Category: Evangelical Stuff

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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.

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Evangelical Stuff News

Rachael Denhollander Twists the Evidence to Smear MacArthur and Biblical Counseling

In the wake of The Gospel Coalition memory-holing Josh Butler’s article sexualizing Christ and the Church, Abuse Incorporated and its “expert” figurehead Rachael Denhollander jumped on the opportunity to blame Butler’s icky article on – you guessed it – John MacArthur and biblical counseling.

Denhollander reminded her Twitter followers that MacArthur continues to stubbornly look to the plain text of scripture for how husbands are to care for their wives:

First of all, the quote in Rachel’s graphic edits out key context, with the question specifically about when to get married. As one commenter points out: “MacArthur’s point is “women are as lonely and unfulfilled as you are, so step up and marry someone, protect her, and have kids.”

She ties MacArthur’s “like a savior” remark (pulled from Ephesians 5:25-28) to an out-of-context page from The Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation’s Journal of Pastoral Practice (Volume 7, number 3, published in 1984), and includes her laughably false analysis of what Jay Adams had instructed 39 years ago.

The journal contained Adams’ instructions to a biblical counselor in response to a hypothetical case from the 1974 Christian Counselor’s Handbook. The particular case in question involves a husband who molested his 16-year-old daughter and blames it on his wife refusing sex for three months. The training is designed to help a biblical counselor know how to approach the situation, what questions to ask, and what elements are important from a biblical perspective with the goal of reconciliation, safety, and repentance. Adams provided his answer for how to approach the following situation:

Yet Denhollander presents only one of Adams’ three pages of instruction and proceeds to make manifestly false claims about what Adams wrote.

She claimed:

Yet Adams wrote “in some [states] this is a felony involving imprisonment for more than a year,” not that it was not a felony in all states.

Yet Adams was clearly advising counselors on the non-legal aspects of their counseling (“…apart from the legal ramifications…there are several issues that should be addressed”). He was making it clear that he was not talking about whether or not to report abuse to the authorities. It should go without saying that every citizen should be aware of the laws of the jurisdictions they are under, shouldn’t it?

Adams writes specifically (in the context of putting the family back together):

[The counselor] will take care to bring Brad home only under the most carefully worked out conditions. Perhaps the daughter could spend a week or two at a relative’s home while Brad and Shirley begin to work out some of their difficulties. But when the daughter moves back in, security and scheduling that prohibits the private accessibility of the one to the other should be assured for some time, until full trust is rebuilt as a part of the radical amputation process, in which prevention must be uppermost in the thinking of all.

Clearly, the framework of the instruction is one in which the father and daughter have already been separated for her safety, and in the case that the family is on the road to reconciliation, safety is a top concern.

“Trauma” is simply a person’s emotional response to a distressing experience. It is a given reality. Yet in the modern conversation (i.e. “trauma-informed care”), trauma has moved from being a consequence of sin to being the sin itself. In other words, a person’s culpability and consequences for sins they’ve committed are now defined by and adjudicated according to the subjective, expressed emotional response of the person they’ve sinned against. This is nowhere to be found in the Bible, yet is foundational to the judicial framework for the #churchtoo movement.

Denhollander continues by pointing out that Adams recommends beginning the counseling inquiry by targeting the wife:

Yet Adams does not present the issues to be addressed as a step-by-step process but as a comprehensive list of things that should be addressed. He does not instruct condemnation, but investigation, noting that either husband or wife having a problem that keeps them out of the marital bed (1 Cor. 7:2-9) must be addressed under the principles of Matthew 18:15. In other words, it is a sin to deny your spouse sexual intimacy and not tell them why. Adams makes it clear (in the sentence Denhollander cut off between the page she shared and the ones she didn’t) that the counselor must “[take] care not to allow either to blame his or her sinful behavior on the failure of the other.” Denhollander purposefully claims something patently false about what Adams wrote, and follows by recommending the Christo-feminist manifesto The Great Sex Rescue by Sheila Gregoire to reemphasize her complete dismissal of the Bible’s principles for marriage in 1 Corinthians 7.

It is one thing for a Twitter-incontinent abuse advocate to twist cited material to push a point. It is another thing for a trained lawyer to be transparently unable to comprehend the documents she is citing in making her case. It is a good thing Rachael Denhollander is a regular on the Abuse Incorporated Speaking Circuit and not an actual litigator. God help anyone who hires her for anything other than PR.

