threat did not infringe on anyone. In truth, it was bureaucratic tyrants like Anthony Fauci and COVID Apostles to the Evangelicals Russell Moore, Francis Collins, and Ed Stetzer who wielded gospel-branded, state-approved judgment against believers who remained understandably suspicious of a government that had demanded we shutter churches.

In August 2021, Miller himself lectured that he “had no patience” with freedom-demanding Americans who disagreed with forced vaccination (a “commonsense health measure” to Miller), although made sure to let readers know that (in true benevolent despot fashion) he might allow “very rare” religious exceptions to forcibly injecting genetic material into the bodies of his fellow citizens.

Miller’s article ignores entirely the generational damage done to the development of children on the basis of a virus that presented less risk to them as a demographic than vehicle accidents, drowning, and being murdered. It ignores his and others’ complicity in the tyrannical arrests of their fellow citizens, ruining of livelihoods, churches that barred worshipers who refused to be medical test subjects, and his own denomination forcing its missionary families to inject themselves. Most offensively, Miller papers over spiritual abuse – the myriad of false accusations of sin made against faithful believers who stood up to this tyranny and refused to go against their (now undeniably proven true) consciences before God.

Yes, forgiveness and grace should be given. But not in light of the refusal of Miller and those who similarly leveraged Christ in their quest for church closure, forced vaccination, and generational societal abuse to repent. The day we see Paul Miller and friends apologizing to families for giving “love thy neighbor” cover to a power-drunk government that denied last moments with loved ones, we can seriously discuss “forgiving each other our pandemic sins.” So far, perpetrators like Miller have yet to truly confess their sins, much less repent of them, which considering the gravity of their error must involve humble self-deplatforming.

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Evangelical Stuff News Op-Ed

The Troubling Legacy of Tim Keller

It is not unloving nor hypocritical to say that we are praying for comfort for Tim Keller’s family and church, and at the same time striving for clarity and open discussion regarding his teaching, which will endure in his absence. Those who reflexively claim it is unloving or inappropriate to criticize him in the wake of his passing are content to let doctrinal clarity be subjugated to personality and “respectability.” We are not.

It should first be noted, especially since he has received the praise of so many should-be hated by the world believers, that Keller was not by any definition hated by the world (John 15:18). Rather, the world embraced him as one of their own. Nearly every “respectable” publication – from The New York Times to Christianity Today – wrote fawning pieces on Keller’s passing, holding him up as the modern example of how to bridge the gap between Christianity and a world that, according to scripture, wants no part of the true Christ (John 15:18-19). Keller’s bridge was built smack dab between the church and the depraved culture, undergirded by a synthetic gate of orthodox terminology and faux-intellectual (often nonsensical) doublespeak wide enough to drive a New York City garbage truck through.

Keller’s pragmatic winsomeness and pseudo-erudite nuance garnered a great deal of influence with spiritually immature seminary students (1 Cor. 3:1-2) and Calvinist-leaning pragmatists who were not wise enough to see through Keller’s rhetorical deconstruction of the methods of revelation – much less the damage he was doing to the revelation itself in pursuit of his social justice sympathies. Statements like, “One of the signs that you may not grasp the unique, radical nature of the gospel is that you are certain that you do” would ordinarily cause any true disciple of Jesus to immediately recall 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, followed by examining what Keller meant by unique and radical. Instead, mind-scrambling, Yogi Berra-worthy statements like this were met with the same awe and wonder that never questioned why this faithful minister of God never seemed to share His enemies.

Over the course of Keller’s career, he perfected a unique brand of winsome compromise, which resulted in magically retaining his orthodox street cred even as he promoted Darwinian Evolution along with BioLogos, chronicled the neo-Marxist origins of his theology in his books (Gustavo Gutiérrez and Reinhold Niebuhr were two of Keller’s favorites), and regularly peddled a Christianized version of the kind of mind-mushing rhetorical confusion that would have make Saul Alinsky blush. His 5000+ attendee congregation (in truth buoyed by spiritually disaffected post-9/11 spiritual seekers) was all the evidence market-minded pastoral imitators needed to validate Keller’s brand of culturally relevant wisespeak. Note: See Keller’s 2012 book Every Good Endeavor for examples of him praising Alinsky-inspired churches implementing socialist economics as worthy examples to follow.

