On an episode of Wretched, Todd Friel plays a clip from a previous Ligonier conference where RC Sproul affirms charismatics as “heretics” and “apostates,” and that their ministries should not be supported.
See video below:
The post RC Sproul Calls Charismatics “Apostates” and “Heretics” – Wretched appeared first on Pulpit & Pen.
Christianity isn’t collapsing! The gospel hasn’t changed an iota! Jesus Christ is the same today as he always has been and always will be. The gospel is still saving men just as effectively and efficiently as it always has. That’s what the gospel does. Men of God are still standing in their pulpits and thundering the truths of Scripture just like men of God have done since men of God began to exist. The Holy Spirit is still applying the truths of biblical revelation to the hearts of the elect and transforming their lives more and more into the image of Christ. Amen! Biblical Christianity has not changed. American Evangelical Christianity on the other hand? Well, that’s a horse of a very different color. And the color of that horse, if it is not changing, is at least becoming clearer today than it ever has been. This deistic moralism parading as Evangelical Christianity in America has been mortally wounded and is drawing her last breaths. Well, she is drawing her last breath as far as being able to pass herself off as being truly Christian. She is dying from the standpoint that she will no longer be able to hide her pseudo-Christian nature. Everything in the dark is finally being brought to light. We are beginning to see just how many hypocrites and fakes there are in the ranks of the so-called American Evangelical Christian Churches.
One of the clearest indications that American Evangelical Christianity is drawing her last breaths is the onslaught a tribalism that has finally revealed itself to be inside the churches just as much as it is in the world. One of those tribes is the homosexual movement. It is partly the low view of marriage among American Evangelicals that gave rise to the gay marriage movement. Evangelicals had abandoned God’s view of marriage long ago. The divorce rates and lack of subsequent discipline regarding those rates serve as sober proof that this is the case. Now, those gay marriage chickens have piggy-backed on the SJW nonsense of racial reconciliation and the utterly absurd #MeToo movement to take the church by storm.
As you are probably aware, there is a conference taking place inside at Memorial Presbyterian Church located in St. Louis, MO. This is more than a little disturbing. The conference is endorsed by prominent SBC personalities like Matt Chandler and Karen Swallow Prior. It is also endorsed by Gabe Lyons, a man strongly defended by Darrell Bock over at Dallas Theological Seminary. Finally, it is also endorsed by Francis Chan, a man who has obviously swerved far from the truth after graduating from TMS.
I am going to use two sources to point out some very basic flaws in this worldview. And yes, “gay Christianity” is a worldview. One that Christians have to be aware of and one that we have to repudiate and refute. One source will be Jason Harris’ blog article responding to Phil Johnson’s post and the other one is the Statement of Marriage, Sexuality, & Gender from The Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender.
Incipiently, paragraph 3 of the Statement of Marriage, Sexuality, & Gender reads this way: The Fall has corrupted God’s original intent for human sexuality in all persons; therefore, all people—straight or non-straight—experience corruption in their sexuality. I added the emphasis. Note that there is a presumption that being straight or not being straight is in the same category. This implies that non-straight, or gay tendencies or desires are morally neutral or worse, just as natural as those of straight, or heterosexual people. This is deliberate. The first aim is to normalize homosexual desires, proclivities, or as Jason Harris calls it, same-sex attraction. The next article says, Simply experiencing attraction to the same sex (or being gay) is not in itself a morally culpable sin. So, according to this statement, being a homosexual is not a morally culpable sin. Is a person’s sexual desire, appetite, preference a morally neutral trait? Jason Harris distinguishes attraction from desire and both of these from lust. He has constructed an elaborate scheme designed entirely to remove any and all moral culpability from homosexual desires. But what about this distinction? Can one be gay, celibate, and therefore a true Christian? Can you have sexual desires to be with a man and be a Christian, as long as you are not acting on those desires?
To begin with, there is nothing in science to support the theory that same-sex attraction is genetic. In other words, the gay gene is still a thing of myth. It doesn’t exist. Second, there is no reason to think that human beings cannot recognize that a particular desire is wrong, unnatural, unhealthy, and harmful, and as a result made a conscious choice to abandon that desire. What you will hear is that people just don’t do that. But there is evidence available that suggests they can and they do, even if it is rare. There is no science anywhere that demonstrates that gay people are really women stuck in a man’s body or that lesbians are men stuck in a woman’s body. These are the facts. So why is it so difficult for someone to take charge of their sexual desires and attractions and change them? The simple answer is they don’t want to. Their desire lies in the other direction. The sexual desire we feel has to be replaced by a stronger desire. It has to be replaced by a desire that is more important, more powerful, stronger than it is. Unless that happens, the sexual desire will continue. Now, that explains why it is so terribly difficult to change one’s sexual desire/attraction. But it does not answer the question, is sexual attraction in and of itself morally neutral?
In the beginning, God created man, male and female. And he created man with a natural desire, a natural sexual attraction to a woman. God said in Gen. 1:31 regarding this state of affairs that it was very good. But we all know what happened not too long after that. Man played the fool, believing that he could live autonomously. He thought that he could get along without God, carry on his life independent from God. The result was disastrous. Man fell into a state of moral depravity. Evil entered the world. Two kinds of evil entered the world to be precise: natural evil and moral evil. Natural evil involves natural phenomenon like a tornado that destroys things, including peoples’ lives. Moral evil is that contamination of the being of man, not his physical being, but his soul. Every part of man has been corrupted by the fall: his intellect, his will, and his emotion. While this does not mean that man is as depraved as he could be, it does mean that there isn’t a part of the human person that is untouched by sin. Evil resides in every part of every human being that has existed after the fall.
Now, Jason Harris, in agreement with the statement on marriage, sexuality, & gender believes that sexual attraction is a morally neutral thing. On the other hand, however, Jason admits that same-sex attraction is the product of the fall. He compares it to earthquakes, cancer, and cavities. He then compares a teenage boy who is attracted to a female classmate to same-sex attraction as if they are somehow equivalent. Jason couldn’t be more wrong. SSA is not like a cavity. Unlike the natural evil that is the cavity, SSA goes to morality because it resides in the human psyche. It is not physical. It is mental. It belongs, not to the body, but to the soul. It is a composition of the human person, not the human body. Remember Genesis 1:31: sexual attraction between a man and a woman is very good. It is God’s perfect design. It is an act of the human person. Being an act of the human person, it cannot be morally neutral. It resides in human desires. The victim mentality says that we are servants of our desires. They control us. We do not control them. This is stated by the LGBT movement ad nauseam. The problem with this worldview, and that is exactly what we are dealing with, is that it is antithetical to Christianity. Genesis 1-3 provides us with the clear design of God’s world and the fall of man into sin that brought about the curse.
In addition to same-sex attraction being a component of the human person, and therefore, subject to the curse and possessing moral qualities, the apostle Paul informs us in the NT on more than one occasions that desires can surely be immoral in and of themselves, contrary to the gay Christian arguments. For instance, Col. 3:5 says, Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. Jason Harris and others claim that SSA is the result of the fall. They go on to claim that it is better for Christians, at least many of them make this claim, not to identify themselves as being gay. Well, if SSA is just as natural as opposite-sex attraction, as Jason has so clearly argued, then what is the problem with identifying as a gay Christian since it is morally neutral?
To add to the issue, Paul paints a picture in Romans 1:24-28 that clearly tells us that same-sex attraction, or homosexual desire, is a shameful, or degrading, disgraceful passion. For this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural. If it is forbidden that a man lies with a man as with a woman, then it naturally follows that it would be forbidden for a man to desire to lie with other men in such a fashion. You are only kidding yourself if you think you can separate attraction from sexual desire. It is impossible and anyone who attempts to tell you otherwise is only kidding themselves. Can you? As a woman or a man, can you dispense with your sexual desire and only always have just an attraction to the opposite sex? I don’t mean a person specifically. I mean the desire for sex itself. Unless you have the gift of celibacy or have been injured in some way, you cannot have attraction without sexual desires in the mix. It is utterly foolish for us to think otherwise. My point is that if the “attraction” is not mortified, the desire won’t be either.
Finally, we turn to 1 Cor. 6:9-11. In this section of Scripture, Paul moves through a list of sinful people, fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, effeminate, homosexuals, etc. And adamantly tells the Corinthian church three things: these kinds of people will not inherit the kingdom of God; second, the Corinthian church contained people who used to be these kinds of people at one time in their past; but now, they are no longer these kinds of people because they have been washed, sanctified, and justified. At one time, some of the Corinthians were fornicators, and Paul says, but no longer! At one time, some of the Corinthians were homosexuals, and Paul says, but no longer. Now, I confess that I find it odd that a person who supposedly has come to Christ in faith and repentance from the homosexual lifestyle would insist on still identifying themselves as homosexual. If this text is rightly understood, it seems to me that Paul would have been opposed to this practice. They are no longer homosexuals. Why insist that they are? I am convinced that these people who claim to be Christian but who insist on being identified as gay, homosexual, or SSA are not at all Christian because they are still a homosexual with homosexual desires that they are not interested in abandoning. That is speculation on my part. But I think I have good ground for that speculation. So it isn’t baseless speculation. It isn’t sheer conjecture.
Summary
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We are witnessing nothing short of a full-on gospel crisis in American Evangelicalism today. Just as the homosexual movement has rapidly deteriorated into the full-blown confusion we see around the psychological disorder and delusion of gender dysphoria; we are witnessing the exponential demise of what was once a clear, focused, gospel-centered movement. When everything in evangelicalism is a gospel issue, nothing is. And this is precisely what is happening in modern evangelical Christianity. A few examples are presented in this post and then a plea for some sanctified common sense follows.
Social justice is all the rage these days. Even within the reformed camp, the balance between social concerns and the gospel is shifting much more quickly than one would have previously imagined. Social justice has, for all intents and purposes, eclipsed the pure gospel of historic Christianity so much so that we no longer know where the gospel story concludes, and its impact on me as a new person in Christ, in my culture, begins. We can see this in a variety of movements that have and are competing for the attention and the money and the time of Christians, week in and week out. Abolish Human Abortion argues that the church isn’t being the church unless it works to feverishly put a stop to the murder of unborn babies. The unborn babies are your neighbor, says AHA, and you are commanded to love your neighbor and protect the defenseless. If you are not picketing abortion clinics and opposing abortion in just the right way, then you are not loving your neighbor. For AHA, ending abortion is a gospel issue. The Gospel Coalition is cranking out one social issue after another and they are all gospel issues. From Tim Keller’s highly controversial and questionable philosophies outlined in his Generous Justice to the most recent pet, outlawing American Football, TGC has turned every social concern into a gospel issue. Many prominent Southern Baptists leaders, a denomination of which I happen to be a part, has its political arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Committee, devoted almost exclusively to social issues. From its website we read the following: The ERLC is dedicated to engaging the culture with the gospel of Jesus Christ and speaking to issues in the public square for the protection of religious liberty and human flourishing. And of course, these issues, ranging from social justice to racial reconciliation, from sex trafficking to immigration, are all gospel issues. The ERLC, TGC, and AHA all want your attention, your time, and your money in order to carry out their agenda. But there is more.
Many of these movements, if not all of them, contain varying degrees of components associated with liberation theology and are incredibly confused about the nature of Christianity, personal holiness, and the mission of the church. This is especially the case as it relates to the relationship of the church and the world, not to mention, the content of the gospel. Now, in case you are skeptical of my thesis (and healthy skepticism is encouraged) that what you are witnessing in Evangelicalism is in fact, liberation theology sporting a fresh coat of paint, note this comment from J. Daniel Salinas concerning the book, An Inquiry into the Possibility of an Evangelical-Liberationist theology: Chaves, the Brazilian professor at the Baptist University of the Americas, argues that later developments in both North American evangelicalism (NAE) and Latin American Liberation Theologies (LALT) have drawn them theologically closer than ever before.[1]
The matter of liberation theology is itself indelibly linked to hermeneutics. This can be seen in how groups such as AHA, TGC, the ERLC, and Racial Reconciliation interpret the biblical text. Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutierrez wrote: “The theology of liberation offers us not so much a new theme for reflection as a new way to do theology. Theology as critical reflection on historical praxis.” As Samuel Escobar points out, “This critical reflection was the result of a new political alignment (praxis) of some Christians in Latin America during the 1960s and their critical way of reading the history of the church in that region.” Liberation then offers up a new way to do theology and along with it, a new hermeneutic, a modified gospel, an alternative mission of the church, and it defines the relationship between the church and the world. The old adage comes to mind: if it is new, it is not true and if it is true, it is not new. Is it too much to suggest that what we see taking place right now in evangelicalism, among the new Calvinists, some in the reformed branch, and especially in the Southern Baptists is a new way to do theology? Social concerns are informing how theology gets done rather than theology informing how the church gets things done. Liberation theology begins with the marginalized, the poor, the oppressed, and their concerns, and it shapes theology by insisting that exegesis submit to those concerns above all others. And this is how you end up with the proverbial tail wagging the dog problem. Don’t forget, Liberation theology fills those words with new meaning so that even the most orthodox of doctrines, such as male leadership in the church, is now viewed as complicit in the oppression and marginalization of women. Critical thinking is indispensable and the church neglects it to its own peril.
Returning to the Southern Baptists political arm, the ERLC, in reading the mission statement of this committee, one has to wonder if it should even exist in the first place: The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission exists to assist the churches by helping them understand the moral demands of the gospel, apply Christian principles to moral and social problems and questions of public policy, and to promote religious liberty in cooperation with the churches and other Southern Baptist entities.
