Church-growth guru and Transformation Church pastor Tim Ross has revived the spirit of 2020, praising and extolling a guest on his show for regurgitating all the worst cliches of Critical Race Theology and anti-racism talking points.
The Dissenter has a good recap of what transpired between Ross and his guest.
In a recently surfaced clip from one of his podcasts, Ross platformed a white woman who flagellates herself over her own insecurities as a white woman. Dr. Jenna Mountain, in conversation with Ross, eagerly proclaimed her commitment to “anti-racism,” a term replete with Marxist underpinnings. But to be clear, this virtue signaling is not a quest for truth but a frantic attempt to win favor with leftists who, let’s be brutally honest, will never fully embrace her simply because of her skin color.
The spirit of June 2020 is returning.
On pastor Tim Ross's massively popular podcast "The Basement," guest Dr. Jenna Mountain names white fragility, antiracism, even Ibram Kendi, all with unqualified endorsement.
"Pre-2020, I would have said I am not a racist. Post-2020, I now am practicing my antiracism. I do love Ibram Kendi's work. His book was life-changing for me." (1/3) pic.twitter.com/J2rEfzGfTc
After confessing her white fragility and white privilege, Ross jokes to Mountain: "Your black card is in the mail," then goes into an "I'm speechless" routine. (2/3) pic.twitter.com/nqk4Fabzsl
Dr. Mountain has willingly entangled herself in the treacherous web of identity politics, reducing complex social issues to mere virtue signaling. This is cultural Marxism at its core—a dogmatic allegiance to a skewed understanding of power dynamics and privilege, utterly dismissive of individual agency and merit.
She has become a slave to an “anti-racism” ideology that demands perpetual penance with no hope of redemption—a never-ending cycle of guilt and self-castigation. This is the antithesis of the biblical Gospel, which teaches that our identity is first and foremost in Christ, and that He has broken down the walls of hostility to make one new humanity (Ephesians 2:14-16).
Church-growth guru and Transformation Church pastor Tim Ross has responded to criticism of him dropping multiple f-bombs and other language on his podcast over the last few months, saying that he’s never once felt convicted about his language and if he feels strong emotion about something, he ‘reserves the right’ to use strong language.
“I reserve the right, when I’m talking about something that I feel strongly about, to use strong language. In my mind it makes sense that when I’m feeling strong emotions, I should use strong language to go with those emotions.
…I have always used strong language in my life, both pre-salvation and post-salvation, and have never felt a conviction of the Holy Spirit. I know some of you are going to have some seizures just off me saying that.
Some of you all have sent me scriptures that you think is talking about strong language and profanity and you couldn’t be further from the truth. So you all can stop sending me Ephesians 4:29 (Ed. Note. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.) because contextually I know what it means and Paul is not talking about when he says ‘filthy communication’ he is not talking about cuss words.”
Transformation Church Pastor Tim Ross justifies his propensity to drop f-bombs on his podcast, saying he 'reserves the right to use strong language' and has never once felt convicted about it from the Holy Spirit. https://t.co/exSsYj9HQYpic.twitter.com/P5oDGZViEp
Former megachurch pastor and current church-growth guru Tim Ross has claimed the belief in the Trinity is a non-essential issue and that Trinity-deniers have a “fidelity to Jesus Christ.”
Despite Ross gaining fame as the pastor of Embassy City Church from 2015 to 2022 (and who we recently covered after he claimed it shouldn’t be considered “cheating” on one’s spouse to engage in sexual dancing and being twerked on by a stranger), he got his start at T.D. Jakes’ The Potter’s House, where he claims he was led to attend by the Holy Spirit many years ago.
Ross spent nearly 14 years alongside Jakes, first as a youth evangelist, then the last four years as the young adult pastor, before leaving in 2010.
Because he later went on to grow his church to megachurch status in just a few short years, Ross has been working on building his church consultant ministry. He now works full-time as a Global Christian Advisor, where he “partners with key influential ministries to help them through speaking, staff development, and direct pastoral consulting to create a safe haven and provide support for pastors and church leaders.” Some of his clients include Embassy City Church; Transformation Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Shoreline City Church in Dallas, Texas; Seeds of Greatness Church in Wilmington, Delaware, and Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas.
In a conversation with Ruslan, Ross explains that Modalism may not be his preference, but that he’ll still “rock” with those who feel differenty.
Ross: So Julie (his wife) and I met at Potter’s House in a youth ministry. We were there for 13 and a half years, I learned a lot, grew a lot over that time. Like, I would not be me if it wasn’t for those 13 years there. I started the last four years as a Young Adult Pastor, after being like a youth evangelist would probably be the best term for it for about three years….the first pastoral role I ever had was at the Potter’s House.