Note: In what is bound to be a prescient remark, Denhollander remarked in later Twitter conversation that she is “encouraged by the direction of SEBTS (Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary)” on the issue of biblical counseling. Given SEBTS’s abysmal track record of dealing with abuse survivors and cases, her endorsement seems particularly apropos.

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bad theology Evangelical Stuff Op-Ed

“Not Heterosexuality, But Holiness” Is An Unnatural and Unbiblical Compromise

It is still being peddled in seemingly orthodox evangelicalism: “The opposite of homosexuality is not heterosexuality, it’s holiness.”

Or plagiarizing pastors sling this line: “Do you know how I know homosexuality doesn’t send you to hell? Because heterosexuality doesn’t send you to heaven!”

Consistent with the special exception in modern Christianity carved out for ontological homosexuality, a slightly narrower exception has been carved out by formerly identified homosexuals (and pragmatic enablers in evangelical pulpits like SBC pastor and EC trustee Dean Inserra) for a new brand of Roman Catholic-lite “holy celibate.” This person may or may not identify themselves as a homosexual, but they decry the notion that they are in any way obligated to nurture or seek so-called heterosexual orientation to mortify homosexual inclinations they have faced or may face in the future.

Notably, this concept is only applied (and seemingly only applicable by its proponents) to the sin of homosexuality. Theologians, authors, and influencers are not promoting similar ideas for other sins. We never hear things like, “The answer to stealing is not paying for your goods, it’s not procuring goods at all!” or “The answer to bearing false witness is not telling the truth, it’s not saying anything at all! Do you know how I know lying won’t send you to hell? Because telling the truth doesn’t send you to heaven!” Rather, it is only the natural, sexual urges of the flesh-bearing human being (Genesis 1:28, Isaiah 45:18, Psalm 127:3-5) that are described as if they can be and often should be neutralized.

More pointedly, the redeemer former homosexual has already demonstrated that they do not possess the gift of singleness described in 1 Corinthians 7:1, 7:8, and Matthew 19:10-12. This person – rescued from a deadly lifestyle obsessed with sexuality – has not only been tempted but has fallen into sexual immorality (1 Cor. 7:2, 7:9) and should cultivate heterosexual desires culminating in marriage as the Bible clearly instructs. Much like the redeemed former alcoholic will flee from the sin of being drunk with wine by avoiding wine and the redeemer gambling addict will avoid Las Vegas, the redeemed former homosexual (apart from abanding human relationships entirely) will follow the Bible’s clear instructions for how to avoid burning with passion (1 Cor. 7:9).

This kind of teaching, promoted by many well-meaning but compromising Christian pastors and teachers, presumes a Gnostic-flavored disconnect between the natural and the spiritual man, where a person can effectively place on ice the design God has woven into their humanity physically, emotionally, and spiritually, and this behavior can strangely be credited to him as righteousness.

The Bible does not teach the existence of a “homosexual” as understood by modern culture, nor that a person can be “gay” or “straight.” But it clearly condemns homosexual behavior under the presumption that human beings are straight by nature (Romans 1:26) – a presumption so clear that special revelation is not needed for it to be obvious (Romans 1:19-20). Our bodies were designed by God to work according to his intent, and the purposes of men and women (outside the rare and supernatural gift of singleness for the purpose of ministry) are designed for sexual union with one another in the bonds of marriage.

While holiness is the overarching proper and righteous pursuit for all Christians, this does not stand somehow in opposition to God’s gifts of marriage, children, and proper sexual intimacy as part of his plan of obedience for his children. The notable absence of this plain truth from the teaching of people pastors like Inserra – ignored in order to placate our culture’s pet sin – is patently unbiblical and must be exposed as the sinful error that it clearly is.

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Evangelical Stuff News SBC

SBC Credentials Committee Boots Saddleback Over Ordination of Female Pastors

The Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee followed the Credentials Committee’s recommendation to disfellowship Saddleback Church of Lake Forest, California due to the church’s ordination of women to the office of pastor, putting an end to the 18-month controversy that has raged within the convention over the Bible’s teaching versus the practices of the California megachurch.

In May 2021, Saddleback ordained three women to the pastorate – a move that not only contradicted the Baptist Faith and Message (the SBC’s doctrinal statement) but contradicted the biblical and historical teaching on the reservation of the office of pastor/elder/overseer to qualified men (1 Tim. 2:11-14, 1 Tim. 3:12, Titus 1:6). Recently it was revealed that Saddleback is (much like Andy Stanley’s Northpoint Community Church) partnering with pro-LGBTQ+ “ministry” Embracing the Journey.