First, it is the local elders’ duty to help their communities understand the moral demands of the gospel. That is accomplished through preaching, teaching, and discipleship. The same is true for applying Christian principles to moral problems. The statement reveals its overtly political agenda when it turns to “social problems,” “questions of public policy,” and “to promote religious liberty.” In order to defend this mission statement, biblically anyway, one has to change the mission of the church so that it includes culture shaping, involvement in politics, and one has to believe that the church must work for religious liberty. But when one reads the New Testament Scriptures, writings that took place in a largely oppressive and intolerant setting, they do not find anything like these objectives there. More about this below when the subject of pure religion is addressed.
One of the most recent and highly visible areas of focus for these leaders is the topic of racial reconciliation. These men are operating on the basic premise that there is a rift between Christians of different racial classes in society. They begin by uncritically accepting melanin as a legitimate way to classify race and from there they carry their message forward with great enthusiasm and passion. Now, because racism is all the rage in the culture, and because no one wants to be called a racist or seen as doing anything whatsoever that any minority group could use to accuse one of racism, these leaders want to appear to be on board fully and completely. So, they are walking the politically correct line. With this in mind, they are working tirelessly to convince the church that they have a problem that needs to be addressed. The solution to this problem includes everything from the SBC repenting for past racism on an annual basis now for several years, to convincing white Christians that they are the bad guy, having been raised in a predominantly white culture and having unwittingly adopted racists attitudes of which they are naively ignorant and incapable of recognizing. Some are even going so far as to advocate for affirmative action in pastoral staffs, and even extend that point of view to the recommendation of books and conference speakers. “There should be people in those positions who look like me,” they argue. The argument is not based on biblical exegesis, but instead, on principles directly coming from black liberation theology. In fact, recently an article appeared over at Core Christianity that was, for all intents and purposes, denying the sufficiency of Scripture on the issue of racism. I don’t measure a man’s ears when I decide to read his book or attend a conference or submit to his leadership as an elder. I am not going to pay attention to his skin tone either. It is that ridiculous and the sooner we start seeing that truth and looking at the issue that way, the better off we will be in my opinion.
Coming back to the article over at Core Christianity, the title of the article was a sure attention-getter: “Good Doctrine isn’t the Answer to Racism.” The racial reconciliation argument continues to lose exegetical debates, making it necessary to retreat and come up with new strategies. The article begins with the claim, “Just because doctrine is right, good, and true does not mean it is healthy.” Andrew Menkis argues that doctrine, in order to healthy, must be lived. Menkis, in his own attempt to jump on board the racial reconciliation train and project just the right appearance and perhaps “make his contribution,” confuses Christian doctrine with Christian praxis. The word doctrine is derived from the Greek didaskalia. It simply means, teaching, instruction, that which is taught. Doctrine is a teaching. For example, the idea that doctrine should be lived out is implied in the teaching itself. When Menkis makes the claim that he makes, that just because the doctrine is right, good, and true does not mean it’s healthy, he is making a false statement on the one hand and a very basic category error on the other. If it is true that doctrine must be lived in order to be healthy doctrine, then Menkis’ doctrine is in the same boat as all other doctrines. That means that Menkis’ own doctrine about doctrine being lived is itself not a healthy doctrine. A question for Menkis might be, “If good, right, and true doctrine isn’t healthy, what is it?” If something is not healthy, then that means, logically speaking, that it is unhealthy. This means that good, right, and true doctrines can be unhealthy. This reasoning is specious. Living doctrine isn’t doctrine. The actual application of doctrine to daily life is not doctrine. Christian doctrine, in many, many cases is meant to be lived but not always. For example, the doctrine that all those in the body of Christ are in fellowship with one another is not a doctrine itself that can be practiced. It is a doctrine that describes our new status in Christ. We call it the doctrine of reconciliation. Jews and Gentiles have been reconciled to God through Christ in one body by the blood of Christ. I cannot live that. I cannot live the doctrine of justification. I cannot live the doctrine of regeneration. Menkis, in his attempt to project the appearance that he is on board and in his ambition to “make a contribution” to the topic, has made himself look rather silly in my opinion. This is the kind of foolishness that you end up with when you abandon sound hermeneutical principles in preference for methods that begin with the core values and principles of pagan society.
Pure religion begins with the gospel of Christ which is itself the power of God to save and regenerate the human heart. To Nichodemus, Jesus said, you must be born afresh, anew, from above, all over again. According to James, religion that is pure, that is undefiled, is religion that includes ministry to widows and orphans and to keep oneself pure from worldly influence. This hearkens back to 1:22 where James says be doers of the word and not hearers only. But my “not doing the word” does not make the word itself unhealthy nor does it mean that the word itself does not have the cure to my problem. The word is always intended to be applied or lived where there is application to be made. The proof that God has invaded my life can be seen in my care for others, especially widows and orphans and in my refusal to pattern my life after worldly principles derived from society. The church must have a vigorous ministry in place to care for widows and orphans. In some cases, this means providing food for care, medical needs where appropriate, etc. The same is true for orphans. It could mean financial support for orphanages, investing time in visiting the children living in these arrangements, or, in some cases, it could mean adoption. God directs the heart. James tells us to look after people in need during their time of affliction. But Paul also reminds us of the practical aspects of this ministry. Paul gives us criteria with qualifications before placing a widow on the list in 1 Timothy 5. That we care for widows and orphans with some qualifications is undeniable. But how we do that will vary from person to person or church to church.
The mission of the church is to preach the gospel, baptize converts, and to make disciples. The gospel is that Christ came and died to save helpless sinners from their hopeless condition. To baptize converts is to practice the public confession that one has indeed bound himself to Christ as Lord and Savior. To make disciples is to make students of the commandments of God. Disciple-making entails teaching men to observe everything that Christ has commanded. This is the mission of the church. Nowhere in Christ’s commandments are we told that we must fight for religious freedom, shape the culture in which we find ourselves, or influence civil government to adopt Christian principles. It is through the use of a hermeneutic of liberation that such nonsense finds its way into the mainstream. The source is not Scripture, but instead, the personal ideologies of men who have gained a platform of influence. They need to be corrected by other godly, strong leaders or removed from that platform.
The relationship of the church with the world is the last component of the three basic elements that make up pure religion. The gospel is first, the mission is second, and the relationship of the church with the world is the third component of pure religion. In Romans 13 and in 1 Peter 2, the church has her instructions for how she is to relate to the civil government. Whatever philosophy you might have on this topic, you would be well-served to make sure it is grounded in these passages of Scripture. What are these instructions? First, every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. That is pretty clear. Why? Because every authority is from God. Every civil government is established by God according to Paul. And to that government, we must submit. Whoever resists the authority opposes the ordinance of God. Of course, taken in the context of Scripture as a whole, when the civil law contradicts the divine law, divine law is the greater of the two. Peter’s instructions are identical to Paul’s instructions. Peter says that we must submit ourselves to every human institution for the Lord’s sake. This applies to a king or to someone the king might send. Peter commands us to honor the king. This is not an option. It is a commandment. The word honor, from the Greek timaō means to show high regard for, to revere. Yet, many of the social causes and issues that the church and these leaders specifically find themselves obsessed with are issues that fly in the face of these instructions. This means that Christians should avoid vilifying our government leaders, president and all, publicly. We must submit to, honor, and respect our government leaders. The objection is sure to come that our leaders are godless men who support all sorts of immoral legislation and policy. This is true. But it is not any truer than it was for the government under which Paul and Peter and the rest of the early church operated. In fact, modern American government is morally superior to Rome from a this-world perspective. If you doubt that, then perhaps you should do some reading on the practices of ancient Rome. What is puzzling is that most of the leaders involved in these movements are also involved in completely ignoring the clear NT mandate regarding how the church ought to relate to the secular authority. In fact, their agenda seems to require a certain rebellion against the secular authority. Such insurrection is not the fruit of Christian living we see in the first-century church.
The evangelical church, to include its reformed branch, is in a full-on crisis today. That crisis is due in large part to elements of a hermeneutic of liberation theology finding its way into the community. Men have gained access to the celebrity platform and ascended to a place of influence who do not hold to the historic positions handed down by the reformers. Movements like liberation theology, black liberation theology, the seeker movement, and the emergent church have all worked in varying degrees to weaken the hermeneutic of the conservative Protestant churches. The intensity of the war for truth has increased exponentially just within the last 5 years and more so even within the last year. Christian leaders must do a better job of examining the foundational teachings of men before enabling their influence. It is not evil to examine these claims to make sure they reflect the teachings of Scripture. Nor is it evil, when those claims are lacking in biblical support, are incredibly weak, or outright contrary to Scripture, to correct these men. If we continue to embrace worldly practices, such as obsessing over offending one another, then truth will truly suffer as a result. We should always remember that God is an ever-present witness in what we do and why we do it.
In closing, we should remember some of the very last words of one of the greatest Christian soldiers to have fought in this War, the Apostle Paul:
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing. (2 Tim. 4:7-8)
[1] J. Daniel Salinas, “Review of Evangelicals and Liberation Revisited: An Inquiry into the Possibility of an Evangelical-Liberationist Theology by João B. Chaves,” Themelios 39, no. 1 (2014): 142.
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The problem of evil (POE) is probably the most serious challenge to the rationality of Christian theism. At its core, the POE claims that there is a fundamental contradiction within Christian belief. Christians believe that there exists an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly good God. This belief is a necessary component of Christianity such that if proven false would prove Christian theism false. Christians also believe that the state of affairs that has obtained involves evil. This belief is also a necessary component of Christianity such that if proven false would prove Christian theism false. Hence, if Christianity is true, then it is also true that an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly good God created a world that includes evil. Every Christian should be able to reconcile these beliefs in a way that they do not lead to contradiction, but more importantly in a way that is also consistent with Christian Scripture. Some Christians attempt to solve the contradiction but end up compromising Christians beliefs about the nature of God. Others attempt to solve the contradiction but end up with a view of man that is also quite out of step with Scripture. Such extremes must be avoided and it is the purpose of this post to help you do just that.
The critic claims that the kind of God that Christians believe exists is not the kind of being that would create a world like this. An all-powerful God is powerful enough to create a world in which evil does not exist. An all-knowing God would know how to create a world in which evil does not exist. Finally, a perfectly good God would not create a world in which evil exists. There is good reason to examine these claims. The argument continues; since evil exists, the Christian claim that an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly good God exists is contradicted by the fact that evil exists. Therefore, Christianity holds to beliefs that contradict one another. Either Christianity must deny that evil exists, or it must relinquish its claim that the sort of God it believes in actually exists. Either way, Christianity is irrational for holding to the belief that this sort of God exists, and evil exists at the same time. It seems then, if this argument is sound, that the Christian religion is doomed because without evil Christianity collapses and without it’s God revealed in the Bible, it collapses. As you can see, the argument is really quite powerful and has caused many professing Christians to give up their Christian beliefs. How do you answer the charge?
The Arminian Solution
The Arminian solution to the problem of evil is to point out that God created a world in which libertarian free will exists and that such a state of affairs must allow for the possibility of evil. Libertarian freedom is defined as the freedom to always act to the contrary. This view is based on an indeterministic metaphysic. Indeterministic free will follows from this which means that human free will is incompatible with causal determinism. Regardless of which action an agent chooses, he could have always done otherwise. Evil exists in the world because God created human beings free to choose good or evil. They chose evil. Moreover, a world in which human beings have this kind of freedom, libertarian or indeterministic freedom, is the best of all possible worlds. Indeed, this solution does solve the problem of evil in that it removes the supposed contradiction in Christian theism. But it comes at a very high cost which I will discuss in my summary below.
The Open-Theism Solution
The second solution, one that pushes Arminian theology a little further but focuses its effort on the nature of God is the open view. The open view claims that God does not know the future perfect. God does not know the future decisions of free creatures. This means that God is not all-knowing. The open view agrees with the Arminian position of libertarian freedom. But it also agrees that if such actions are truly free in the indeterministic sense, then God cannot possibly know them because what God knows, he knows infallibly. If God knows that John will eat a ham sandwich for lunch tomorrow, then John is not actually free to do otherwise. If he is, then God’s knowledge is not infallible because John could always choose to have turkey. Since open theists recognize that evil exists but that God is perfectly good with infallible knowledge, the solution to the contradiction must be sought either by modifying its beliefs regarding God’s knowledge or God’s power. It focuses on the former. As a result, open theism does, in fact, remove the supposed contradiction in the argument against God from evil. But the cost is even greater than the one willingly paid by the Arminian approach.
The Reformed Solution
The reformed solution to the problem of evil is, from what I can tell, the least appealing and the least accepted by philosophers. It is a very unpopular response that gets very little attention in the literature. Many believe there is a liability and weakness in the reformed response. However, I think this is a good indication that it is on the right track.
Reformed theology is fully deterministic. This means that the reformed position rejects the view that human beings possess indeterministic freedom. The Second London Baptist Confession states:
God the good Creator of all things, in his infinite power, and wisdom, doth (a) uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all Creatures, and things, from the greatest even to the (b) least, by his most wise and holy providence, to the end for the which they were Created; according unto his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable Councel of his (c) own will; to the praise of the glory of his wisdom, power, justice, infinite goodness and mercy.[1]
The confession asserts that God controls and sustains all creation. Eph. 1:11 says In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.