…Like when Bishop Jake’s first got to Dallas, his Wednesday night bible studies have 5,000 people. And he was teaching Oneness Doctrine, like blatantly. Like it was like, you know, ‘if ice is frozen its water. If it’s steam, its water, if its water…’
Ruslan: which is kind of like a Modalist illustration….
Ross: Yeah yeah yeah, right? And so I’m sitting in the back, going ‘you (unintelliegabe) on that.’ I don’t agree. I’ve always been Trinitarian, right? So, but it wasn’t like, ‘I have to leave this church! This dude’s a heretic.’
It was like, it was ‘no, this community was poppin’. Like, I was learning. I was growing. And there was some stuff, even in my 20 year old mind-I wasn’t 20 years old, but in my 20- that I was like ‘Ehhhh no. I’m not amen-ing that, but I still rock with you.” You know what I mean? People be leaving over crazy stuff right now.
Ruslan: Do you think that is an essential?…Would you say the doctrine of the Trinity is an essential doctrine for like Orthodox Christianity?
Ross: I would say I feel better with the Trinitarian perspective and doctrine. And I’ll also say I can hold the tension of somebody that doesn’t hold that doctrine, and still be able to appreciate their fidelity to Jesus Christ.”
Former megachurch pastor and current church-growth guru Tim Ross explains that belief in the Trinity is a non-essential issue for Christians, and that it's "crazy" to divide over it. See the story and transcript at https://t.co/K5mJcisjmzpic.twitter.com/AgrgtggtkY
Bonus: Interesting backround on Elephant Room and Jakes’ Modalism:
In 2011, Jakes was invited to the Elephant Room. At this roundtable, prominent Christian pastors from different perspectives would be asked hard questions about their beliefs and practices by other well-known pastors. Prior to the event, there were questions about why Jakes should even be invited in the first place, particularly because, as Tim Challies noted, Jakes has shown a “continual reluctance to affirm a standard, time-proven creedal statement of trinitarian orthodoxy and that he has often used the language of modalism.” Phil Johnson was more direct, writing:
“A self-styled “bishop”—notorious for his love of money, who teaches a false prosperity gospel, who freely shills for every aberration on TBN, who was ordained in a Sabellian denomination, who has been confronted repeatedly about his anti-trinitarianism, who refuses to renounce modalism, who declines to embrace any standard expression of Trinitarian conviction, and who (on top of all that) is unclear on practically every doctrine germane to the gospel—such a figure should not be warmly welcomed into evangelical circles and given the platform at an evangelical conference as if we’re confident that he is a solid brother with good intentions.”
Then the big day hit. Mark Driscoll and James MacDonald played the fool by lobbing a couple of softball questions his way that didn’t go nearly enough into any needed specificity. It was pathetic and crushingly dissapointing. Jakes was not pressed but treated with kid gloves before being declared a brother. In this way, Driscoll and MacDonald were co-conspirators in the Great Evangelical Coverup that gave the prosperity-preaching heretic the respectability of orthodoxy that was trumpeted all across the evangelical landscape, from The Christian Post to Christianity Today.
To this day, everyone believes that Jakes embraced and affirmed the Trinity at the Elephant Room, yet nothing could be further from the truth. It’s revisionist history. He left the event affirming a belief and acceptance of the Trinity, which garnered the big headline, so long as he could define Trinitarian “persons” (which he said was the language he was ‘uncomfortable’ with) as “manifestations.” This is a distinction with a damning difference, because a ‘person’ is not a ‘manifestation’. Using the same methods that Mormons use, Jakes was more than happy to affirm any point of doctrine, so long as he could pour his own definitions and understanding into them. Following this, gullible Christians oblivious of his sleight of hand and stubborn recalcitrance cheered him for his newfound doctrinal fidelity, and the rest is history.
In 1998, The Potter’s House doctrinal statement read, “God-There is one God, Creator of all things, infinitely perfect, and eternally existing in three Manifestations: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
Then for a short time, also before the Elephant Room, it was changed to read: “THREE DIMENSIONS OF ONE GOD. . . . Triune in His manifestation, being both Father, Son and Holy Ghost AND that He is Sovereign and Absolute in His authority. We believe in the Father who is God Himself, Creator of the universe. (Gen. 1:1; John 1:1).”
Several years after the Elephant Room, it reverted to the 1998 statements, changing the capitalizations of ‘manifestation,’ which it has remained ever since.
