Dr. J. Ligon Duncan III, the Chancellor and CEO of Reformed Theological Seminary, has been drifting in a big way for years. He took a pot shot at John MacArthur for telling Beth Moore to ‘go home’ a few years ago, partnered with gay priests at conference events, had a CRT syllabus at his University, said there is great wisdom in a pastor never letting congregants know which side of a political conflict he leans or where he stands on major political issues, and famously lamented that his black friends have a really good reason not to trust him: because he was a white man, drinking the bitter lies of the burgeoning progressive movement.
Ligon Duncan is not someone to be trusted, as Justin Peters recently pointed out at John MacArthur’s own 2022 Truth Matters Conference.
So why is he being brought in as a teacher at the Masters Seminary?
Scott Ardavanis, lead pastor of Grace Church of the Valley and Dean of the Masters Seminary Central Valley location, piped in Duncan to teach a class in pastoral ministry, praising him for his ministry.
We’ve said it before: after signing and promoting the Dallas Statement, MacArthur turned around and not only invited the woke trio of Al Mohler, Mark Dever, and Ligon Duncan to speak but platformed them on stage. The Q&A was an absolute debacle, although thanks to Phil Johnson those men were at least put on the spot to squirm and sweat.
The Dallas Statement was supposed to be a line in the sand, as important as The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, or at least, that’s what many believers concluded. However, it turned out to be an irrelevant blip in history, hardly worth noting. It’s long dead. Not only is it dead, but in the words of JD Hall, “The Dallas Statement is dead and John MacArthur killed It.”
The statement became meaningless when those that were involved in the signing continued to promote the very people it was designed to warn against. Without teeth, what protection from dangerous teachings did it have to offer the church? MacArthur once said in regards to Duncan, Mohler, and Dever, “I’ll fight error, but I won’t fight my friends.” That’s pretty difficult when his friends are the ones promoting error. It is difficult when Ligon Duncan is being given a platform of influence, teaching the next generation of pastors in your own college.
Now, we are not saying that MacArthur had anything to do with the choice to have Duncan speak and teach at the seminary. In fact, maybe Scott Ardavanis doesn’t know about all the recent shenanigans Duncan has been up to. We’re very open to that, and that’s why we’re not going off; because they’ve earned the benefit of a doubt. Still, if this is something that those in his circle are going to keep on doing, then MacArthur needs to soften up his stance a little on the social justice gospel and not be so hard on critical race theory, lest he is guilty of being a hypocrite.
Either CRT is bad or it’s not. Either Duncan saying “It’s gonna take us 100 years to overcome the trust issues that have come out of (slavery). I tell people: my very best black friends have trouble trusting me, for really good reasons. Because people like me have been doing awful things to them and to their families for four centuries. You know? It’s gonna take a while before the trust issues that exist between otherwise good friends in Christ are gonna be addressed. We’ve got generational issues here.” is bad or it’s not.
Our stance? The church has been battered by progressivism and ravaged by Critical Race Theory, along with all the deviltry that comes with it. It is an ever-present threat, becoming more and more entrenched as it swallows congregations whole. Men like Duncan, who were once esteemed as unbending giants, are revealed to have saplings for spines, a previously unknown love for nuance and whimsy, a fascination with intersectionality and standpoint theory, and a damned-if-I-do dive into pure and abject theological and cultural squishiness. Until he repents of his previous positions, there’s no reason he should be viewed as a trusted instructor.
So why is he teaching there again?