From the start, this seems to introduce the problem of moral responsibility. How can human beings be morally responsible for their actions unless they act freely? However, free will, as defined by most Reformed theologians is not the ability to always do otherwise, but rather, the ability to act or choose apart from coercion or force. Man is free so long as he does whatever he desires or wants to do. This view of free will is compatible with the Reformed theology’s view of determinism. This view of determinism is soft determinism. In short, it contends that human free will is compatible with divine providence. If this is the case, then it seems to lead to the inevitable conclusion that Reformed theology is, in fact, a contradictory system since it affirms an all-powerful, all-knowledge, perfectly good God and the existence of evil in the world. But this conclusion is mistaken. The reason this conclusion is mistaken is located in the definition of “good.” When we say that God is “perfectly good,” what do we mean? Christianity means one thing while the opponent of Christianity means something else. There is an element of pagan thought smuggled into the definition of good that is contrary to Christian theism. If the goal is to demonstrate that Christian theism involves a contradiction, one has to use Christianity’s own definitions and not import those definitions as this objection seems to do.
The Reformed answer to this challenge, not to oversimplify it is to say that it is simply not true that a perfectly good God would not allow evil or create a world that would come to have evil in it. That claim, in and of itself, is contrary to Christian theism according to Reformed theology. All that is needed to answer this charge is to say that the existence of evil in the world produces a world that is better than a world that is has no evil. That is one way to remove the contradiction. Another way to remove the contradiction is to hold that God is under no obligation to create the best possible world with the most good. God is only obligated by his own nature to create one of the good possible worlds as opposed to evil possible worlds. This leads us to ask the question, what is the greatest good? It isn’t a problem if we reject the idea that God is not obligated to create such a world. The idea that God has a moral obligation to create only the best possible world is without ground. On the other hand, the world was created, and everything in it, to glorify God. Is it possible that the existence of evil serves to glorify God more than if evil did not exist? I see no reason why it is not possible. If Reformed theology can plausibly deny the premise that a perfectly good God would not allow evil, then this successfully removes any contradiction from its understanding of Christian theism. The fact becomes that a perfectly good God would allow evil to exist if it served his greater purpose of self-glorification. What is a greater good than God being glorified? Or, what is greater than a world in which God is glorified more than other possible worlds?
Conclusion
The problem of evil then as a logical challenge against the existence of the God of Christianity turns out not to be a problem after all. Still, it is the most challenging problem for Christian theism to answer. That much is granted. And there is a lot more to the challenge than any one blog post can address. Arminian theology solves the problem with its “libertarian free will” argument. This is a high price to pay because it places the Arminian in a position of having to solve for a new problem: how can God have infallible knowledge of the future free acts of human beings while also claiming at the same time that those actions are free in the libertarian sense. If God possesses infallible knowledge that John will have a ham sandwich for lunch tomorrow or next week or year, then how is it possible that John could always do otherwise up to the time that he has the ham sandwich? So far, I have seen nothing in the literature that satisfactorily removes the contradiction between divine omniscience and libertarian free will.
For the open theist view, the problem is worse. Scripture is clear that God infallibly knows the future acts of human beings. Jesus’ knowledge that Judas would betray him is a clear example. Jesus said that it would have been better if Judas had never been born. If it were possible for Judas to do otherwise, then Jesus was simply wrong. Jesus could not have made such a statement if it remained a possibility that Judas could do otherwise. But Jesus, acting on his infallible knowledge of Judas’ future act to betray Christ, made a true statement, not a possibly true statement. It was true that minute Jesus made it. And that is only possible if there was no other possibility than that Judas would betray Christ.
The Reformed position says that God has decreed whatsoever shall come to pass. But the decree is not itself the cause of man’s acting to commit evil, even though that act is part of the decree. The decree is not a causal agent. It is the divine plan. A blueprint does not build a house. The agents carrying out the instructions of the blueprint are the cause of the house being built. God created in such a way that man does as he pleases, he acts according to his own desire and he is therefore morally responsible for his actions. Man was created in God’s image and likeness. God does what he wants to do. Human beings, created in God’s image and likeness, do what they want to do. Adam did what he wanted to do. He was not forced against his will to violate the divine command simply because that is what was in the divine blueprint. How can God bring it to pass that evil exists without being the cause of evil in the sense that he is morally responsible for that evil? I think this is where epistemology can be critically helpful. Our knowledge of God is, as Van Til would say, analogical. God can be the cause of something in a way that is similar but different from the way in which human beings are the cause of something. That has to always be kept in mind. God loves like we do, but differently than we do. And that difference isn’t just in terms of degree but in essence as well. God’s knowledge and acts are not only quantitatively greater than ours, but they are also qualitatively greater than ours. Reformed theology then answers the challenge of evil without compromising the divine nature and while also remaining true to sound biblical exegesis. Both Arminian theology and Open Theism error seriously because they are far more rationalistic in their approach to this challenge while Reformed Theology attempts to remain true to the text of Scripture.
[1] Baptist Confession, 1689 London Baptist Confession, n.d.
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Wilshire Baptist Church in East Dallas will be hosting a Ramadan Feast for their Muslim friends. The idea was sparked by the Dialogue Institute of Dallas, a pro-Muslim group that seeks to proselytize other religions by getting them to engage in religious “dialogues.” Several Jewish synagogues and Mormon churches will also be hosting Ramadan events, with over 20 planned by the Dialogue Institute in the Dallas area alone. This evening, the Wilshire Baptist Church will host the meal commemorating the opening feast of Ramadan.
George Mason, pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church since 1989
George Mason, the pastor of the Baptist Church, cluelessly explained to the congregation the advertised motive of the Dialogue Institute, saying, “The Dialogue Institute of the Southwest is a group of moderate Muslim immigrants, primarily from Turkey, inspired by the work of Fetullah Gülen, who believes in peace through education and understanding.”
Of course, the goal of such Muslim-sponsored events is not “peace” in a nation like the United States where violence between religious groups is almost unheard of and statistically non-existent. The goal is what is known to Islamicists as “Da’wah,” the strategy to convert non-Muslims through dialogue, and it is propagandic and deceptive by nature. Those who host or promote such dialogues, such as Fetullah Gülen – mentioned by Pastor Mason above as the founder of the Dialogue Institute – are known as dā‘ī, and are considered missionaries of the Islamic faith. What is happening at the Wilshire Baptist Church is a missionary enterprise of Islam, hosted by a Baptist church and perpetrated upon Baptists.
Ramadan is a month-long celebration that begins with a meal called an Iftar, and is followed by a month of daytime fasting. The pastor wants the church to practice “food diplomacy,” a trendy term used by ecumenists to describe trying to reach common ground with Islamic refugees by inviting them to dinner and following the dietary and food preparatory guidelines set forth by Islamic tradition. The meal at Wilshire Baptist Church will include only that which is Halal, or approved by Islam.
Mason said, ”If we want to be respected by others, we have to respect others. If we want religious liberty for ourselves, we have to defend religious liberty for others, too,“ sounding as though he were parroting the words of SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission Director, Russell Moore.”
“If we want Muslims not to judge Christianity by its worst, most fringe and extreme role models,” Mason said, “but instead by those who seek to represent the spirit of Jesus in a generous way, then we have to be engaged with them personally. Likewise, they want us to know their faith and to judge it by those who are tolerant and peace-loving.“
According to the church website, “[They are] Christian by conviction, Baptist by tradition and ecumenical in spirit.”
Wilshire Baptist Church affirms the 1963 Southern Baptist Faith and Message. For the definition of “website orthodoxy,” click here.
[Editor’s Note: HT Dallas Observer]
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Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary has been at the forefront of the Social Justice Wars of the SBC in recent months and years. A promoter of Critical Race Theory and Marxist Intersectionality, president Danny Akin has installed an Affirmative Action wing for the seminary – called the Department of Kingdom Diversity – and has promoted the work of radical Cultural Marxists like James Cone, hosted a Malcolm X read-in for students, and according to numerous faculty members, warned staff that if they publicly complain about the Marxist undertones of the seminary’s new “woke” direction, they would be subject to mandatory sensitivity training and ultimately, firing.
Since Akin’s strong promotion of the agenda set for the SBC by James Riady and George Soros, especially as seen in the lead-up and aftermath of the MLK50 Conference, his status has risen to top-tier influencer among the New Calvinist contingent of the Evangelical Industrial Complex. After the successful veneration of non-Christian heretic and sex trafficker, Martin Luther King (King denied the deity of Christ, the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture, and the Resurrection), at the ERLC and Gospel Coalition-sponsored event, this Social Justice contingent in the SBC has been promoting Egalitarianism, a view on gender roles that is contrary to the traditional view held by Southern Baptists, particularly post-Conservative Resurgence. While claiming to be Complementarian (the more traditional view that men and women have equal but different, complementary roles, with leadership positions and positions of authority being exclusive to men), Akin, upcoming presidential shoe-in, JD Greear, and other woke SBC recipients of Riady-Soros cash are busy advocating for women to serve at the highest levels of leadership in the SBC in order to better serve what they call an “underrepresented minority voice.”
Moving from the ethnic component of Critical Race Theory (CRT doesn’t pertain only to “race” or ethnicity, but to all special “identity groups”) to Intersectionality, Akin and SEBTS have followed the lead of Greear, Dwight McKissic and other Social Justice Warriors to ensure that women and minority groups are running the SBC. This is a vitally important part of the agenda set forth by the billionaire donors who have been pumping these educational institutions with progressive cash.
Pulpit & Pen has spoken to three witnesses – two faculty members and one non-faculty staff member – who have spoken on-the-record as confidential sources, claiming that Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (SEBTS) has threatened them with “sensitivity training” and possible termination for making posts referencing Critical Race Theory or Cultural Marxism. One faculty member has moved on to another Southern Baptist Seminary but is gravely concerned that its direction is also turning hard-left on the issue of gender and the other two remain (for the time being) at SEBTS.
“When I first spoke out on Facebook about the wisdom of promoting someone with dubious theological credentials and a severely problematic personal witness like Dr. King, I was immediately called by a colleague who urged me to delete my post. I was told that it could be used by the press to paint the institution as racist. This floored me, considering my post didn’t address the ethnicity of Dr. King, but his character. Nonetheless, I let the post remain.”
The source continued, “Within another hour, I received a phone call from Dr. Akin, who expressed disappointment that I would speak out publicly on the issue and was encouraged – strongly – not to criticize the work of the [ERLC] or [Russell] Moore. The implication was clear; Southeastern was going to make social justice a core focus in coming years, and I might be better off at a different institution.”
With nowhere else to go, the faculty member has remained. When asked if he was fearful that his published communications would lead to punitive consequences from Akin, the professor responded, “Good luck. I’m not the only one told to swallow the social justice camel or else. There is a culture of fear, and it’s pervasive. Many faculty members have received those phone calls.”
Another source, the faculty member now teaching at a different seminary, told us, “I was told when [the Department of Kingdom Diversity] began that if I didn’t like ‘righting injustice’ I should seek employment elsewhere else. I did; I do want to correct injustice, but I don’t think the Marxist agenda is just. I also let it be known – in writing – that the growing acceptance of women in positions of leadership at [SEBTS] would eventually lead to a full dismantling of what we worked so hard to defend in the Resurgence.”
He continued, “It’s like a brain-drain at SEBTS. The folks they’re bringing in to promote diversity don’t even have doctorate degrees. They’re not scholars. They’re organizers. When I decided that I wouldn’t send my own kids to [the seminary] for fear they’d receive more indoctrination than doctrine, I decided it was time to move.”
Now, that source is greatly concerned about a particular resolution proposed for the upcoming SBC meeting, from one of his new seminary’s leaders, that gives what he perceives to be a “hat-tip” to redefined egalitarianism.
“It’s out of the frying pan and into a slightly less hot skillet,” he added.
Finally, one long-term staff member at SEBTS recalls a threat to receive “sensitivity training” after posting a popular meme generated by Pulpit & Pen of the faces of many “Social Justice Warriors” during the week of Together for the Gospel, following on the heels of MLK50.
The source said, “I was emailed the [employee handbook] pdf and told that if I didn’t delete the post I would be in violation of expected conduct and would have to receive what was called ‘sensitivity training.’ This is my only employment. I deleted it.”
SEBTS Danny Akin was contacted for a response to these accounts. Akin was asked, “Why am I hearing from SEBTS profs that you’re requiring diversity training and telling them not to speak out about their objections to Critical Race Theory?”
Akin responded via text, “None of those are true. You need better sources my brother,” to which he was asked, “Better than your profs?” Akin then said curtly, “Unless you want to reveal your source, we can conclude this conversation.”
As with our reporting on Greg Locke, Clayton Jennings, Ergun Caner, or Louisiana College, we may not always be able to cite the name of a source due to fear of repercussions toward the witness, but as you can see, our facts are always proven in God’s providential timing. There are also many reports of NAMB-funded church planters being warned that their funding would be cut if they continued to criticize Russell Moore or the Social Justice direction of the SBC. We will also publish those accounts soon.
[Contributed by JD Hall]
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James White, photo credit Wretched Radio
James White has an important perspective in the Paige Patterson controversy in recent days particularly because he has never been a theological or political ally of Patterson and has a troublesome history and past with the former Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary president. And yet, White seems “woke” (but in a good way) when it comes to what’s really happening in the SBC. His latest Dividing Line was very interesting in the last few minutes, in which he discusses these issues in the SBC from a fairy impartial perspective.
Speaking of the political motivation for the ouster of Patterson, White said…
“…There is massive politics in the SBC, massive behind-the-scenes power struggles with lots of money involved – because you’re controlling denominational structures – and it’s been documented that people who work for those denominational entities are being told ‘you shall not in the public sphere talk about these things’…that’s a fact.”
