Tag: Repent

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SBC President Bart Barber Gives a Lesson in How NOT to Repent

(Free the States) On September 15, Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) President Bart Barber unleashed a vicious, dishonest Twitter attack against SBC pastor Dusty Deevers. (Watch Deevers’ response to the various attacks here.) One day later, Barber Tweeted an equally dishonest thread against the Abolitionist Movement in general.

On Friday, Barber “repented” on Twitter. Unfortunately, the “repentance” was nearly as bad as the original tirade, and in so doing, Barber put on a clinic teaching us how not to repent.

“A little more than a month ago, I used the word ‘obsession’ to describe @DustyDeevers‘s approach to abortion law, specifically with regard to coerced minors. I repent of that. The word ‘obsession’ not only assumes motivation but also implies something bordering upon mental instability. It’s an inflammatory and accusatory word.

“What makes it worse is that I did it intentionally because I was angry—angry at Deevers’s unwarranted and unprovoked attacks against @LeatherwoodERLC. In my anger, I sought to match Deevers’s own hyperbolic incivility. But my actual job is not to mimic Deevers hyperbolic incivility; my actual job is to imitate Christ’s gracious truth-telling.

“And I know…everyone moved past this weeks ago. But the Holy Spirit has not. And so, I apologize for my intemperate tweeting, I retract the word ‘obsession,’ I thank those of you who called me out on it back then, and covet your prayers for me to do better.”

Repentance is a defining theme in the Abolitionist Movement. Just about everybody has been either apathetic toward or unbiblical (to varying degrees) in their efforts to fight abortion, making repentance something of a rite of passage into the movement. Repentance is so central to abolitionism that the theme of the 2022 Abolition Now Conference was “Repent With Us”, and featured public repentance testimonies from abolitionist leaders like T. Russell Hunter, Blake Gideon, and Jon Speed.

Repentance is part and parcel to the Christian life. The first of Martin Luther’s 95 theses stated, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” This makes learning how to repent important crucial to the individual Christian and to the movement to abolish abortion.

Working from Barber’s thread, let’s look at three ways to “repent” that undermine true repentance.

PARTIAL REPENTANCE IS UNREPENTANCE

When we repent, we must own everything we did wrong. In The Gospel Coalition, Joel Lindsey writes:

“Deep repentance demands full confession. Though it seems counterintuitive, the only way to be truly covered by Christ is to fully expose your sin. In the process of repentance, we must fight to be utterly transparent before God about the depth and breadth of our sin. Only ruthless honesty will suffice—and lead to freedom and joy.”

Lindsey is writing more specifically about confessing sin to God as the sinner pleads for ultimate justification and righteousness in Christ. But the principle applies just as well to sins committed by a believer against a brother. Confession and forgiveness are crucial to the Christian life and partial confession or forgiveness won’t do. Barber’s partial repentance is merely a bone being thrown to those upset with his thread, without actually admitting the sins that simply must be admitted.

Barber made a handful of bad arguments in favor of incrementalism in the thread, but this section will focus on sins committed. Specifically, Barber sinned against Deevers or abolitionists in the following ways:

1) LYING ABOUT DEEVERS’ “OBSESSION” AND COERCED 16 YEAR-OLDS

While Barber repented for using the word “obsession,” he did not repent of the general accusation that Deevers supports sending coerced 16 year-olds to prison.

Barber wrote: “[U]nless you 100% agree with every jot and tittle of Deevers’s obsession with sending 16-year-old girls to prison for succumbing to the coercion of their parents to have an abortion, he will label you ‘against the innocent preborn.’”

This is the most viciously slanderous sentence of the entire two threads, and the word “obsession” has nothing to do with it. Only a monster would support sending to prison a 16 year-old who has been coerced into abortion. No sane person anywhere supports sending to prison vulnerable people who commit under duress what would otherwise be criminal acts. It’s obviously evil and insane to do so, which makes Barber’s accusation an extremely serious one.

Never in his life has Deevers said anything that could even remotely suggest any degree of support for sending coerced minors to prison. Barber is accusing Deevers of horrifying evil based on nothing…to continue reading, click here (and trust me, it’s an excellent, worthy read)

Editor’s Note. This article was written by James Silberman and posted at Free the States

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J.D. Greear Apologizes for Saying the Bible ‘Whispers about Homosexuality’

In a recent podcast, former SBC president J.D Greear has apologized some controversial public statements he’s made in the past, walking back earlier infamous comment that “The bible appears more to whisper on sexual sin compared to its shouts about materialism and religious pride.” Much to the chagrin of other pastors who have stolen this line, such as Ed Litton, he explains that he would no longer explain it that way, and that he made a mistake it doing so.