Not only did recently retired Saddleback pastor Rick Warren employ a novel and twisted interpretation of scripture to justify the move (claiming that the office and the gifting of pastor were distinct), he almost fooled the Credentials Committee, which at the 2022 SBC Annual Meeting refused to make a decision on the complaint brought a year prior, choosing instead to “study” what the Baptist Faith and Message meant by the sentence, “the office of pastor is limited to men as qualified by Scripture.”

In true Rick Warren style, and in the same spirit he insulted the SBC to its face at the 2022 Annual Meeting, he bragged about his church’s “accomplishments” by listing metrics as a parting shot to the SBC:

Warren’s replacement Andy Wood and “co-pastor” wife Stacie have faced recent criticism not only for their pastoral egalitarianism but for being functionally gay-affirming and unwilling to draw even the simplest conclusions on the biblical teaching regarding marriage.

The Credentials Committee disfellowshipped four additional churches with women pastors, as well as one church – Freedom Church of Vero Beach, California – over “a lack of intent to cooperate in resolving concerns regarding a sexual abuse allegation.” Freedom Church pastor Rick Demsick called the claim “slanderous” and “false reports based on gossip.”

It remains to be seen what the financial ramifications of disfellowshipping a massive megachurch like Saddleback will be for the SBC, but it looks like the convention may have to tighten its belt even further as it budgets for the likely incoming wave of sex abuse claims and the super-expensive website to track them.

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bad theology Evangelical Stuff SBC

SBC President Signals The Egalitarian Beginning of the End for the SBC

The President of the SBC can’t or won’t defend biblically-ordained male headship in the church.

In a podcast with Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary president Jason Allen, SBC president Bart Barber failed to offer a biblical defense for the office of pastor being reserved for men beyond “the Bible says so” and SBC tradition, and instead recommended grace for churches who are “still trying to figure out” how to apply what the Bible actually teaches regarding church leadership as if it hasn’t been clear for 2000 years. Don’t get us wrong – “the Bible says so” is valid, but necessitates a discussion of what the Bible actually says to be an effective argument.

Barber described three general positions on the topic of the pastorate being reserved for men – churches that are full-blown egalitarian and believe there are no gender restrictions for pastors, churches that believe and practice the biblical teaching that the office of pastor/elder/overseer is for men only, and a “middle ground” where churches may refer to women working on staff at a church as “pastor” even though the women don’t hold the same functional authority as a male Senior Pastor.

While Barber makes it clear that his church reserves the office of pastor for men, functioning with a plurality of elders, he describes the reservation of the pastorate for men as a “pragmatic concern”:

And you know, in 1 Timothy 3, I believe that you have God pointing us to the need for the church to have structure, the need for the church to have members who serve in structured leadership positions – what we call the offices of the church, – and at the church needs to be careful and deliberate in the selection of people to serve in those ways. Some of those qualifications are obviously spiritual and have to do with character. And some of them just have to do with pragmatic concerns about service in those offices.

Barber takes issue with churches that call female ministers “pastor” on the basis of it being “unfair” to offer women a “bait and switch” where they will apparently think they are full-blown pastors but still be subordinate. He characterizes the debate over women pastors as a modern concern for Baptist churches, claiming that churches before the mid-70s would have only had one pastor and wouldn’t have been concerned with what to call the “luxury” of additional pastors:

And I think one thing we have to acknowledge here is how brief that history is, because for a lot of churches today, but for almost all Southern Baptist churches in say, 1965, the idea of what terminology they use with regard to your second pastor would be similar to trying to figure out where you’re going to park your second Lamborghini, the churches didn’t have more than one member on staff.

Allen suggests that disfellowship from the SBC may be the proper response to churches that refuse to conform to biblical teaching:

I think we’re on the same page here. There comes a point where if a church or even churches fundamentally are in a different place and going a different direction, theologically, we have to say, “God bless you, we love you. We’re disappointed, but you’re probably gonna be happier in a different fellowship. And we are probably going to be healthier, more unified if you’re not in our fellowship…”

Barber laments the possibility, hoping that SBC churches are actually being obedient and are perhaps not using the same terminology the same way:

…and I think this subject is one over which we may have to do that. I just hope not over many churches. Because I really think that the preponderance of Southern Baptist churches – if we’re all using the same dictionary – can come to an agreement about what we believe.