Speaking of the radical worldview shift of the SBC and SEBTS in particular, White said…
“There’s some strange stuff going on in the Southern Baptist Convention. You look at how fast and radical the shift in fundamental worldview issues; I mean, most of this stuff happened (Patterson was accused of) was while he was at Southeastern, not Southwestern. And Southeastern, you look at where they are today and you can barely see them, way off to the left out there someplace, doing this James Cone stuff and Social Justice stuff and [Critical Race Theory] stuff right down the line. How did this happen in a relatively short period of time?”
On the move toward egalitarianism in the SBC, White said…
“They’re not calling themselves egalitarians, but they are. The left knows how to do these things; you don’t identify yourself as to what you really are until you have the power to identify yourself as what you are…”
More regarding the political motivation of Patterson, White said…
“You keep your eye on what ends up happening at Southwestern. That’s going to be fascinating. You see who ends up in leadership there. If it goes the same direction as Southeastern, don’t say you didn’t know, because I told you so.”
You can listen to the pertinent clip below, or watch the full program on YouTube or the Dividing Line via SermonAudio.
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The following article is the first of a two part testimony about my experience with the cult of Freemasonry at my former church, Rowland Spring Baptist Church. Rowland Springs Baptist Church is a Southern Baptist Church in Cartersville, Georgia and is a part of the Georgia Baptist Convention and Bartow Baptist Association.
Joe Ringwalt has been pastor of RSBC for over 20 years and is a former Georgia Baptist Convention Committee Member.
Pastor Joe Ringwalt stood up before the congregation of Rowland Springs Baptist Church as Sunday morning services came to a close. My wife and I were standing next to him. “It really says something about our church,” he said, “that people of this caliber are joining.” I was a little embarrassed by Joe’s very public compliment of our “caliber” but I was certainly happy, despite my wife’s reservations, to be joining Rowland Springs. I had been kicking the tires of the church for about six months. The preaching was mostly expository, the music was a mix of (mostly) biblical hymns and contemporary songs, the student minister was a Calvinist from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the Sunday School class we had been attending was edifying and full of lovely Christian people. It felt like a Baptist Church and not a Baptist Church that was trying to be something else. The very week that I joined Rowland Springs I was assigned to be the temporary teacher of the “What Christians Believe” Sunday School Class. At the next Church Conference, I was elected by the congregation to become the official teacher of the class. The Sunday School class I looked forward to attending every week became the class I looked forward to teaching. As someone who had been in seminary for nearly a decade, I was excited to finally begin teaching God’s word to others in the local church. Things seemed to have fallen into place quite nicely. A few months later, however, I was meeting with the pastor, the youth minister, and two deacons in the church basement. I was quietly and involuntarily removed as a Sunday School teacher. My class dissolved. I was encouraged to leave the church altogether. This meeting took place in the wake of my discovery that several members of Rowland Springs Baptist Church were officers of Cartersville Masonic Lodge No. 63. Unbeknownst to me when I joined, Rowland Springs Baptist Church was a stronghold of the demonic cult of Freemasonry. When I stood for the holiness of Christ’s church and against the cult of Freemasonry, Rowland Springs Baptist Church stood for the Freemasons. Joe Ringwalt advertises Rowland Springs as “a warm and loving church” and a “fellowship that wants to love you, provide a place of service for you, and challenge you to allow Christ to live his life through you.” On the surface, it is. However, when I scratched the surface of Rowland Springs Baptist Church, the surface scratched back.
2014 to 2016: A Failed Expedition
I walked into Expedition Church on a Sunday at about 11:45 AM. I was late, again. Getting to church, anywhere really, on-time with three young children was no easy task. The music was already over and the sermon-time had begun began. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith was playing on the projector. The congregation watched, during the church service, as Mace Windu and two hapless Jedi Masters fought Darth Sidious to a stalemate.
The stalemate was broken when Anakin Skywalker betrayed the Jedi order and attacked Mace Windu. Darth Vader was born. I was aghast, and it was not because Anakin Skywalker had turned to the Dark Side. My wife and I could have watched Star Wars at home. We came to church. After Mace Windu fell to his death, Pastor Tim Samples began a sermon about power. Darth Vader’s traitorous act served as a sermon illustration of seeking power the wrong way. My wife saw Tim’s increasing use of videos and movie clips as an attempt to fill time. I agreed. It was clear to us both that Tim was phoning in his sermons. Some were basically book reports of whatever he happened to have been reading lately. One was nearly a word-for-word plagiarism of a Ravi Zacharias podcast. Another was an 18-minute YouTube video advertisement for the movie Woodlawn. He set aside one Sunday morning to have a Pentecostal named Ray to come up and talk about the importance of tithing; Ray’s talk included the exact amount he gave each month and a testimony of how God miraculously reactivated his broken computer when he began tithing. The Pentecostal presence at the church was growing. Tim also occasionally filled the pulpit with quasi-missionaries who gave live infomercials for their ministries which were thinly disguised as their testimonies. One of the presenters was a lawyer named Joel Thornton who had a side business selling identify theft insurance. Another was Robert Rogers, a practicing Roman Catholic.
As Tim’s effort into teaching the congregation at Expedition Church waned, my wife and I grew more and more frustrated. As we left each week, my exasperated wife would ask questions like “What was Tim talking about?” I didn’t have a good answer for her. I recognized that there was a big problem but I wanted to stick with Tim. Tim had for years, as we Christians say, “poured into me”. He gave me the privilege of helping teach the youth group at his church on Wednesday nights. He supervised my seminary work in evangelism, leadership, and preaching. He introduced me around the county Baptist association. He opened his pulpit for me to preach when my preaching practicum class required it. He met with me weekly for lunch. He did his best to mentor and disciple me. He pastored me. At Expedition he sought to equip and encourage the whole body for ministry. He rejected the “invest and invite” model of so many Georgia Baptist churches, where church members are charged with giving money to build facilities and inviting their friends and neighbors to hear a professional preacher evangelize them. Tim understood that the church was a body, not a building, a group of people who were tasked with evangelizing their community themselves, with or without an official church program directing them. Having been stung by the “invest and invite” culture myself, I knew Tim was on the right track with what he was trying to do at Expedition Church.
Tim grew up at Roswell Street Baptist Church in Marietta, Georgia under the smooth preaching of Dr. Nelson Price. Price is a venerated man in Southern Baptist culture. In fact, a dormitory at my seminary bears his name. To my knowledge, even in his retirement, Price still bears the title of “Pastor Emeritus” of Roswell Street Baptist Church. Under Price’s preaching, Roswell Street grew and expanded its campus. However, after his retirement, Roswell Street’s properties and attendance levels began to deteriorate. The “invest and invite” model proved not to be a viable long-term solution for Roswell Street. Its large campus became hard to maintain. Tim’s ministry at Expedition is on a much smaller scale. The church property consists of rented office and warehouse space off of Highway 41 in Cartersville. The average attendance is (or, was, at the time I attended) around fifty on a big day. Quite frankly, Tim is no Nelson Price and his preaching wouldn’t fill a big building even if he had one. I used to tell Tim, “You aren’t the best preacher in town, but you’re the best pastor.” Tim was anything but a distant vision caster who didn’t know his flock. He was personally connected to his people. He knew them well. I was once given a personality profile as a part of corporate training. When I told Tim about taking the test he guessed my results almost before I could finish my sentence. I liked having him as a pastor. I liked being a part of the body that was Expedition Church. There were no strangers there and the entire church felt like one, close, multi-generational Sunday School class.
Tim planted Expedition Church himself after being released from the staff of Oak Leaf Church in Cartersville (which is now known as CrossPoint City Church). Tim was the self-described “relationship man” at Oak Leaf. The pastor there claimed not to be a people person and was only interested in preaching from the pulpit, not dealing with people. That became Tim’s role. Unfortunately, one of the people the pastor did deal with was his secretary. After admitting to an affair with her, that pastor left the church in a state of disarray. Tim’s job was a casualty of the reshuffling that followed. Oak Leaf was not the first church in Cartersville at which Tim had been on staff. He had come to Oak Leaf after leaving First Baptist Church where he had served as the youth pastor. In his capacity there, starting in the late nineties, Tim was instructed by church leadership to make inroads with the most popular kids. Doing so, he was told, would make other kids want to come to church. This did not sit right with Tim. Sensing God’s leading, Tim eventually left First Baptist, a bigger more established church, for the upstart Oak Leaf. Tim wasn’t the kind of man who would put the popular kids first, even in the face of steady pay check from an established church. Tim was a man of integrity.
Unfortunately there is often a cost to having integrity. Expedition Church was a relatively poor church. As its Senior Pastor, Tim’s salary was not any more than that of his Youth Pastor salary at First Baptist. He had effectively worked for years without a raise. To make matters worse, Expedition’s offering revenue consistently fell behind budget. The point came when Tim had to take a second job as a hospice chaplain to support his family. He became a bi-vocational preacher. I am convinced that, with his people skills and compassion, that there is not a finer hospice chaplain in all of Georgia. I am equally convinced that the demands Tim’s new job placed on his time significantly decreased the time he had to prepare sermons and manage Expedition Church. The pulpit suffered. To make matters worse, the office of deacon was unfilled at the church and the other elders did not seem equipped to take turns filling the pulpit. Tim was running himself ragged trying to take care of things with which others in the church should have been helping. When Tim put a Roman Catholic, Robert Rogers, in the pulpit, I could no longer ignore the growing problems at Expedition. Bad sermons were one thing. Handing the pulpit to a member of another religion is another.
I approached two elders with my concern that something incredibly inappropriate had taken place in our church. Someone from an apostate church, someone who Galatians 1:8 demands be anathematized, had filled our pulpit. One of the elders was a personal friend of Rogers. He rebuked me for bringing up the matter. The other elder didn’t seem to understand why a Roman Catholic should not fill the pulpit of a Baptist church. The remaining elders were Tim’s father-in-law and a Bapticostal music minister who fed the church a steady diet of Hillsong. Tim could provide me no assurances that a Roman Catholic would never fill the pulpit again. I thought about bringing the matter before the church but quickly realized that it would do no good. There was no official membership roll. A church vote could accomplish nothing and, without a membership roll, was not feasible. Even if a vote had been feasible, I had little confidence in the theological maturity of the congregation. Tim intentionally kept his preaching at a sixth-grade level and Baptist distinctive were not a point of emphasis. Could a congregation who had had no objection to movie clips and infomercials during sermon time really understand what the problem was? Additionally, there was the sensitively of causing controversy in such a small church. I did not think Expedition could financially afford even a small number of families leaving. A couple of families had already left for First Baptist. I loved Tim and I didn’t want him to suffer anymore financial hardship. When I finally saw the church sitting contentedly through a light saber fight during the church service, it became clear to me that bringing the matter of the Roman Catholic preacher up would be fruitless. A dog that can’t smell birds won’t hunt. After the Star Wars sermon I walked out of Expedition Church and never went back. I had come to the sad conclusion that the elders of Expedition Church simply were not qualified for their offices. (I have since learned that a few other families had become disillusioned and left as well; each of them went to CrossPoint City Church.) I haven’t talked to Tim in years. I miss my friend.
Visiting Churches
Having determined to leave Expedition Church, I set out to find my family a new church home. I grew up in Chattanooga attending Woodland Park Baptist Church and listening to Wayne Barber preach. My parents were married there and had been members since before I was born. My family had gone to Woodland Park my whole life until we moved to Cartersville when I was fifteen. I wanted to provide that kind of long-term stability for my family. I could ill afford to make another bad choice. My girls were getting old enough to understand what was going on at church and to make friends in their various circles. Church certainly isn’t a venue intended for small children, most of whom are lost, to make friends. Still, the sermons I heard Wayne Barber preach at age six stick with me until this day and I still listen to them on his podcast archive. I also didn’t want to move my wife again. Family stability, whether in the nuclear family or the church family, is important. She had not been getting fed from the pulpit at Expedition and had patiently endured my faith in Tim for two years. I wanted our family to be in a place where the Bible was proclaimed verse-by-verse on Sunday Morning. So, I made a spreadsheet of every church in the Bartow Baptist Association and began a category by category analysis.
The first church I visited was Pine Grove Baptist. It is a small church directly across the street from Dellinger Park and in close proximity to our home. Upon sitting down in the pew, I was hopeful. The congregation and choir was singing from hymnals; there were no 7-11 songs and I could tell Pine Grove wasn’t the kind of place that would sing them. There would be no Hillsong-style rock concert there. When the pastor entered the pulpit, I took hold of one of the large KJV pew Bibles to follow along. He then turned in his own Bible to the story of the prodigal son and informed the congregation that “God had given him” five principles from this story. My countenance fell. He then proceeded to turn the story of the Prodigal Son into a systematic treatise on free will and a Semi-Pelagian rejection of predestination. His thinly veiled polemic against predestination included no less than three invitations, each more elaborate than the last. Recognizing that I must have been the only new person in the small congregation, I was tempted to go forward and “get saved” all over again so that we could all go home. I ultimately decided that it would be bad form and resolved to visit somewhere new on the next Sunday. Somewhere new was Rowland Springs Baptist Church.