Question: We’ve got a number of questions about a sermon you preached a few years ago, I think it was the Roman series, and you use the word ‘whispers’ in relation to how the Bible speaks about homosexuality. So can you explain what was happening in that statement? And would you still say that today?

Greear: Well, okay. Here’s the context. And by the way, the short answer is NO, and let me explain why. In a message on Romans 1:24-32…in January of 2019, here at the Summit Church, I said that in comparison to how Jesus talks about the sins of religious pride and greed, it’s as if God whispers about sexual sin, while he screams about pride and greed. It was a comparison by analogy.

Last year, because we got some questions about it and because on social media had been clipped and passed around, lifted a little bit out of context, I addressed it in a blog post and basically gave the answer that I’m going to give now. But it’s clear that a more direct explanation in this case is appropriate given the understandable concern that my words caused, especially when looked at in isolation there.

Like I said, at the very beginning, I regret the word choice. It was a rather clumsy way of making the point I was trying to make, that Jesus seemed to save his loudest thunder for religious hypocrites. That point is one that I stand by. But in the end, the language that I used to make that point, I think, in this case, probably obscured more than it illuminated.

…In my case, my words confused some on a very vital topic which desperately needs clarity today. At no point, I just to make this crystal clear, at no point was I trying to imply that sexual ethics are muted in Scripture, or that Scripture is unclear about them, that they’re less important or that we should not speak clearly and boldly about them or that we should be embarrassed by them.

And so whisper to each other about what the Bible says… that’s not what I was trying to say. I do seek to build bridges where I can, but I don’t believe that we should ever undermine the Bible’s teaching in order to do so.

He concludes:

…Failures and communication are almost always the fault of the communicator. That’s a burden that I and every other pastor in America carries into the pulpit each weekend. And so for any confusion that my wording may have caused, or for anybody who believes I muddled what the Bible makes clear, I do sincerely apologize, in that message, as well as many of the messages on either side of that one. I’ve been clear about the seriousness of sexual sin and I will continue to do that every time it arises in the passage I’m teaching.

Credit where credit is due. It’s good that Greear has altered his perspective on this, and we wanted to offer a full transcript for all the times we beat him up previously. Going forward, we won’t ding him on that statement anymore, but will take his updated one at his word. But while we’re on the topic, here’s a couple more things Greear can change and “crystalize’ his thinking on.

J.D. Greear Uses Epic Bible Twist to Explain why Parable is Actually about ‘Social Justice’ and ‘Older Brother Privilege’
J.D. Greear Statement Response Lauds Critical Race Theory, Affirmative Action in SBC
J.D. Greear Advocates for ‘Gender-Justice’ in New Woke Screed
With Latest Comments, SBC President J.D. Greear Is Officially a Race-Baiter
As Rick Warren Announces Successor, New Pastrix, JD Greear Praises Him for ‘Faithful’ Example

Note. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity, such as removing ‘uhs’, ‘ums’, and repeating words. Please listen to the audio for the full unedited commentary.”

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Todd White Responds to Claims He’s Been Preaching the Wrong Gospel- and He’s not Happy

Evangelist Todd White is pushing back on claims that he repented for not preaching the full gospel and is now newly saved, declaring that he’s been taken out of context and that his critics are sinning in doing so.

White made headlines last week when he preached a sermon and declared that he repented of not preaching the full gospel, with comments like “I feel like I just met Jesus” leading his critics to hope that the known heretic had changed his ways, become saved, and would bear fruit in keeping with repentance. We wrote about this extensively here, here and here, and made the case that if White was repentant and, then like Zacheus there are a few things he would have to do to demonstrate it before we would consider him a brother in the Lord.

He must get out of the ministry, stop preaching (as babes in Christ should not preach), repent of intentionally fooling the masses by knowingly false magic tricks carefully learned and practiced over many years, clarify that not only did he not teach the “full gospel” but that the one previously taught was a false gospel, and if monetary restitution is not possible or practically feasible, then theological restitutions are in order, with Todd doing everything possible to lead those people out of the charismaticism he brought them into.