He ends the podcast with a shoutout to his church’s female missions director and children’s minister:

God has so clearly gifted and equipped her to do what she’s doing that stewardship requires her to be doing what she’s doing. And I’m thankful for all of those contributions. And not only thankful for them – dependent upon them. Desperate for them. We need the faithful work of women, both on-staff and off-staff at our churches to help us accomplish the mission that God’s given for us. But we also need to recognize that there’s a biblical office of Pastor/elder/overseer that’s reserved for men who are qualified by Scripture.

Nowhere in the discussion does the President of the SBC provide an actual answer to the simple question that egalitarians present to the male headship church model: What is the reason for this restriction? Instead, Barber relies solely on “the Bible says so,” which not only fails to bring to bear the totality of scriptural teaching on God’s design for men and women, but it implies that God is arbitrary and superstitious in what He instructs his people to do.

Barber apparently believes women should be satisfied with, “You’re essential and needed, but you don’t get to lead. Why? Because God said so.”

In truth, God’s Word makes it abundantly clear why women are not naturally or ontologically designed for spiritual leadership in the church. Scripture teaches that a husband is the head of his wife (Eph. 5:23) whom she is to submit to and respect, that orderly worship in all churches necessitates that women remain submissive and bring their questions to their husbands at home (1 Cor. 14:34-35), that she should learn quietly, and she is not permitted to teach or exercise authority over a man in church (1 Tim. 2:11-12). Lest there be any confusion, Paul reminds Timothy that this hierarchical requirement is indeed ontological in nature – that Adam was formed first, and that Eve was deceived (Adam sinned knowingly, he wasn’t fooled like she was. See 2 Tim. 3:6 for further indication of female vulnerability). Eve did not overtly rebel against God, she was fooled into believing a lie. God’s design was for male headship in marriage – and therefore in the church – and we are reminded in 1 Tim. 3:4 that the husband is to be the head of his household.

Much like God designed men with superior physical capabilities to defend, fight, and win battles, He designed men with a complimentary disposition to defend, fight, and win spiritual battles. Men are commanded to lead and care for their households, and this command naturally and logically extends to the household of faith. A woman sinfully exercising the role or office of pastor has not only inverted the submissive order required in the church, but she has also inverted the order of submissiveness within her own marriage. She is giving into the curse described in Genesis 3:16 and is ruling over her husband. Men who allow this are following in Adam’s footsteps by abrogating their spiritual leadership role.

Why won’t the President of the SBC outline and describe this clear biblical teaching? Simply, because the world would be offended. His strategy is instead to pass it off as a pragmatic technicality (although he failed to explain the pragmatism behind male leadership) and hope that women will be satisfied with being told how important their non-leadership ministerial roles are. Of course, this has not worked for mainline denominations, who upon allowing woman pastors slid directly into further biblical deconstruction and eventually unapologetic apostasy. This clear historical precedent is why we are confident that a failure to biblically defend male headship in the church and home signals the upcoming end of the Southern Baptist Convention as we know it.

Absent a true doctrinal revival, it is not a matter of if, but when.

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bad theology Evangelical Stuff News Op-Ed

Mike Winger, Allen Parr, and the Darker Side of Christian YouTube

Precisely because they have misled my people, saying, ‘Peace,’ when there is no peace, and because, when the people build a wall, these prophets smear it with whitewash, say to those who smear it with whitewash that it shall fall! There will be a deluge of rain, and you, O great hailstones, will fall, and a stormy wind break out. Ezekiel 13:10-11 ESV

The internet certainly provides a great number of teachers saying what itching ears want to hear (2 Tim. 4:3). No site makes this more obvious than the world’s second-largest search engine, Google’s very own YouTube. Viewers can watch content ranging from bizarre and obvious rank heresy all the way to solid expositional sermons from trustworthy ministries around the globe – all loosely defined within the distinct yet unceremoniously monikered “Christian YouTube.”

At the top of the Christian YouTube heap lies a perniciously dangerous breed of online teacher. These teachers boast hundreds of thousands of subscribers, millions of views, and video content on nearly every theological topic imaginable. Their content is often solidly biblical and helpful, especially for believers not steeped in the finer points of biblical discernment.

Yet time and time again, when the topic at hand would call them to risk their popularity by decisively marking and avoiding a false teacher (Rom. 16:17) with enough followers to put a dent in their subscriber base, these teachers retreat. They capitulate and play the “judge not” card – not only refusing to identify clear heretics but often encouraging the faithful to welcome leaven in the lump.