A church website can be a useful tool for learning about a prospective church. Beyond a simple statement of faith, many church websites include sermon archives, biographical information about the pastoral staff, and a recommended reading list. Knowledgeable Christians can use this data to save themselves from visiting a church they would never want to join in the first place. For example, if a church’s recommended reading list includes books by Andy Stanley or Rick Warren, then there is good reason not to view that church as a viable body. The recommending reading list at Rowland Springs includes books by Voddie Buacham, RC Sproul, John MacArthur, and Charles Spurgeon. To contrast, the recommended reading list at Expedition church included books by Rick Warren, Greg Laurie, Brian McLauren, Jim Cymbala, and Andy Stanley. Sometimes who is not on the list says a lot more than who is. When I perused the Rowland Springs reading list, I did not see any red flag authors. Another indicator of soundness at Rowland Springs was the bio of the Adam Burrell, the Minister of Students and Families. Adam’s website bio indicates that he has an MDiv from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and includes a picture of him in a bow-tie that would make Albert Mohler proud. I know a Calvinist when I see one and, sure enough, that’s what Adam is. Even though I am not a five-point Calvinist myself, that Rowland Springs had hired one to teach youth indicated to me that the kind of rank Charles-Finney-style decisionism which was present at Pine Grove and which runs rampant in some Georgia Baptist churches was not present in Rowland Springs. That the church youth minister was seminary-educated family man indicated to me that the church was serious about teaching its youth doctrine and not merely attracting them with fun activities for the sake of winning their parents. In hindsight, I think it may be the case that the church body is so insensitive to matters of doctrine that neither Calvinism nor Finneyism gives them any degree of concern. That the church body has abided extensive Masonic membership indicates that the church’s standards for right belief and living are severely lacking. Unfortunately, the Masonic membership at Rowland Springs was not something of which I was aware at the time. After listening to the Rowland Springs Baptist sermon archives and exchanging emails with Adam, I decided Rowland Springs was worth a visit.
Prospects
I first visited Rowland Springs on my own. My wife stayed behind that Sunday to take care of a sick child. I arrived well before the Sunday School hour started. Kelly Branton, a woman from the praise team, directed me to the Sunday School class for my age group. I wouldn’t have known where to go had I not found her rehearsing in the sanctuary with the rest of the praise team. I took note that Rowland Springs did not have greeters ready to meet visitors and walk them to the proper classroom. Larger churches tend to have an entire team dedicated to doing this. I actually found it favorable that Rowland Springs didn’t. To me, it indicated that the church wasn’t seeker sensitive or McChurch corporate. Not long after Kelly sat me down in the classroom designated for young marrieds, Adam Burrell walked in and directed me upstairs to a Sunday School class that he though was more fitting for me. It was a class entitled What Christians Believe. It was taught by a Deacon named Doug Blankenship and it was based upon the Defenders curriculum that William Lane Craig teaches at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church. I enjoyed the class very much. The next week my family attended with me. My wife insisted that we try out the young married class in order to connect with people our age and in our phase of life. That class was team taught by deacons named Grant McDurmond and Chris McSwain, both of whom are professional school teachers.
The man pictured here in the green shirt is Dale Hibbard, Chris McSwain’s Father-In-Law. Dale and many members of his extended family are members of RSBC. This photo was taken at a Masonic Golf Tournament in 2016 by local Masonic Lodge officer, Tony Ross.
Grant and Chris used LifeWay material to teach their class. It took one week for my wife and I decide to move back to the class upstairs. Doug was a good teacher. He was teaching systematic theology and apologetics; class discussion was meaningful. We both enjoyed the class over the next few weeks. It had been over a year since we were a part of a Sunday School class. We became a regular part of the class and met some really nice people. It wasn’t long after we first started visiting Rowland Springs that my wife experienced serious problems with a pregnancy. I sent Doug an email from the hospital asking for prayer. We got much more than that. The entire class descended upon our house with meals and domestic assistance even though we weren’t church members and had only been visiting for a few weeks. I felt like a part of the group.
Still, I had trepidation about joining a new church after what we had experienced as members of First Baptist Church of Woodstock and Expedition Church. I really wanted to kick the tires at RSBC. The tires seemed pretty sturdy. We had a great Sunday School class with great people. The music was nearly devoid of Hillsong and featured both hymns and contemporary songs. Joe Ringwalt was no Spurgeon but he preached fairly biblical sermons. I noticed that he was far from a “CEO-Vision Caster” pastor. He made his rounds each Sunday and checked on the various Sunday School rooms. It was his church to pastor and he acted like it. Both he and Adam took an interest in talking to me and learning about my background. Adam even took me to lunch one day. It was a good time. There was an even a friendly old man who always found us in the sanctuary to shake hands and talk before the service began. His name was Jim Moore. As nice as he was, there was something about him that made me uneasy. “I wonder if he is a Mason,” I thought to myself when I first met him. There was just something about him that made me think that.
After a couple of months, Joe and Adam began to contact me to ask about coming to my house for a visit. We were “prospects.” They were interested in us joining the church. My wife had reservations about the church in general and Joe specifically and expressed her hesitancy to join the church to me. I considered her reservations but it had been a good few months, especially in Sunday School. One night Joe and Adam finally came over to talk to us about membership. All parties did their due diligence. Adam and Joe asked about our salvation experiences and church backgrounds. I asked, and apologized for having to do so, if Joe would ever let a Roman Catholic fill the pulpit. His answer was a resounding “no.” He was incredulous that Tim Samples had allowed one to preach at Expedition and expressed that Roman Catholics have a “whole different theology”. I also asked about Freemasonry in the church. I was told that none were in leadership. Both Joe and Adam had trouble thinking of any masons outside of a Deacon who was no longer active. Joe expressed his derision for the Masonic craft saying that he didn’t need a “worshipful master.” He was clear that he did not support Freemasonry. I was strongly leaning towards joining Rowland Springs. One thing that held me back was discovering, through perusing the Cartersville Lodge website, that Jim Moore was indeed a Freemason. The website displayed a picture of Jim proudly receiving his fifty year Mason award. I showed Adam the picture and asked him if he knew of anymore Masons. He said he did not. Adam had been at the church for years and was the Minister of Families. I figured he was knowledgeable enough. I wasn’t going to let one Mason stop me from joining what seemed like a very good church. Besides, the pastor had strongly communicated to me that he did not support Freemasonry. Unfortunately, as I came to find out later, Jim was not alone.
The 2018 Officers of the Cartersville Masonic Lodge include Jim Moore, Freddie Gunn, and Frankie James. All are members of RSBC.
A Short Treatise on Southern Baptist Sunday School
Adult Sunday School classes at Southern Baptist Churches almost universally make use of the LifeWay Explore the Bible Sunday School quarterly. Explore the Bible is produced and sold by the Southern Baptist Convention’s publishing arm, LifeWay Christian Resources. One needn’t be particularly conversant in Biblical theology and history to “teach” canned lessons from the LifeWay Sunday School material. Lessons include prefabricated, open-ended questions for the “teacher” to read to his class. In effect many Southern Baptist Sunday School teachers are essentially lesson facilitators who serve in a quasi-pastoral role. Age and marital-status-based Sunday School groups effectively become little churches within a larger church. The Sunday School teacher is expected to lead his “little church” into growing the “big church” through reaching out to his particular demographic. In return for his service, the Sunday School teacher garners influence in the community. Actual learning may or may not occur; some teachers are better than others.
A former Sunday School teacher of mine personifies the quintessential Southern Baptist Sunday School “facilitator.” His name is Matthew Gambill. Matthew “taught” the young marrieds class at Tabernacle Baptist Church in Cartersville when my wife and I were members there many years ago. Matthew was a Methodist Republican politician who married a Baptist Republican politician and ended up teaching Sunday School in a Baptist church. Matthew is a well-educated, service-minded, nice person who seems generally devoid of a systematic understanding of the Scriptures. When I was in his class, he basically read LifeWay at us for half an hour each Sunday morning. If he was asked a question about the material, he struggled to find the answer. He was once unable to explain to a class member what a “heavenly host” was. Worse yet, he seemed completely indifferent about the ordinance of baptism. I remember vividly being a part of a conversation about Baptism with Matthew and another class member at a Sunday School party. The class member was from Europe and had a reformed, paedobaptist background. He was lamenting the fact that he had to “re-baptized” by immersion in order to join Tabernacle with his wife. Matthew sympathized and told him that he had to do the same thing. Instead of explaining the importance of believer’s Baptism to the class member, Matthew merely pointed out the pragmatism of not arguing about the requirement. It dawned upon me that the Methodists in our town tend to be Democrats. Matthew is running for the State Congress this year. I suppose I’ll vote for him.
Rowland Springs: Joining and Teaching
It is very unusual to join a new church and be appointed as a Sunday School teacher the very same week. Yet, this unique occurrence is exactly what happened when I joined Rowland Springs Baptist Church. The What Christians Believe Sunday School class was somewhat unique itself. The What Christians Believe Sunday School class at Rowland Springs was not age-stratified or based on Lifeway material. It was a multi-generational class. Ages ranged from middle-school aged to middle-aged. There were teenagers who came with their parents, women with unchurched husbands (a notoriously difficult to place Sunday School demographic), and married couples. The class curriculum was a survey of Systematic Theology. When I first arrived at RSBC, the class was taught by a deacon named Doug Blankenship. Doug, an accountant by trade, had a formal theological education. Doug was not a local politician or small-business owner. In addition to being a well-educated, service-minded, nice person, Doug was a true teacher who understood the class material. When I first came to Rowland Springs, I had been out of Sunday School for two years. I very much enjoyed being a part of Doug’s class. It was worth waking up to get to it on time. Doug took a job in Texas as I was in the process of joining the church. Even though I was a new member of the church, I was a long-time member of the class. Like Doug, I was formally theologically educated. My fellow class members recommended to the pastor that I be given teaching responsibilities. I was more than happy to accept them. My short time teaching the What Christians Believe was a rewarding one. I loved preparing the lesson every week. I was very happy to be serving in Rowland Springs Baptist Church body. There was just one small matter that nagged at me. There was a church member in a cult and no one, including the pastor, seemed to have a problem with it. This was a grave matter indeed. I struggled with how to approach it. Quite frankly I didn’t want to. I was quite content teaching my little class, an oasis of learning and biblical discussion in a LifeWay world. Saying something to Jim Moore about being a Freemason would no doubt be uncomfortable. I continued to research Freemasonry and even published a few blog articles about it. I knew it was a cult and a scourge but I still didn’t say anything to Jim.
Fred Gunn Jr and the Newspaper
It was December of 2016. I arrived home from work and there, at the end of my driveway, was a newspaper that I hadn’t ordered. The previous resident of my home was an older gentleman and I was still receiving his newspaper subscription. Being a child of the digital age, I don’t usually peruse printed newspapers. When I receive a newspaper at my house, I walk to the recycling bin, slide the paper out of its plastic sleeve, remove the Arby’s coupons, and trash the rest. On this particular day, I broke with my normal habit and decided to flip through the pages of the paper. Within I found the obituary of Fred Gunn, Jr. He had died at age 85. I had never met him before but I had heard his name at church and knew that he had been sick.
In this photo from the Cartersville Masonic Lodge, RSBC church member (since deceased) Fred Gunn Jr (father of Freddie Gunn) receives a 60 Year Mason Award.
Fred’s obituary noted the following:
“He was a veteran of the National Guard, a member of the Cartersville Masonic Lodge #63 F&M for sixty years, and a member of Rowland Springs Baptist Church…Internment will be private. The Bartow County Sheriff’s Department will serve as Honor Guard and the Cartersville Lodge will be in charge of Masonic Rites.”
“Masonic Rites,” I read the words alongside the name of my own church with embarrassment. My own church was burying a member who chose to go into the ground in front of his friends and family with pagan funeral rites. Jim Moore was an old man and a fifty-year Mason. He could very soon meet his Maker, unrepentant of his paganism. To my shame, I had said nothing to him about Freemasonry. Here I was writing blog articles and making Facebook posts about Freemasonry being a cult while not exhibiting the resolve to speak up in my own church. Fred Gunn’s obituary marked the last day I would ignore Freemasonry at Rowland Springs Baptist Church. I knew that as long as there was one Freemason in my church that it was unholy. I had to take action, scripture demanded as much. I threw away the newspaper as Ephesians 5:11 burned in my mind. The Holy Spirit was convicting me.
In this photo, RSBC Church member Jim Moore is named “Honorable Past Master”. With him are RSBC members Frankie James and Alton Kay (now a former member). Kay, an ordained deacon of RSBC was the Worshipful Master of the Lodge in 2017.
Part Two of this article is forthcoming…
[Contributed by: Seth Dunn]
*Please note that the preceding is my personal opinion. It is not necessarily the opinion of any entity by which I am employed, any church at which I am a member, any church which I attend, or the educational institution at which I am enrolled. Any copyrighted material displayed or referenced is done under the doctrine of fair use.
The post Rowland Springs Baptist Church and the Demonic Cult of Freemasonry: Part One – Silence and Conviction appeared first on Pulpit & Pen.
Gregory Duane Locke of Global Vision Bible Church (GVBC) in Mt. Juliet, TN can finally honestly say that he is “a divorced pastor.” Locke’s divorce from his estranged wife Melissa was finalized three weeks ago. In January, Locke released a dramatic Facebook video proclaiming to his 1 Million+ followers that he had been abandoned by his wife and that his marriage had been dissolved. Locke’s tearful claim to be an abandoned “divorced pastor” turned out to be a false one. Subsequent Pulpit & Pen investigations revealed that, at the time of his video, Locke’s wife had already stopped divorce proceedings, hoping to reconcile. Furthermore, it was discovered that his wife had been coerced into filing for divorce by her pastor husband. Pulpit & Pen was able to track Melissa down in a Georgia women’s shelter in March. During a riveting interview with me, Melissa Locke revealed that her husband and pastor, Greg Locke, had been physically abusive to during their marriage. Furthermore, Mrs. Locke provided text messages from her husband in which he viciously fat-shamed her and berated her with profanity. Despite the way her husband treated her, Mrs. Locke sought to honor her marriage vows and reconcile with him. Greg Locke would have none of it and filed a divorce suit of his own. At the center of the Locke’s marital controversies has been Melissa’s best friend and GVBC Church Administrator Tai Cowan. Two weeks ago, Pulpit & Pen received the pictures shown below.