In a recent example, Keller and Gospel Coalition co-founder Don Carson released a video entitled, “What Did Paul Mean by ‘I Do Not Permit a Woman to Teach?’ where Keller takes two seemingly contradictory positions before synthesizing them into a weak, Beth Moore-worthy postmodernism: Paul was clearly forbidding something, but Keller is open to those who disagree with what that something is.

Keller referred to the disciples of Karl Marx as those who “cared about people and upward mobility.” He left the door open for putting an end to abortion not by outlawing it as murder, but by decreasing it through economic redistribution. He did not believe that “thou shall not steal” implied a right to private property. He infamously called for more same-sex “intimacy” in churches in the context of so-called “Same-sex attraction (SSA) Christianity.”

Keller promoted a “death by a thousand cuts” antinomianism, seen in silly claims like, “You can run from God either by breaking his rules or by keeping them” (see John 14:15) and mind-numbingly stupid ones like, “To truly become Christians we must also repent of the reasons we ever did anything right.” Keller flexed his Marxist bona fides by classifying the gospel as a different message depending on whether one is rich or poor. In a likely attempt to lend gospel weight to his push for social justice, he argued that God’s holiness and love depended on Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross (In other words, apart from the cross, God would be neither loving nor holy) – a clear and unequivocal heretical teaching that subjugates God’s holiness to His will. Perhaps most famously, Keller did not rule out a “back door” for those outside of Christ to receive salvation on the basis that because he hasn’t been told such a back door exists, he can’t say for sure it doesn’t exist. Of course, Jesus said otherwise (John 14:6).

Many pastors and public theologians have praised Keller following his death, practicing a particularly seductive version of anti-discernment: He’s dead now, so there’s no call to examine his teaching critically. Or worse, he was a hero of mine coming up in ministry, and prohibitions against unequal weights and measures doesn’t apply when it’s someone I care about.

Yet Keller the guru of winsome Cultural Marxism is not gone. Rather, his death will insulate his false ideas from criticism, ironically through application of the same Christo-Marxist techniques he pioneered at the hive of scum and villainy known as The Gospel Coalition. With his sermons, books, and interviews continuing to teach in his absence, Bible-believing Christians have no leeway nor call to give his bad theology and worldly epistemology a pass.

May God have mercy on his soul.

Note: for a thorough list of Kellerisms, see this tweet thread.

Also, see this video for a historical discussion of how Tim Keller’s synthesis of new left thinking and evangelicalism came to be:

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Breaking Church Evangelical Stuff News

Pastor Charles Stanley Dead at 90

Long time Southern Baptist pastor and former SBC president Charles Stanley has passed away at age 90, according to In Touch Ministries.

According to the obituary posted at Charlesstanley.com:

On Tuesday, April 18, 2023, In Touch Ministries announced that beloved pastor Dr. Charles Frazier Stanley had passed away at 7:30 a.m. that morning at age 90. Known to audiences around the world through his wide-reaching TV and radio broadcasts, Stanley modeled his 65 years of ministry after the apostle Paul’s message in Acts 20:24: “Life is worth nothing unless I use it for doing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about God’s mighty kindness and love.”

Stanley’s contribution to the Southern Baptist Convention and mainstream evangelicalism cannot be overstated (he was a founding member of the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition), as he played an outsized role in the “conservative resurgence” of the 1980s and was a pioneer in “broadcast ministry” with his 1972-launched program The Chapel Hour, later renamed In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley on the Christian Broadcasting Network.

Stanley served as senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Atlanta from 1970 to 2020, after which he served as “pastor emeritus” until his passing. According to the official statement:

Stanley is survived by his son Andy Stanley, founding and senior pastor of North Point Ministries; daughter Becky Stanley Broderson; six grandchildren; three great-grandchildren; and half-sister Susie Cox. His former wife, Anna Johnson Stanley, preceded him in death. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to In Touch Ministries.

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Church Evangelical Stuff Onward to Glory Social Issues

I Stand With Covenant

(Marshall Albritton at Founders Ministries) By now, everyone has heard about the mass killing at the Covenant Presbyterian Church and School in Nashville, Tennessee.  On Monday, March 27, 2023, an armed woman, who was “transgender” and identified as a man, entered the school and in cold blood murdered 3 children, all age 9, and 3 adults, including the Head of School.  The Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee Police Department dispatched several officers to the scene.  The officers confronted the killer in the school and ended her life in a gun battle before she could murder more people.