These professional video creators are rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, revealing that while they may disagree with the icebergs, they aren’t prepared to tell ships to stay clear. They are collaborators – telling the faithful to let down their guard (sometimes quite literally) while convincing themselves their popularity must be maintained lest the Spirit be unable to minister within the hearts of digital seekers. Their compromise is often identifiable in the comments of their most ardent defenders, who rush to their defense with cries for unity, gentleness, and accusations based on nebulous “Christlikeness.”

In the same spirit, these YouTubers will make sure to identify and warn against other online discernment ministries who don’t hesitate to mark false teachers and therefore must have less-than-pure motives.

Allen Parr is one such popular Christian YouTuber, and (much like the false teachers he runs interference for) his channel “THE BEAT with Allen Parr” offers a good amount of true teaching along with some dangerous errors – most concerningly his belief that Christians ought to “eat the meat and spit out the bones” when sitting under Christian teaching. In a video posted in May 2021, Parr tells viewers not to focus on identifying false teachers but to be concerned with false teaching. This way – according to Parr – Christians are free to “listen to whoever you want to,” being blessed by whatever the teacher says that’s true while disagreeing with anything they happen to say that’s false. Parr describes the act of calling out false teachers as a “fallacy,” claiming that it causes others to miss out on the “blessing” and “value” of the true things the false teacher will inevitably say.

The apostle Paul, on the other hand, tells the Roman church to mark and avoid false teachers, reminds the Galatians that a little leaven (false doctrine) leavens the whole lump (spreads throughout the church), and tells the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:29 that “after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.” Notably, Paul (and the rest of scripture) makes no mention of how properly discerning believers should avail themselves of the good parts of a wolf’s teaching.

Mike Winger is another popular Christian YouTuber who recently got into a “scuffle” with the Bible Thumping Wingnut’s Tim Hurd over Winger’s non-warning about arch-heretic Bill Johnson, “pastor” of grave-sucking, gold dust sprinkling Bethel Church. While there is no doctrinal statement on Mike Winger’s website, he is a charismatic-lite Arminian who holds to biblical authority and sufficiency – a fairly typical combination for someone coming out of a Calvary Chapel background. He is a personable guy who hosts helpful videos on a variety of biblical topics.

Yet recently the Doctrinal Watchdog YouTube channel posted clips and commentary from Winger talking with Ruslan KD about Bethel Church and John MacArthur. The video claimed that the two trashed John MacArthur and defended Bethel Church, and contains a clip of Winger claiming Bethel “has the essentials of the faith” and that he “didn’t see a false gospel in Bethel’s teaching.” In response to the Doctrinal Watchdog video, Tim Hurd the Bible-Thumping Wingnut Guy (who admittedly is a big John MacArthur fan) posted a video discussing these quotes and claiming he no longer finds Mike Winger solid. Full disclosure: biblethumpingwingnut.com is the home for the free side of the Protestia Tonight podcast.

Winger then posted a video outlining what he claimed were lies told about him by Doctrinal Watchdog and BTWN, resulting in Hurd retracting some of his claims but remaining concerned about several other issues – including some more dangerous than those originally claimed by Doctrinal Watchdog. As the old adage goes, sometimes the coverup is worse than the crime, and in this case, Winger’s added context revealed bigger problems. Most troublingly, Winger made it clear that he has a different standard for what constitutes a biblical, saving Gospel than what scripture clearly teaches.

Winger discussed five supposed lies that were told about him, commented on in italics:

  1. That he was “slain in the spirit.” It is true that Winger seems to not believe in the validity of being slain ala Benny Hinn (fall over uncontrollably, or the “Holy Hadouken“), but he doesn’t see anything in scripture that would invalidate it.
  2. That he believes churches should have an official office of prophet. Winger does seem to believe that an office of church prophet is invalid, but not invalid enough to disqualify a church that employs such an office.
  3. That he supports Kris Valotton, the “prophet” of Bethel. While Winger states that he does not “support” Valotton, he has claimed that Valotton sometimes prophesied truthfully.
  4. That he “trashed” John MacArthur due to MacArthur’s teaching on modern speaking in tongues. Winger is on record stating MacArthur is a blessing and great Bible teacher, but states in his response video that “there were some things they (MacArthur) said in that conference that…kind of made it sound like half a billion Christians around the world are like not really Christians based upon your standards.”