According to the party who provided the pictures, a person local to Mt. Juliet, the pictures show Greg Locke’s white Nissan Quest minivan in the driveway of the residence of Tai Cowan. This weekend, a Pulpit & Pen correspondent was able to gather corroborating evidence that the residence shown is indeed that of Tai Cowan. The pictures are time stamped at 9:42 PM and 11:02 PM, respectively, on May 11th. This would put Greg at his secretary and alleged girlfriend’s house (during the night) before his divorce was finalized. Is this fitting behavior for a pastor, even a single one? Those who attend GVBC and financially support Greg Locke through his online ministry need to seriously consider the wisdom of backing a man who passes himself off as a pastor. Quite frankly, there is no system of eldership or church democracy at GVBC. Greg Locke, outside of any outside source of authority or discipline, simply declares himself to be a “pastor.” Outside of preaching at a building on Sunday morning and taking donations, does Greg Locke live the life of a biblical pastor? As a husband, he is divorced from his wife of over twenty years, a woman who claims she was battered by him and spent several months in an out-of-state women’s shelter. As a father, he has been under investigation by the Tennessee Department of Children’s services. To boot, overwhelming evidence indicates that Locke is and was dating his church secretary before his divorce was final (even vacationing with her and his family in Gatlinburg).
When it comes to “pastor” Greg Locke and Global Vision Bible Church, how much is enough? Everyone currently supporting this man should consider what their money could do at different missions organization that isn’t steeped in controversy and moral decline. For every non-Christian who sees Christ’s church through the lens of Greg Locke’s popular, politically-charged videos, please consider the claims of the Bible against the life of Greg Locke. It is apparent through his actions that Greg Locke clearly does not represent Christ and is utterly unqualified to claim the title of “pastor.”
*Please note that the preceding is my personal opinion. It is not necessarily the opinion of any entity by which I am employed, any church at which I am a member, any church which I attend, or the educational institution at which I am enrolled. Any copyrighted material displayed or referenced is done under the doctrine of fair use.
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The Minnesota Conference of the United Methodist Church has removed the term, ‘Father,’ from the Apostle’s Creed in an attempt to be more gender inclusive to God.
The ancient creed of the Christian Church reads:
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead.
However, United Methodists in the Minnesota Conference decided that referring to God as “Father” wasn’t inclusive enough for the 21st century United Methodist Church. At the conference, held May 30 through June 1, conference organizers omitted reference to God the Father. Instead, they changed the phrase “God the Father Almighty” to “God the Creator Almighty.” The creed passed out to attendees also removed the phrase, “Jesus Christ, His only Son” to “Jesus Christ, God’s only Son.”
One attendee, Keith Mcilwain, posted a screenshot of their newly revised creed via social media.
McIlwain is currently the pastor of Slippery Rock United Methodist Church in Pennsylvania. Mcilwain said, “No United Methodist individual or body has the authority to edit those creeds which were formulated by the early Church and have helped define orthodox Christianity for the better part of 2000 years.”
The United Methodist Church has repeatedly become more egalitarian in the early twenty-first and latter twentieth century, beginning with the ordaining of female clergy with full ordination rights in 1956. The roots of the egalitarian movement among Methodists began, however, with the 18th century female preacher, Mary Bosanquet Fletcher, convincing John Wesley that some women should be given limited preaching abilities. In most recent days, the United Methodist Church has been drained of male clergy, with more than 10,300 female clergy members nationwide.
A United Methodist Church website provides a blog explaining the concept behind removing the “Father” understanding of God (taught by Jesus and the rest of Scripture). In the following quotiation, their use of the term, “God language,” means language used by people to refer to God:
Leaders need to establish the ground rules: Everybody’s God language is appropriate. People’s God language signifies a relationship that you can’t interfere with. You can raise questions and offer additional perspectives, but you can’t dictate. You can’t prohibit anybody from using any language about God. Whether they want to call God “Jehovah” or “Big Dog,” you can’t judge the validity of how that name connects them with God. People just need to get used to that.
Pastors and other leaders should give attention to teaching people what the church’s traditional images mean and what they don’t mean. For instance, the “fatherhood” of God is about relationship, not biology. Our people won’t know how to reflect theologically about these things — instead of just reacting emotionally — unless we give them the tools.
Pastors and other worship leaders should expose people to a variety of images of God, both familiar and new, both comforting and provocative. People should regularly hear God referred to in public worship with images that are male, female, and gender neutral. In a worship service the choir may sing an anthem with thickly sexist, male-dominated language, while the prayers are full of feminine imagery. People can sing their own words, with their personal substitutions, if they wish. People should be encouraged to take responsibility for their own faith.
In the meantime, Jesus taught us to pray, “Our Father, who art in Heaven…”
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George Orwell’s Animal Farm was included in the curriculum of my 9th Grade “World Cultures” class at Central High School in Chattanooga, TN. In the book, which is an allegory of the Russian Revolution, a group of animals, led by pigs, overthrow their human master and take over the farm on which they live. Having thrown off the yoke of human oppression, the animals build a society based upon equality. It doesn’t take long, however, for the rules of the revolution to change. “All animals are equal,” declare the pigs, “but some animals are more equal than others.” At the end of the story, the pigs take to playing cards with humans while their animal brethren look on. The last line of Animal Farm reads as follows:
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
In the Southern Baptist Convention, R. Albert Mohler is seen as something of a reforming intellectual, a stalwart beacon of conservatism who overthrew the liberal influence at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary early in his career. Young Southern Baptists look up to him. The Conservative Resurgence, in which he took part, was a part of the Baptist History curriculum at my seminary. Here is a picture of Mohler and his wife signing copies of their books at the Southern Baptist Convention today:
It’s been a full day at #SBC18. Mary and I are here posing fir photo before joint book signing (so sweet), but honestly it looks like a promo for our new morning tv program, “Pink and Blue with Me and You.” Stay tuned. pic.twitter.com/gD6UTQqJeR
— Albert Mohler (@albertmohler) June 12, 2018
In 2014, Mohler nominated Ronnie Floyd to be SBC President. Ronnie Floyd is not seen as something of a reforming intellectual, a stalwart beacon of conservatism. Ronnie Floyd is a slick-dressing (his nick name is “Ronnie Armani”) mega pastor who pays a photographer to follow him around and take pictures of him being a Christian celebrity. Floyd once preached at IHOP (the cult, not the restaurant) and is a borderline prosperity pimp. Floyd has a mentorship program at his (multi-campus) church where young men can pay him to come and learn how to be like him. Mohler once endorsed that program. Floyd just wrote (somehow finding the time to do so) a book about how to live a healthy life (think Dr. Phil/Tony Robbins/Dr. Oz but a preacher with no medical degree). Here’s a picture advertising Floyd’s book signing at the Southern Baptist Convention today:
Come see me at 3:30 PM today #LivingFitBook pic.twitter.com/lhUI7jWsGa
— Ronnie Floyd (@ronniefloyd) June 11, 2018
It’s not hard to understand why the Southern Baptist Convention is, once again, in trouble. For some reason, Southern Baptist sycophants (many of whom are pastors) want to go to the Southern Baptist Convention, buy books, and have them signed by their luminary authors. There are vision caster wannabee church growth slicksters who want to be like Floyd. There are Calvinist bow-tie wearing intellectuals who want to be like Mohler. One group thinks the other group is different. All I see is mega men selling mega books and making mega bucks off of their mega fans. I think, sometime later in the week, people are going to walk away from the merchandise booths and vote on sending missionaries to a lost and dying world. I hope that part goes okay. Then it’s back to the book tables I guess. Looking back, I think I learned more from Animal Farm than I have from Southern Baptist celebrities. Now, I’m going to end this article with the same quote I already used in case someone still doesn’t get it:
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
*Please note that the preceding is my personal opinion. It is not necessarily the opinion of any entity by which I am employed, any church at which I am a member, any church which I attend, or the educational institution at which I am enrolled. Any copyrighted material displayed or referenced is done under the doctrine of fair use.
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Hillary Clinton declined Russell Moore’s invitation to speak at the 2015 affair, but two non-evangelical politicians did not decline. No one complained.
The informal theme of the 2018 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting was supposed to be “wokeness,” an awareness of Social Justice and the supposed importance of its various Marxist implications. The SBC-sponsored veneration of Martin Luther King Jr – a man of dubious theological beliefs and abysmal moral character – at the MLK50 event leading up to the annual conference set the stage for more than a month promoting Critical Race Theory and egalitarianism. The #MeToo Movement drove the Convention chatter in the weeks prior to this event, with forces within the Evangelical Deep State ousting Dr. Paige Patterson for what has (thus far) been unsubstantiated or (at best) weak and decades-old allegations of gender insensitivity. Upcoming SBC president, JD Greear, used the opportunity to push for female leadership in churches and within the denomination, and racial incendiaries like Thabiti Anyabwile, Kyle J. Howard, Eric Mason and Dwight Marxissic all shifted their racial gears to overdrive on female empowerment, some even floating the idea of nominating Beth Moore as president of the SBC in the next few years. The leftist-progressive wheel of change missed a cog, however, when it was announced that Vice President Mike Pence would be addressing the Convention on Wednesday. Those invested in the denomination’s hard push left were outraged that the conservative Christian leader would be invited to speak to messengers, but ironically, there is virtually no record of outrage when Russell Moore invited Hillary Clinton and two Roman Catholic politicians to address a much larger SBC event in 2015.
SBC Voices, an echo chamber, peanut gallery and amen choir of Southern Baptist bloggers who are programmed what to think by the Evangelical Intelligentsia – the very same ones who would have strongly resisted the ideological strong left turn only a few short years ago – voiced their anger at the Pence invitation, apparently unaware of their double standards that have been floating around by every shifting wind of doctrine.
Brent Hobbes
Brent Hobbes, who Pulpit & Pen has written about numerous times before, took a break from the Convention’s affairs to quickly pen an article entitled, Mike Pence Should Not Address #SBC2018. Speaking for the growing Social Justice contingent in the quickly liberalizing contingent of the SBC, Hobbes said:
I understand it would be a kind of honor to have the Vice President of the United States address the convention. A kind of honor. But not the kind we should be seeking. The focus of our meeting should be brokenness and repentance. A theology of the cross – as opposed to a theology of glory. Many have called for an extended time of prayer so that we can mourn and lament. I don’t know if that will take place or not. But does a visit from the Vice President fit that spirit? How can it? How does it send any other message than, “Look at us! The power and prestige of Southern Baptists – who have the friendship of those in our nation’s highest office!”
Jonathan Merritt
It may or may not be lost on Hobbes and other complainers that it’s been a tradition for Southern Baptists to invite the POTUS to speak to its gathering, at least whenever the administration is friendly to a Judeo-Christian worldview. President George W. Bush, for example, spoke to the SBC annual convention on June 2, 2011, by invitation of then-president of the convention, James Merritt (who now seems to be much more aligned with the Social Justice contingent of the SBC, and is the father of prominent homosexual journalist, Jonathan Merritt). This had been forgotten in the Obama years, with the president who considered most Southern Baptists to be “bitter clingers” who held on to their Bibles and guns.
Pence was once a Roman Catholic but embraced the Gospel at a Christian music concert. His conversion not only took him away from Priestcraft, which greatly disappointed his family, but also led him away from the Democratic Party (which genuine conversion is bound to do). Pence has been a member of Grace Evangelical Church in Indianapolis, a church affliated with the Evangelical Free Church, which is a relatively orthodox denomination. Pence has been a friend of Christian values, serving as governor of Indiana to help defund Planned Parenthood and defend religious liberty. Without any hesitation, Vice President Pence has done more to protect religious liberty both in Indiana and nationwide than a thousand Russell Moores. One would think that inviting Pence to give a short talk to the Convention messengers would make absolute sense. And yet, it has angered those who thought this year’s convention would only serve as a hat-tip to the progressive left wing of the SBC run by Russell Moore, Danny Akin, and Albert Mohler.
Hobbes wrote:
I can’t see any way for a member of a President’s administration to address the convention without our convention being seen as supportive and politically tied. When Mike Pence enters, he’ll receive a standing ovation from a (likely vast) majority of the messengers. This will alienate those in our own family who by conviction do not or cannot support this administration. Instead of standing together in unity over the gospel, our political differences will be put on display for an extended ovation.
Of course, Hobbes and the SBC’s left wing have a terribly short memory.
Russell Moore, who has repeatedly used his position as SBC spokesman on political issues to attack Donald Trump and the Trump administration (as well as any pastors who support them) – the same Russell Moore who is operating as the braintrust that runs the Social Justice wing of the convention, invited Hillary Clinton to speak at an official Southern Baptist event in August of 2015. At the North American Mission Board (NAMB) “Send Conference,” Moore invited three non-Christians to speak to Southern Baptists, including two Roman Catholics – Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush – who ended up accepting the invitation. Not accepting the invitation was Hillary Clinton. Nonetheless, Hillary Clinton was invited to speak to quantitatively more Southern Baptists than will be present to hear Vice President Mike Pence.