I am very familiar with Covenant.  I have lived in Nashville almost all my life.  Covenant is about 3 miles from my home.  I pass it every day on the way to work.  I know its founders and many of its current elders, deacons, and members.

Covenant is part of the Presbyterian Church in America, the PCA, a denomination founded in the early 1970s with an emphasis on biblical fidelity and Christian essentials.  It is a great church with a great ministry in Nashville.  Many of the people in my church are friends with the staff and members of Covenant.  Some of our members have children who attend, or have attended, the school.  My pastor and a man who has been an elder in my church spent most of Monday consoling the widower of the Head of the School.

These killings will have a lasting impact on Nashville, in particular the Christian community here.  I urge that believers everywhere continue to uphold the families of the victims and Covenant in prayer.  

This is the first time in my life that I have seen martyrdom up close.  The assailant killed these children and adults because of their Christian witness and the witness of Covenant.  As Tertullian said long ago, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”  These children and adults were not mere victims.  They were martyrs.  They were brave beyond belief and at death were immediately ushered into the presence of God.

This horrible event deserves a campaign like the ones we often see.  A name, a place, a flag, accompanied with the slogan “I stand with …”  

What’s more important at this time, however, is not creating a social media movement, but encouraging the Church around the world to honor these saints in their deaths as martyrs of the Church of Jesus Christ, and to pray for their families, Covenant, and the Church.

Their names, from left to right and top to bottom:

William Kinney, Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, Katherine Koonce, Mike Hill, Cynthia Peak

Marshall Albritton is an elder at Grace Community Church in Nashville, Tennessee. This article was republished with permission and appears originally at Founders Ministries.

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Evangelical Stuff News Op-Ed

Rick Warren Says Denying Women the Pastorate is Racist and Saddleback Will Appeal Disfellowship to Fight the ‘Inquisition’

Perhaps no single individual has done as much to stunt the spiritual growth of and sear the modern American evangelical conscience than Rick Warren. With his Peter Drucker-mentored corporatization of the church, his Schuller-inspired, man-pleasing “gospel,” and his endless ability to taint every would-be solid minister from John Piper to Al Mohler on his way to becoming the king of dollar store, bargain bin Christianity, Rick Warren’s career has been nothing short of infamous. Warren’s brand of cheap, biblically-devoid, “I’m lovin’ it” Christianity has been the junk food that fattened up the American McChurch with so many empty spiritual calories that, even if we knew the race we were supposed to run many of us couldn’t do it.

In the wake of Warren’s Saddleback Church being (surprisingly) disfellowshipped by the Southern Baptist Convention for their blatant disregard for the scriptural (and Baptist Faith and Message) teaching on the office of pastor, Warren joined his fellow former SBC interloper Russell Moore to discuss his supposedly changed beliefs on the topic. No Rick Warren appearance would be complete, of course, without his signature Bible-twisting, patronizing abuse of language, and a healthy dose of Trump-esque narcissistic puffery, and Warren didn’t disappoint.

Warren begins by comparing himself to Moore himself and Beth Moore as people who left the SBC (apparently forgetting the fact that the other two left of their own accord), then reminds listeners that of all the Southern Baptists, he is the most Southern Baptisty of all:

Because when I started Saddleback Church 43 years ago, although I am a fourth-generation Southern Baptist… And my grandfather, Chester Armstrong was related to Annie Armstrong. That’s my pretty much pedigree. My great, great grandfather was led to Christ by Charles Spurgeon and sent to America to plant churches in the 1860s. So I have a long Baptist background. But you know what, we’ve done so many things not by the book…

Not by the book. We couldn’t agree more. Not to be outmaneuvered, self-described lifelong SBC’er Moore describes himself as “bowled over” that the SBC would be concerned about “giving women too much [leadership]” (women pastors at Saddleback) when the convention is full of sexual abuse and “crises” involving the treatment of women:

…I would think with all of the crises involving the treatment of women – sexual abuse within the SBC – that saying that a church is giving women too much, is really not the problem in the SBC as I see it, and I couldn’t believe that that’s what they were taking up.

Warren responds with an attempted dunk on “voices” in the SBC who object to losing church autonomy in an effort to fight abuse in SBC churches, claiming that:

It’s not an accident that the same voices that said, “we cannot protect women from abuse because of the autonomy of the local church,” are the same voices that are saying, “but we can prevent them from being called pastors.”

Hey genius, nobody is trying to prevent you from calling your women “pastors.” We just object to associating with churches that can’t obey the clear teachings of the Bible.