Mike Winger’s normative discernment, practiced by online ministers, is basically a “see no falsehood, hear no falsehood” approach to other teachers – even clearly false ones. Winger helpfully sums up what it means to exercise normative discernment at 11:15:

I really do think that a lot of Christians are real Christians, even though they have major issues in their lives. Whether it’s some doctrinal things that are wrong, or whether it’s even some practical like living their life, and there’s issues and maybe I’m less confident that they’re Christians because of the things I see. But I’m not going to call them false brethren because of it. I’ve done this with several people who are even prominent teachers like Joel Osteen, who I yeah, I’ve got a reason to wonder whether that guy’s really saved or not, but I lean hopefully on the side that, you know, he does seem to proclaim the true gospel of Christ.

Yes, Winger stated that Joel Osteen “seems to proclaim the true gospel of Christ.”

Winger’s standard for the true proclamation of the Gospel appears to be whether or not a teacher directly contradicts the “salvation recipe” in their teaching – apart from what else the teacher teaches (or prophecies) or what other elements they add to the Gospel. As long as the teacher is on record somewhere, sometime, teaching salvation by faith alone in Christ, anything else taught (even substantive modifications of the Gospel) does not place the teacher outside the Kingdom.

Winger is likewise unwilling to label Bill Johnson (the functional “apostle” of Bethel) a false teacher, despite the fact that he has clearly (and by Winger’s own admission) added to the gospel. Rather, Winger sets aside the doctrine added by Johnson and only judges the “essential recipe.” This method of “discernment” is in contrast to what Paul wrote to the Galatian church: “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.” The purity of the Gospel was of utmost importance because it was the difference between life and death. Later in the letter, Paul reminds them that “a little leaven leavens the whole lump (5:9),” emphasizing the purity of the truth and that (particularly legalistic) false teaching corrupts the entire church.

Final Thoughts

These YouTubers are selling a “unity” based on nonjudgmentalism rather than truth, and will gladly equivocate their way around any concrete judgment that has the potential to draw controversy or overt opposition from a sufficiently large “Christian” community (Bethel, Lakewood, Elevation, etc.). Of course, any true teaching coming from an aberrant movement or false teacher (a “blessing” according to Allen Parr) should safely be found in solid churches or even (gasp) from a Christian’s own church and pastors – negating Parr’s justification for “eating the meat and spitting out the fat.”

There is never an actual need for a Christian to sit under the teaching of faraway pastors or ministries (including this one, by the way), so there is absolutely no justification whatsoever for exposing oneself or one’s family to false teaching for the sake of nuggets of truth that might be mixed in. Likewise, there is no need to expose oneself to Christian YouTubers who refuse to follow biblical instructions to identify false teachers and protect the flock from wolves merely to maintain online popularity.

Categories
Evangelical Stuff News Scandal

Smear Film: Jerry Falwell Jr. Caused the January 6th Riot and Ended Roe, and You’re Just Like Him

God Forbid, a tawdry, salacious, and politically-motivated smear documentary about Jerry Falwell Jr.’s fall from power was released on Hulu today, advancing the bizarre claim that Falwell was a “kingmaker” for Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential victory and that Falwell’s sins demonstrate the evil of Christians who engage with the culture.

Director and raging leftist Billy Corben spends a good portion of the film talking not about the hypocrisy-fueled depravity itself, but how the iniquity of the Falwells and their man-whore pool boy Giancarlo Granda were the true cause of the supposed rise of Christian Nationalism and the capitol rioting on January 6th.

You read that right – The film claims that Becki and Jerry Falwell’s disgusting private life led to the “insurrection.”

Try to follow along: According to the narrative, because Becki and Jerry Falwell were apparent sexual predators, this means that all of the “culture” around them is also predatory and evil (Granda’s sister claims that Granda “put the spotlight on the grossness that was going on at the school, the abuse of power…”). This “culture” flows through Liberty’s conservative think tank the Falkirk (Falwell and Charlie Kirk) Center (now mercifully named the Freedom Center), and voices at the think tank questioned the 2020 election and were present in D.C. on January 6th for the (somehow gunless) “insurrection.” See, depraved sexual promiscuity = Trump supporters. Got it?

In a nod to Abuse Inc., the documentary claims that Granda was abused – apparently forgetting that the whole thing got started when he intentionally went up to a hotel room to have sex with a woman he knew was married. Cry us a river, Gian.

The documentary concludes not with a somber warning about adultery or sexual predation, but with a discussion of Republicans who were questioning the validity of the presidential election in November 2020. Using the typical monochromatic filters to make Trump supporters look like terrorists, the propaganda film denounces the overwhelmingly peaceful January 6th protesters as “parading around with Christian symbolism, invoking God and Jesus and the Bible in the service of sedition.”