Life.Church is an 85,000 member, seeker-sensitive, multi-site based in Oklahoma that has nearly 40 locations. They use the attractional model to bring in unsuspecting potential parishioners, including the gimmicky seeker-sensitive Night at the Movies, metaverse online “church services”, and motivational Ted Talk style preaching. With the church adopting egalitarianism and woke theology, the church’s pastor, Craig Groeschel, has an eisegetical style that has best been described as “Joel Osteen lite
The church regularly hosts popular cultural Christian figures like financial adviser Dave Ramsey, Duck Dynasty’s Sadie Robertson Huff, and Hillsong pastrix Christine Caine to give spiritual Ted Talks in lieu of Biblical preaching.
Recently, they had guest pastor Tim Ross of Embassy City Church, a sister church of Gateway Church, to preach the message. During the sermon, he engages in a little mockery of a group of Christians who were upset over a message he preached (and judging by this one, they have good cause.)
I’ve been preaching for 26 years, and I’ve gone some places and I’ve had people love what I’ve had to say, and I’ve had some people hate what I’ve had to say. I preached the church in Australia a few years ago, and afterwards all these people lined up to say thank you and they were blessed. And all these people came to Jesus, we had a massive altar call, it was awesome.
And there was a group that I noticed that was allowing everybody to go first before they wanted to come up and talk. It was about eight of them. And when you got so many people lined up saying ‘great message, great message, great message, great message,’ you can get encouraged. And so I was so encouraged. And I’m like, ‘Oh my goodness!’
And so this group that had eight people, they waited to the end, I’m like, ‘wow, they must want to say it in unison’, and maybe they wrote a song about how great my sermon was. I have no idea how they wanted to do this, but let’s hear it. And so I go over there, and the ringleader, the guy’s arms folded like this.
And I was like, ‘hey, guys. Like the sermon?’ (he replied) ‘No. As a matter of fact, I don’t even think you were in the Bible. I don’t even think your message was theologically correct. As a matter of fact, I doubt the validity of the people that just gave their life to Jesus, because I don’t know if I just heard a sermon or if I was at a comedy show.’
I was like, ‘Oh, wow. I can see that ya’ll didn’t like the message that much’. And I said, ‘Well, it sounds like you’re really passionate about Scripture, as am I, but it seems like we don’t agree on the delivery. I feel like I did what I was supposed to do.
We don’t think the delivery was the problem, but rather as the man states, the content.
And this guy said ‘no, because you didn’t preach against sin’. And I was like, ‘I’m sorry, what’d you say?’ (He goes) ‘Yeah, you didn’t like, tell them about their sins.’ I’m like, Do you know how many there are? And like, if I was to read like the screen credits of every sin, how could I ever get to the good news?
At the end of it, he was way smarter than me, so he quoted like four chapters from memory. Then at the end, I just said, ‘Hey, the enemy would love to cause division, can we just pray?’ And this dude refuse to even unfold his hands to pray. To which everybody else in his group was like, ‘Dude, we can’t be that petty. I’m praying.’
…We post our stuff on Instagram and social media to have a team that does that, and we get all kinds of reckless stuff in the comments. People are like, ‘yeah, that was a great sermon.’ Somebody else is like ‘you are the worst preacher I’ve ever heard. Click my YouTube link for the breakdown of how horrible Tim’s message is.’
They have way more time than I do. By the time they’re editing the video to talk about how terrible I was, I’ve just won three matches of 2k 22 NBA. Ya’ll thought I was reading the Bible again- I have to have a break.”
Bonus: In a recent promotional YouTube short from the same sermon “God Needs You,” he says:
He needs you. I’m gonna say something to you that is going to be so sobering, but I hope it’s encouraging to you at the same time. Do you not know that the Holy Spirit in you only has you for the time that you’re aliveto reach people through your personality and expression in a way that he’s never had prior to you in human history, and will never have, after you go back to be with him forever. Which means for the time you’re here, the worst thing you could do is rob us of you.
Later, he tells people they need to stop praying for their neighbors salvation and go greet them, because “(God’s) like, ‘as soon as you knock on the door and say ‘hi,’ I can upset their world.
While such a statement undoubtedly flatters the minds of tens of thousands of folk who gather together for a concert, movie, and Ted Talk at Life.Church every Sunday, God undoubtedly doesn’t need anything from anyone, and his success in saving those whom he would save is entirely unrelated to “your personality and expression.” God doesn’t need anyone’s permission or intervention before he can “upset somone’s world”. The idea that God needs anyone or anything is a blasphemous distortion of the nature and character of God.
As the Apostle Paul stated in his address to the pagans at the Areopagus a few verse after the ones he quoted from in his sermon:
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. Acts 17:24-25
Perhaps He should have read the whole book book through.