In what may have been the dumbest thing he claimed, Warren drew a distinction between “conservative” Baptists and so-called “fundamental” Baptists, and said “fundamental Baptists,” like “fundamental Muslims,” “fundamental Buddhists,” and “fundamental atheists” are simply those who have “stopped listening.” Unlike Warren of course, who in the same breath utters, “I believe in the inerrancy of scripture,” but “I could be wrong” before deriding so-called “fundamentalists” for ascribing inerrancy to what they believe the Bible teaches.

In other words, Rick Warren is just fine teaching people things under the authority of scripture that he is not confident are actually correct. One wonders which of Warren’s teachings he is okay being uncertain about – could he be wrong about the deity of Christ? The virgin birth? Could he be wrong about his purported belief in salvation by faith alone?

Warren then explains to Moore how, because the Great Commission presumably includes women (“teaching them to obey all I have taught you”), the clear, natural limitations prescribed by God for men and women don’t apply. Much like during his 43 years of preaching (which he will surely remind you along with his 57,000 baptisms, 165 countries supposedly visited, and 200 books he supposedly read while his church closed down for COVID, 30,000 church members, 20 campuses on four continents, staff of 500, 2nd-best selling book next to the Bible, translated into 200 languages, record-breaking Warren Act bill in congress, preaching starting as just a boy, 120 crusades before age 20, caught the attention of Billy Graham who then mentored him for 50 years while giving out the book he wrote in his 20’s in 17 languages, starting his own Jesus Revolution at his school and converted several hundred kids, etc.*), Warren happily decontextualizes Acts 2:17 (Joel’s prophecy about the Millennial Kingdom) to claim that “your sons and daughters shall prophesy” somehow means women can ignore the 1 Tim. 2:12 prohibition to teach men in the church before laughably regurgitating the silly “Mary Magdelene telling the disciples Jesus was alive was the first sermon, therefore women can preach” nonsense. Warren falsely claims that “John MacArthur doesn’t even cover that verse,” even though the MacArthur Study Bible has a 200-word commentary on just Acts 2:17 with 18 contextualizing cross-references to other passages.

*Yes, all of these humble, not-at-all-exaggerated claims made an appearance during the 54-minute podcast.

Moore asks Warren if he’s not okay with women serving as elders or senior pastors, and Warren says he is, followed by yet another bizarre, ridiculous lie:

For 2000 years, the church has debated the role of women in culture.

No, it hasn’t. The role of women in the church (as an extension of the submissive order within the family) has been firmly defined within orthodox Christianity until pragmatists like Warren started bending the knee to the secular culture.

Of course, no flailing explanation would be complete without pulling the race card, which Warren did as he claimed that the SBC refusing cooperation with woman-pastored churches was tantamount to refusing to welcome black churches:

For hundreds of years, black Baptist churches have been ordaining women. As bishops, as pastors, as prophetesses, as apostles, as elders, as deaconesses. If this is true, the SBC is holding up a sign that said, “all black churches look elsewhere. You’re not wanted here.” Because they already have.

Ever the saint, Warren claimed that, while he’d rather walk away from the SBC, he will most likely appeal the decision to disfellowship Saddleback to “stand up for the [woman-ordaining] pastors who are scared to death by this Inquisition” (of churches insisting on fidelity to scripture).

The rest of the podcast is Warren being Warren – insecurely doting on himself. Moore asks Warren about the so-called Asbury revival, and after telling those of us who have been critical of things we’ve seen to “shut up,” Warren reminds everyone not to forget how Asbury is really about Rick Warren:

I was in high school at that time. I was in high school. Robert Coleman wrote a little book very quickly about that revival – 52 years ago at Asbury. They sent out over 2000 revival teams to share their story with other universities. That was one of the factors that started the Jesus movement – the Jesus revolution. That was one of the factors that started it in the 70s. I got that little book and I read it, and it turned my heart on. And revival’s caught. When you see you go, “Oh, Lord, I want that in my school.” I took it back to my high school, several hundred kids came to Christ. And a revival broke out in my school, which was one of the places the Jesus movement started in Northern California.

Despite his purported personal desire to “not go where he’s unwanted,” Warren’s saintliness will likely compel him to appeal Saddleback’s disfellowship in June, and given how many SBC institutionalists are cut from the same cloth as Russell Moore, Saddleback will most likely be welcomed back with open arms and closed Bibles.