At the time, Moore drew a small amount of criticism for not inviting politicians who were actual Christians to speak, or those associated with Southern Baptist Churches, like Mike Huckabee (a former president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention), Ted Cruz or Rick Perry. Moore did not receive any criticism from Brent Hobbes, Dwight Marxissic, Eric Mason, Thabiti Anyabwile or others for inviting non-believing politicians to address Convention members or even for inviting Hillary Clinton (who claims membership in the United Methodist Church), who is opposed to virtually anything closely resembling a Judeo-Christian worldview.
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The stage was set. A standoff with infinite consequences. Jesus Christ was brought face to face before the ruling authorities and political pressures of his day. He would either be acknowledged and accepted for who he is or wholly rejected. So it was written:
“Jesus answered…To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?” – John 18:37
In today’s politicized climate, Jesus Christ is once again in the crosshairs. The Luciferian state has gone so far as to virtually declare the word of truth a form of hate speech. Jesus and his teachings are a foreign and domestic threat to the prince of this fallen world and his minions who blindly and foolishly seek to redesign the landscape into the image of corruptible man. Those who stand for nothing, in particular, will fall for anything but the true and living word. Nothing exemplifies the open rebellion against all that is good, sacred and pure than the radical sexual revolution.
Radical social engineers and their homofascist front group the LGBTQ –as in questioning and undermining absolute, eternal truth– are the battering ram and existential sledgehammer used to drive the foundations of God-fearing, thriving society to the fringes…
Why are evangelicals adopting their language and following their lead?
A quick review of the ‘gay identity’ affirming REVOICE conference is just the latest in a series of alarming developments…
Cosmic Treason
Theologian, RC Sproul faithfully has done what so many others have failed to do by vividly exposing the ‘cosmic treason’ wrought by the sin and depravity of man:
Sin is not restricted merely to an external action that transgresses a divine law. Rather, it represents an internal motive, a motive that is driven by an inherent hostility toward the God of the universe. It is rarely discussed in the church or in the world that the biblical description of human fallenness includes an indictment that we are by nature enemies of God. In our enmity toward Him, we do not want to have Him even in our thinking…
Sproul ultimately brings the focus back to Jesus Christ when he declares:
The most violent expression of God’s wrath and justice is seen in the Cross. If ever a person had room to complain for injustice, it was Jesus. He was the only innocent man ever to be punished by God. If we stagger at the wrath of God, let us stagger at the Cross. Here is where our astonishment should be focused.
Philosophers, ideologues, and spiritualists who dabble in scientism, Marxism and Gnosticism will offer dehumanizing global solutions that place the proposed needs of the creation over the souls and bodies of the individual. They will think nothing of sacrificing the spiritual and bodily health of the citizenry at the altar of arbitrary, manufactured pagan consent.
However, it’s the resurgence of secular culture’s influence on mainstream evangelicals, primarily in the form of a minimization of personal/original sin, which is the most perplexing. We should expect outside resistance, but we must vehemently call out the wolves on the inside as well. It is one thing to be deemed a ‘hater,’ for Jesus deemed it would be so, it is yet another to be cast off as a traitor.
The Sexual Identity Fallacy
Everything which is in man, from the intellect to the will, from the soul even to the flesh, is defiled and pervaded with this concupiscence; or, to express it more briefly, that the whole man is in himself nothing else than concupiscence – John Calvin (Institutes 2.1.8)
Lest we forget, it is the mortification of sinful desires and inclinations which remains at the heart of the radical transformation in the life of a Christian. We cannot compromise with sin. As soon as our sin is made known to us it must be rooted out. It must be wholly rejected and extinguished. The sinful condition of the natural man is spiritual trauma that must be overcome and replaced with the saving and healing power of Christ. But how can we be reconciled and sanctified if we are still holding onto our sin?
“For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.” – Ephesians 5:31
Before God and man, we must boldly affirm that the categorization and legitimization of sexual identity run completely counter to God’s word. We were made male and female and our lusts and passions are to be annihilated in our submission to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The secular labels and language regarding sexuality don’t apply as the thoughts and inclinations toward those of like design are nothing short of an abomination. These are the truths that must be upheld.
Revoice Rejoice!
The good news is that the greater our depravity, the sweeter our deliverance. Scripture testifies of the blessed state of those wholly devoted to God…
“He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord.” – 1 Corinthians 7:32
The true way is the only way for those who have labored and are heavy laden.
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After not being renewed for a second term as trustee to the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission for allegedly appearing to be “in the pocket” of ERLC president, Russell Moore, Southern Baptist messengers overturned SBC due process to renew the trustee’s term after a passionate plea from Russell Moore supporters.
In Southern Baptist life, church members are told to “trust the trustees.” This mantra is brought out from the woodshed and hoisted high like a moniker whenever Southern Baptist entities do something incredibly stupid. What “trust the trustees” mean is “mind your own business.”
Paige Patterson enrolls a Muslim at Southwestern? Trust the trustees!
Russell Moore throws Southern Baptist clout and power behind getting a Mosque built in New Jersey? Trust the trustees!
IMB wastes and mismanages hundreds of millions of dollars? Trust the trustees!
Bob Reccord pilfers millions of dollars from NAMB and they give him a 500k severance package? Trust the trustees!
Lifeway sells theological rat poison? Trust the trustees!
The idea behind the slogan is simple; trustees know more than you, they’re chosen (implicitly, by God) for the job – and you are not – and that you should trust whatever negotiated decision they make in a smoke-filled backroom out there. If you ever disagree with the decision of the trustees, the Convention is told, it’s probably just because they were privy to more top-secret information than you. Dave Miller wrote about this in his peanut-gallery blog, SBC Voices, in his post, Trustees and the SBC: A Key to Our Future.
Trust the Trustees.
It is not just a suggestion for Southern Baptists, it is a way of life. You can gripe and moan and rage and resolve and move, but in the end, the direction of the entities of the Southern Baptist Convention is set by the Trustees. Even our actions at the SBC Annual Meeting have far less control over these entities than we think. We approve the budget and we elect the trustees, but the trustees are entrusted with the oversight of the entities. People have railed about the injustice of entities that don’t bend and bow to SBC resolutions.
“Trust the Trustees” is another way of saying, “Move along, Citizen, there is nothing to see here.” However, at the Southern Baptist Convention, messengers representing the ERLC Deep State took to the floor to demand that the bureaucratic system in place to appoint trustees be overturned to allow a (supposedly) pro-Russell Moore former trustee another term, in spite of the fact he had been found unfit to uphold his fiduciary responsibility as a trustee.
Trustees, in theory, keep entities in check. Southern Baptist entities (such as seminaries, Lifeway, the North American Mission Board, the International Mission Board, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and so on) are essentially free agents, not bound by resolutions at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting. They are independent and receive a cut of the Cooperative Program pie, the portion from offering plates given to the denomination by Southern Baptist churches. The control that the SBC has over entities is limited to the trustee selection process, after which, the trustees govern the entity. However, as I’ve explained many times, the process of trustee selection is often corrupt, with entity heads directing the trustee selection process with only those individuals agreeable to the entity heads being nominated for trustee positions (this is especially true with seminaries). A certain fraction of trustees at SBC entities are rubes, hillbilly preachers or rural pastors or clueless inner-city ministers who are simply thrilled to have been given the offer to serve as a trustee and to have their travel compensated financially and their time compensated with finger-sandwiches and shoulder-to-shoulder time with VIPs; this contingent is widely kept out of the decision making process altogether, which is explains why so much of the time, SBC trustees have gone on record stating their absolute ignorance of entity actions whenever those actions are controversial. Another fraction of trustees at SBC entities are chosen because they are hard-core supporters of the SBC Industrial Machine, and champion the vocational employee heads of the entities.
Pastor Dan Anderson and wife, Kathy
The ERLC trustee controversy began this week when Dan Anderson was not given a second term as a trustee at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. It is ordinary to give a trustee two one-year back-to-back terms. However, SBC bylaws do not require any trustee to be given a second term. In fact, it is suggested that the one-year, two-term process was chosen over a one-term, two-year process in order to ensure that someone was fulfilling their fiduciary responsibilities before being given more time as a trustee. A “fiduciary duty” is one in which a steward or trustee is trusted with doing what is in the best interest of the organization they are overseeing. As a trustee of the ERLC, it was Dan Anderson’s job to make sure that Russell Moore was serving the Southern Baptist Convention as he should and that the entity itself was reflecting the beliefs of SBC messengers, pastors, and laypeople. According to Anderson, he was not given a second term because the Committee on Nominations asked him whether or not he would speak up if he felt Dr. Moore had done anything inappropriate, and he didn’t answer to their satisfaction.
According to Moore acolytes, there is a conspiracy by the Committee on Nominations to stack the ERLC with anti-Moore individuals. However, the Committee on Nominations denied that the conversation took place or that such a question was asked. It has been reported to Pulpit & Pen that Anderson is not necessarily a strong advocate or opponent of Russell Moore, and fits into the clueless “it’s an honor just to serve” category of trustees. It is likely that the Committee on Nominations – which made their decision unanimously – saw the same problem with Anderson. Trustees should be willing to hold entity heads accountable, or the trustee system itself is pointless.
However, flexing his muscle, Russell Moore had some of his strongest supporters run a blitzkrieg propaganda campaign, insinuating that there was something nefarious behind the decision of the Committee on Nominations. After several impassioned pleas ranging from lauding Anderson’s personal integrity to arguing that not giving a second term hurts the continuity of leadership (an asinine argument if there ever was one, considering there’s already a one-term, two-year limit and with nearly 80 trustees the departure of a single man would make no difference whatsoever, Anderson was reinstated as an ERLC trustee.
My best guess is that in reality, there’s little truth to Anderson’s claim and no substantiation for it. My best guess is also that the Committee on Nominations asked a question like, “Would you speak up if you disagreed with Russell Moore” and Anderson – without guile – answered in a way not conducive to fulfilling trustee fiduciary responsibility. Anderson then cried foul on the question and the Moore contingent was aghast that trustees were being asked if they were willing to do their actual job. To Moore and the powers that be in the ERLC and SBC, trustees are expected to support, rather than oppose, entity heads. This was likely a signal to what few critics of the ERLC that exist that there will be no resistance from among trustees to Russell Moore’s agenda, and to demonstrate that the messengers to the SBC will support Moore against any attempt (even if imagined) to oust him.
It was a massive win for Russell Moore’s solidification of power, and ensures the SBC that there will be no serious effort of the trustee system to keep Moore’s influence in check. Apparently not only can we not trust the trustees, it’s out-of-line to ask if they can be trusted; they are to support the entity head or else. It is safe to say that there is no man in the SBC who wields as much influence over the Southern Baptist Convention as Russell Moore (not even the venerable Albert Mohler), and with much of his influence being among younger, more progressive Baptists, his influence is only sure to grow for decades to come.
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The SBC is soon considering a resolution on “Christlike Communication and the Use of Social Media.” Seemingly an innocent reminder to more like Jesus in our communications, the resolution isn’t as innocuous as it seems.
Robert Gagnon
Dr. Robert Gagnon explains the problems with the resolution on his Facebook page as follows…
Here is a truly dangerous resolution released out of committee and going to the floor of the Southern Baptist Convention, a resolution that would likely lead to the selective, politically-correct punishing of persons who on social media disagree with improper behavior by Southern Baptist leaders in power (the head of the ERLC, leaders of Southern Baptist seminaries, the current head of the SBC, etc.).
I have seen how selectively such “civility” standards operate in left-wing religious institutions: i.e., as a means of squashing dissent from those in power. The same can happen in the Southern Baptist denomination. Those in power often do their badmouthing of others behind the scenes, orally and in private, because they don’t need public channels to effect change. This resolution would do nothing to stop that sort of behavior and thus would exempt the powerful and punish the powerless.
In Southern Baptist circles, critics of Paige Patterson often engaged in brutal attacks of his character and misrepresentation on social media. They would experience no repercussions for doing that. However, those who called into question such brutal attacks and criticized instead the dishonoring actions of the Executive Committee of the Board of Southwestern Seminary would likely find themselves in hot water.
Having nothing to fear would be Southern Baptist leaders who viciously attacked Christians who supported Donald Trump or Roy Moore over the alternatives of pro-abortion, anti-religious-liberty, pro-LGBTQ-coercion Hillary Clinton or Doug Jones, respectively, calling such Christians “hypocrites” and “moral relativists” but who then minimized or overlooked MLK’s legacy of extraordinary sexual immorality while elevating him to high honor. Those having something to fear would be anyone who criticized those committing such double standards.
These kinds of abuses can occur even when the powers that be have the best of intentions.
“RESOLUTION 7 – ON CHRISTLIKE COMMUNICATION AND THE USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
[better named:
ON SELECTIVE PUNISHMENT, FOR ALLEGED SOCIAL MEDIA INCIVILITY, OF THOSE WHO CRITICIZE SBC LEADERS IN POWER, AKA GETTING OUR ENEMIES]
“RESOLVED, That we guard our tongues, using caution and wisdom in our media and social media, and refrain from remarks that tear down others made in the image of God, including refraining from gossip and slander (Psalm 141:3; Proverbs 6:16–19; 17:27–28; 21:23; James 3:10–12); and be it finally RESOLVED, That even in the midst of differences, disagreements, and conflicts, we will engage one another with respect and winsomeness, speaking truth in Christlike love while pursuing unity (Ephesians 4:15).”