This has not happened. Rather, Todd clarified his remarks and he is quite discouraging. Here are a few comments he made during yesterday’s service, starting off with assuring people that he didn’t get just saved, but rather has been saved for over 16 years, pointing to his life of holiness after his salvation of evidence of his salvation all those years ago.

Last week I shared in my heart ‘I repent for not preaching the full gospel.’ If any of you think that you know it all about the Gospel, you’re deceived. I don’t care who you are, I don’t care what theologian you are. I don’t care if you’re a doctor of theology, if you’ve got your masters of divinity if you think you know it all, I’m sorry you’re wrong. I have stepped into a new awareness of why I’m really here. I feel like I just got saved. I feel like I’ve just met Jesus. The truth is, if I didn’t meet Jesus when I got saved, I would have continued in sin.

Many thought that the change to Todd was due to newly being exposed to Whitfield, Spurgeon, and Comfort, but it turns out that he’s been reading them for years, and yet has still engaged in his shenanigans. He also mentions Dr. Michael Brown, a decidedly poor resource, and yet Brown will be speaking at White’s Chuch on August 16th. Birds of a feather.

I used an example last week of Ray Comfort’s book . I have read Ray Comfort since I’ve gotten born again. I love his stuff. I’ve read Spurgeon since I got saved. I mention it one time and people are like ‘now he’s reading the right stuff.’ I got news for you. I love them. Andrew Murray is one of my favorite authors in the whole world. I love those. You know who else is a great author? Dr. Michael Brown.

Todd then rips into the movie American Gospel, criticizing the makers for not coming to him directly to asking what he believes, despite there being more than a decade of public content and videos out in the world detailing what he believes. It is clear, at this point, that he doesn’t get it.

There are a lot of people out there that have believe that I’m deceived. Thank you for praying for me. I need it. I need prayer.  To say that someone’s wrong and to not get on your face and cry out for their soul. Because if I’m deceived, and you’re not crying out for me, and you say that you love God you’re a liar, because you actually hate me.

If I’m going to tell you that somebody’s deceived, but I’m not going to be one to go on my knees and be (unintelligible) Christ like Jesus did, and cry out for them like to see the truth, then I’m not a Christian. I don’t love them, I love my opinion.

I am overtaken with gratitude for people that have prayed for me, and have said “man, he’s going off.” They made a movie, called the American Gospel, about me. None of them called me to talk to me, not one of them asked me to share my heart, not one of them asked me what I believe. They assumed and put me into a place of guilt because of association and friends like Bill Johnson or Kenneth Copeland. Now all of a sudden Todd’s the biggest heretic on the planet. Or Benny Hinn.

Shame on you for not praying for me and talking to me, but making a movie thinking that you’re God’s police. You’re going to stand before a holy God and answer for your life of judgment and hate and it’s called murder.  It’s no different than racism. It’s the same thing It’s called no love. You have no love. If you think that being God’s police officer is love, you’re wrong, because you haven’t prayed with the human tears.

White further clarifies what he meant by repenting of the full gospel.

Jesus is the way. The gospel is the way. When I say I haven’t preached the full gospel, it just means that God has taken me to a depth of his heart that I have not yet seen and I want to see more people come to Christ. I mean in our school at LCU, ‘Todd white repents’ is all over the internet. Well here’s the crazy thing. Like this isn’t justification, I’m telling you what’s out there. Like we should all want to be repentant. Repentance isn’t the days you get saved only. If something’s wrong you repent.

And then fires back at his critics, claiming to be misunderstood and having his viewpoints unfairly characterized, which is sin on the part of the accuser.

There has to be this behemoth desire inside of me to bless those who persecute me and pray for those, who despitefully use me, like despitefully use my name, and say ‘he’s this and he’s that’, without even listening, that’s dangerous. That’s called presumption, an presumption is one of the greatest sins on the planet.

Todd spends the rest of the sermon giving a pentecostal apologetic on the validity of miracles and healing ministry.

So there you have it. From the looks of things, Todd White has repented of presenting the gospel in the wrong way, but has not repented for his plethora of false teaching and false miracles, or shown that he understands the crux of the theological grievances people have.

We have heard that the makers of the American Gospel are still in contact with him and trying to reach out to him further, but it appears that he’s dug in deep. It’s only been a week since his message and we’ll see how this goes, but at this point it seems that from his perspective, the ones who should be doing the most repenting are his critics.