So-called Christian “extremists” (or more accurately, actual Christians) are characterized as more dangerous than Islamic extremists, and January 6th is hatefully labeled as “Christian Jihad.” Evangelicals looking to affect government policy are claimed to be trying to change the US into a theocracy ruled by white Christian men (they even found a ranting Greg Locke clip for the film).

The film claims that evangelicals made a “deal with the devil” to get Trump into office so he could “shift the Supreme Court right” and end abortion “rights” – as if true Christians should somehow feel ashamed for succeeding in saving the lives of unborn babies. Finally, the film makes the Blue Anon crackpot claim that “Jerry Falwell Jr. has now officially completed the work his father began.” That is, of course, the sexual predator was the one responsible for ending abortion “rights.”

The preferred depiction of Falwell in relationship to January 6th was made clear in these two back to back images used in the film:

This research-absent, third-rate Michael Moore piece of garbage simply repeats largely known facts and claims about the Falwell-Granda tryst to work its audience into titillated incredulity before turning its guns on its actual target – pesky Christians intent on exercising their faith in public life. The real threat to Corben and his like-minded leftist buddies are not Jerry Falwell or Donald Trump – it’s Christians who dare to engage the culture.

Categories
Evangelical Stuff News Op-Ed SBC

The De-vangelism of the Southern Baptist Convention

Every week, faithful church members dutifully write checks to support the Lord’s work at their local Baptist church, and thousands of these churches turn over a percentage of this giving to the para-church cooperation known as the Southern Baptist Convention. The bulk of this funding goes to support international evangelism/church planting through the International Mission Board (IMB) and church planting in the United States through the North American Mission Board (NAMB), cementing the SBC’s reputation as a decidedly evangelistic organization.

It was under this missional umbrella that NAMB made a recent decision to partner with the neo-christ, ecumenical marketing campaign known as He Gets Us (HGU), a project of the 501c3 donor-advised fund Servant Foundation that promotes what they call the “real Jesus” – a “Jesus” who “accepts everyone.” While the group claims to not be “left” or “right,” a cursory examination of their website paints a radically different picture.

Rather than a Jesus who came to “seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10) whose ambassadors implore the lost to be reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:20) and who “go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15), the “Jesus” that gets us is relevant and relatable, offering teaching and examples that “just might help you with your job, family, or relationship challenges, as well as issues like rejection, anxiety, depression and more.”

This devil’s bargain came to the attention of SBC pew-sitters when NAMB recently encouraged churches to join them for a webinar to learn how to join the HGU “movement,” and be included on a list of churches the campaign would refer “seekers” to upon being contacted via the campaign’s website. NAMB described the movement as “the biggest campaign to change hearts and minds about Jesus,” in the event listing for the webinar hosted by president Kevin Ezell and Wheaton College Dean and expert-on-everything-by-way-of-internet-scrubbing institutional mainstay Ed Stetzer – whose fingerprints are all over the HGU effort.

Almost immediately, conservative Christians and SBC pastors on social media began exposing that the campaign was promoting a woke, heretical Jesus that bore little if any resemblance to the true Christ. Ezell was forced to immediately backtrack from the campaign, which he called “too broad” to “directly connect with” in a hastily-penned mea culpa, adding that NAMB “will pray that the conversations begun by this campaign will lead to gospel-centered conservations (sic) and cause many to seek to learn more about Jesus.”

https://twitter.com/WWUTTcom/status/1580690379032367105?s=20&t=yaCICNJowrQ8UlXpJbxu6A

Just a few months prior, Ed Stetzer – not one to break his streak of being on the wrong side of every issue (Wuhan lab leak, COVID-persecuted churches, fake Heaven tourism books at Lifeway), began shilling for Woke Jesus in April via his column at Churchleaders.com, in which he first destroys a strawman of what he considers most evangelicals’ brand of “sharing faith” before advocating for the focus-group-tested, HGU strategy that “break[s] the mold of what most Christians think of when they think of evangelism.”

Note: Since Stetzer has a habit of scrubbing columns and social media posts once he’s proven wrong, here’s the archived link to the above-linked column.

Stetzer reminds his readers that, rather than simply and straightforwardly proclaiming the Gospel and imploring the lost to be reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:20), we would do well to adjust our approach in light of the negative opinions, subjective feelings, and false impressions of the lost. He claims that a straightforward offer and proclamation of God’s Truth stands in opposition to love, writing (emphasis mine), “when communicating the components of a message becomes more important than how we share, we’ve lost sight of the good news of Jesus’ life, and ultimate death, for all humanity.” This “it’s not what you said, it’s how you said it” framework stands in stark contrast to Jesus’ evangelistic commissioning to the disciples, where He instructed them simply: “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:15-16). As Darrell Harrison aptly pointed out while discussing the HGU campaign, “The main thing Jesus ‘gets’ about all of us is that we’re sinners.”

Creating the kind of absurd, blind irony that only Ed Stetzer could pull off, he claims that a lost person may very well feel commoditized if a believer insists on “getting out [the] full presentation” of the Gospel – apparently preferring an approach that deliberately withholds parts of Jesus in order to craft a message palatable to the lost person. Stetzer misses the likelihood that the Gen-Z target (with their notable desire for authenticity) will sniff out the inauthenticity of a Christian offering a version of Jesus personally marketed to them. Then of course there’s the inconvenient fact that to maintain the lost person’s interest in “Jesus” one must avoid completing the Christological picture with inconvenient truths like repentance or the call to pick up one’s cross.

This tried-and-true sales strategy is the core of the $100 million campaign, which (consistent with its shameless salesmanship) guarantees its partner churches “success” – that is, success in generating wide gate-scale YouTube views, website visits, and placements of ad spots on Monday Night Football right next to ads for gambling, beer, and every other branded vice that might appeal to the unregenerate heart.

Yet rather than a call to repentance and trust in Christ for delivery from sin, TV viewers are comforted by the claim that Jesus was (and apparently is) just another conflicted, anxious, and troubled social justice-concerned beardbro. Whatever a lost Gen-Z heart might desire, wonder, love, or oppose – Jesus gets it. He validates it, unlike those hypocrites in the church. Neo-Christ gets you, unlike those judgy Christians who keep insisting you are a lost sinner in peril.

Stetzer is careful not to entirely dismiss the “strategy” of simply proclaiming the Gospel to the lost world (like those early church pre-literates who didn’t even have research or focus groups!), but insists that the He Gets Us strategy of moving the Jesus goalposts is simply an evangelism upgrade. Yet there stubbornly remains no biblical precedent for the soft-sell of “starting conversations” or even “sharing our faith,” only proclamation of the unadulterated Gospel call to “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” – at any stage of personal familiarity.

The SBC has been wedded to the Church Growth, seeker-sensitive strategy of evangelism for decades – a strategy that replaces the Holy God standing in righteous judgment with Buddy Christ, and Buddy Christ would never judge a fly. Rather, he desperately wants you to be his friend. To quote pre-woke Matt Chandler, Jesus’ motivation in saving is “not so that you and him (sic) can be boys.” Buddy Christ bears little resemblance to the Holy Judge who calls on his children to “preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power” (1 Cor. 1:17).

Yet the North American Mission Board revealed the level to which the SBC downgrade has progressed in its thankfully short-lived partnership with the de-vangelistic HGU campaign. Beyond the simple continuation of its promotion of self-help guru Buddy Christ, NAMB was caught actively promoting partnership with a pro-gay, inclusivist, heretical false gospel campaign – a campaign whose falseness has been known for months. If not for an (honestly quite cursory) examination of the HGU campaign by discerning believers, Ezell and NAMB would still be encouraging SBC churches to hop aboard the inclusivist Jesus train with the United Methodists (also an active partner of the HGU campaign).

Note: As of this publishing, He Gets Us has removed the denominational logos and names seen in this article’s featured image above.

Even more troubling, Kevin Ezell apparently did at least some diligence on HGU and still yoked NAMB to the campaign, telling Stetzer in the recent webinar that he found the HGU ads to be “beautiful” and that people looking to evangelize (“share their faith” in modern lingo) are “going to love this.”

https://tiribulus.com/flix/Screen_Recording_20221013_213416_Twitter.mp4

The president of the largest church planting network in the United States finding nothing objectionable about the heretical HGU campaign is yet another nail in the coffin of the once-conservative SBC.

Categories
Church Evangelical Stuff SBC

Weak Pastors Praise NAMB After They Get Caught in Bed with Heretics

No sooner did Kevin Ezell backpedal away from the North American Mission Board’s heresy partnership with He Gets Us than the usual chorus of SBC platform simps congratulated him for his “leadership.” The rot is deep in the SBC.