Sounds nice but in practice it invariably leads to serious and selective abuse in implementation. One person sees a set of remarks as “telling the truth” or “social justice righteousness” while another side sees it as “tearing down others made in the image of the God” or “gossip and slander.” The ultimate determination depends on who holds the power, not objective and fair standards.
[Update: This resolution passed without opposition]
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When Vice President Pence spoke at the Southern Baptist Convention, workers for 9Marks sat angrily with their arms folded, at times with a noticeable facial grimace, eye-roll and audible huff. When Trump’s name was mentioned, an occasional boo could be heard from the crowd. The fully-woke New Calvinist organization has largely shifted its emphasis from ecclesiology to Social Justice, being influenced by the massive amounts of cash into Presbyterian and Calvinistic Baptist institutions by Bill Clinton financier felon, James Riady, and socialist billionaire, George Soros. Aided by the promotion of Mark Dever, 9Mark’s most famous progeny is Ron Burns (he goes by his Black Nationalist name, Thabiti Anyabwile), a radical race-baiter and Marxist who used his sizable clout to endorse first Bernie Sanders and later, Hillary Clinton, for President. Church members from Dever’s church, Capitol Hill Baptist Church, were trustees at the ERLC and were instrumental in selecting Russell Moore as the director of that institution, which has taken a hard-left turn since his tenure. While Dever’s ecclesiology seems impeccable and his doctrinal teaching stellar, the Washington D.C.-based pastor has been steering those under his influence to Social Justice for a number of years.
Likewise, The Gospel Coalition, which shares so many board members, writers, and contributors with the Ethics and Religous Liberty Commission (ERLC), they’ve virtually merged into a singular organization, is little more than a political organization that once in a while posts material vaguely relevant to the Gospel. Its attention is far more focused on liberalizing the American church than doing anything evangelistic in nature.
The two #woke organizations, 9Marks and TGC, merged again today in a post at the latter by an employee of the former, who took great exception with Vice President Mike Pence speaking at the SBC. Jonathan Leeman, the editorial director of 9Marks, posted his article at The Gospel Coalition blog, and in it he explained why the (conservative) leader of the free world should not have been invited to the Southern Baptist Convention (although it is rumored that VP Pence invited himself).
Keep in mind that The Gospel Coalition posted the article, Evangelical Leaders: Tell Us to Vote for Hillary Clinton. The article was a guest-post hosted at Burns’ (Anyabwile’s) TGC sub-blog and written by a staff person at Burns’ church. That article literally endorsed Hillary Clinton for President of the United States. This same Gospel Coalition has now chastised the Southern Baptist Convention for merely hearing out Mike Pence because it somehow crossed a political line. The double-standard and hypocrisy from TGC is insane.
Leeman writes:
I’m sitting here at the Southern Baptist Convention. Earlier today Vice President Mike Pence addressed the convention. We were told he initiated the offer to speak. I wish we had not accepted.
Don’t misunderstand. I’m grateful to God for our nation. I want him to bless it. But here’s a question for my fellow Southern Baptists and evangelicals more broadly: can you name a place in the Bible where God sends a ruler of a (non-Israelite) nation to speak to God’s people? Is the pattern not just the opposite? Moses challenges Pharaoh. Daniel confronts Nebuchadnezzar. John the Baptist calls out Herod. And Paul appeals to Caesar. The biblical flow chart for confrontation occurs in Psalm 2: “Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth.” The arrow moves from God’s people to rulers of the nations, not rulers to God’s people. Jonah didn’t invite the king of Nineveh to challenge him. He said, “Repent.”
Permit me to remain neutral on Pence himself. Whether you love him or hate him, reason one our churches and associations of churches should ordinarily not receive political leaders to address their assemblies is that it goes against the pattern of the entire Bible. You never see Daniel asking Nebuchadnezzar to show up at the next worship gathering, or Jesus asking a Roman centurion, even one with “great faith,” to make an appearing at his next sermon to “share a word from his heart.” No, Daniel and Jesus were after something different than the rulers of the day.
One wonders why Leeman gives the example of a “non-Israelite” speaking to God’s people. Considering that the church is Spiritual Israel (something no Reformed believer would squabble with), a baptized believer who happens to be the Civil Magistrate speaking to other baptized believers is much closer to the precedent set by the inter-lapping division of power between Old Testament kings and priests. In the cultic religion of Israel, both kings and priests (often appearing in ceremonial roles for the other) had different roles and realms of authority, but they would often overlap and work together, as is seen in the various accounts of the Kings.
For Leeman’s argument to work, the SBC would have had to have invited a non-believer (a Gentile, in the Covenant Theology sense) to speak to the church (Spiritual Israel). This is what Russell Moore did when he invited Hillary Clinton to speak to the SBC in 2015, because Hillary Clinton is as lost as a goose in a snowstorm, no matter how many 9Marks and TGC writers would vote for her. Pence, on the other hand, has a credible Christian testimony and witness. I might even (scratch that, I definitely would) agree with Leeman’s argument if it was Donald Trump – who is clearly not a born-again believer – to speak to the SBC. But regarding Pence, he simply is not the Gentile King speaking to Israel. He is the Israelite King speaking to Israel (dispensationalists have lost their mind at this point in the post, and for that, I apologize).
Reason two I wish Pence hadn’t spoke [sic] follows from the first: having a political leader address our churches or associations of churches tempts us to misconstrue our mission. Our mission is not the mission of the Republican, Democratic, or any party. Our mission, when gathered, it to work toward Great Commission ends. To bring in a politician risks subverting our gospel purposes to the purposes of that politician’s party.
Certainly, that’s how outsiders will perceive us. They conclude, “Ah, that church or those churches are just an appendage of the Party.” Call this the third reason not to give a platform to politicians in our assemblies: it undermines our evangelistic and prophetic witness.
Let me repeat: These quasi-intellectual jackhats at The Gospel Coalition and 9Marks have been busy overtly and explicitly endorsing socialists and Democrats for political office in the very “pages” of the blog now used to claim the SBC is too political. Please forgive my skepticism while I choke on the irony of your unconquerable double standard. Leeman continues:
Let me conclude on an underlining issue in all of this: There’s nothing necessarily wrong with desiring political access. You can desire political access for love of neighbor and for the sake of justice. The question is, are you willing to lose your head by speaking against the powers that be when you have such access? John the Baptist was. If you’re not willing to lose your head, it tempts people to wonder why you really want access.
Let me call baloney, here. The Biblical comparison to John the Baptist’s martyrdom for his speaking out against Herod and Herodotus is not exegetically astute. First, John the Baptist was being “political,” which is something Leeman claims we shouldn’t do because of how we’ll be perceived by outsiders. But secondly, and more importantly, The Gospel Coalition never spoke out against “the power” of the Obama Administration. There were no raised fists of solidarity against the radically liberal agenda of BHO. Suddenly TGC and 9Marks are concerned about speaking truth to power? That was a radical shift of courage that happened around November of 2016. Third, and back to exegesis, Mike Pence isn’t taking anyone’s head. He has been a friend to religious liberty.
You really can’t, on one hand, support the idea of the ERLC and its job description to influence government and on the other hand decry one of our top magistrates (who is a believer) meeting with us. If Leeman was even halfway consistent, he would argue that the ERLC be defunded because Russell Moore’s job wasn’t necessary because politics don’t matter (and we all know that the Latte Mafia of New Calvinists at 9Marks and TGC wouldn’t ever want to defund their most powerful political ally).
In the meantime, I’m going to continue to say what I’ve been saying; 9Marks, Southeastern Seminary, Southern Seminary, the ERLC, and The Gospel Coalition have received giant piles of cash from both James Riady and George Soros. For TGC in particular, this is not a religious organization, but a political one. That TGC would complain about a conservative leader (our magistrate, not just a “politician,” which is a deceitfully reductionist caricature of the Vice President of the United States) was absolutely predictable.
Had a Democratic or Socialist politician spoken, TGC and 9Marks would have lauded it as a sign of the growing open-mindedness and culture of dialogue in the SBC, and somehow explained how it was “Gospel-centered.”
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Thomas Littleton is a Southern Baptist pastor with a long and honest track-record of service to the Body of Christ. He operates a blog entitled Thirty Pieces of Silver, writes at the news and opinion site, Barb Wire, and has spoken out about the LGBTQ-Christian Conference, Revoice, on programs hosted by Janet Mefferd and Brannon Howse. He was scheduled tentatively to be on Polemics Report this afternoon but had to postpone due to technical difficulties. Many evangelicals, including Littleton, believe that the Revoice Conference, which will be hosted by the Presybeterian Church of America (PCA) but which is endorsed by Southern Baptists like Matt Chandler and Karen Swallow Prior, is designed to normalize LGBTQ behavior and “de-sin” the desire. Additionally, it is promoted by many who are very closely associated with the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. You can find out more about Revoice by reading Littleton’s material here or Pulpit & Pen’s posts here.
Littleton has been present at the SBC’s annual meeting, and I spoke to him on the phone briefly today before the incident. Like so many others I’ve spoken to over the last several days, there was some lament concerning the leftist-progressive direction of the Convention and Gospel-less mission drift toward Social Justice.
It is very concerning that perhaps one of the loudest and most articulate critics of the Revoice Conference has been, according to his social media, hauled out of the Convention meeting by the Dallas Police Department.
Leatherwood’s bio at the ERLC website
Brent Leatherwood, to whom Littleton refers, serves the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) as the Director for Strategic Partnerships. Prior to coming to the ERLC he was the director of the Tennessee GOP, but was heavily scandalized for numerous reasons including his hatred of Donald Trump, which I wrote about previously in the Polemics Report post, Russell Moore’s New Hire is Infamous Opponent of Trump.
I just spoke again with Littleton, who explained the situation to me.
Littleton said, “I was waiting about 2:45PM, and Leatherwood was glaring at me. The next thing I know, I see two uniformed police officers on my right. They come up to me and told me I would have to leave. I asked, ‘Leave the area?’ because I thought I was in the way or something. And they said ‘No, you need to leave the building. Someone has made a complaint’.”
Littleton then asked who made the complaint and for what and the police officer responded, “The people who run this event. They can file a complaint and remove anyone they want.” The police then explained that no charges were being filed against him, and refused to say further why he was being removed.
“When the police carried me down the foyer,” Littleton continued, “they again said, ‘You’re not being arrested, just removed. They want you removed’.”
While Littleton was being tossed, Leatherwood leaned forward and taunted him for what Littleton claims was about 20 steps, keeping pace with the officers.
Littleton was able to retrieve his material from the press room and told the media members, “A press member is getting kicked out for asking the wrong questions in the SBC.”
Speaking of Leatherwood, Littleton told Pulpit & Pen, “He was real proud of himself. He kept sticking his face into mine. This may be how you run the Tennessee GOP, but not how you treat Southern Baptists.”
[Contributed by JD Hall]
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At the recent 2018 Southern Baptist Convention, a representative of Christian media, Thomas Littleton, handed a question to a messenger to be asked of Russell Moore, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberties. The question was concerning his knowledge of his research fellow, Karen Swallow Prior’s endorsement of the LGBTQ Revoice conference. While claiming to have no knowledge, Moore gave Prior adulatory accolades.
For more information on Prior’s endorsement of the LGBT revoice conference, see here.
The post Russell Moore Denies Knowledge of Revoice (LGBT) Conference and Gives Karen Swallow Prior Glowing Accolades appeared first on Pulpit & Pen.
Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times? Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.” ~ Matthew 18:21-22
In my last article on Evangelicals and Racism, I asked the question, “When will Christ be enough?” This was in response to the constant calls for people to repent of racism they may or may not have committed. These calls have come from both white and black preachers alike, with ringleaders such as Thabiti Anyabwile, whose real name is Ron Burns, Matt Chandler, David Platt, Kyle J. Howard, J. D. Greear and all the way down to local pastors. Racial and social justice seems to be the “IN” thing to preach on these days, and, quite frankly, many of us of all skin colors are getting tired of it.
So why the Matthew 18 passage? It is because the message of forgiveness is being totally tossed aside just like the Gospel itself. Forgiveness is so intricately woven into the message of the cross that to leave it out, the message of the cross becomes pointless. When Christ died at Calvary, our sins against Him were nailed to that cross and we were freed from the bondage of sin! When Christ forgave us, He liberated us! He didn’t tell the lame man lowered through the roof to go pay penance! He forgave him of his sins! And in verse 22, Christ calls us to forgive. Why? Because we have been forgiven of far greater offenses. We have been forgiven of willful rebellion against the most Holy God of all creation, the God who would be just in casting everyone into an eternity in Hell. But He doesn’t do that to His children. Instead, He showed mercy and forgave. And He did it nailed to a wooden cross, taking on every bit of the wrath and anger and justice of the Heavenly Father. And he did it willingly.
Why aren’t these SJW’s (Social Justice Warriors) preaching about forgiveness? That is a hard question to answer. Maybe they are afraid the victims in their congregations will disagree and turn on them. (In a conversation with a black woman when she was talking about reparations needing to be made to the black community, I asked her if she had ever considered the command to forgive. She asked me who was I to talk about forgiveness because I didn’t know her situation.) Maybe it is about the money and the popularity. I mean, who wants to hear a preacher speak on something as boring as forgiveness when there are much livelier subjects. The parable of the unforgiving servant following Peter’s question to our Lord says it all. The servant was forgiven a debt he could never repay as we have been forgiven. But yet he goes out to collect a small debt from a fellow servant, and when he could not repay the debt, the first servant had him thrown into prison. Our sins against God are far greater than any sin ever in a thousand years could be committed against us. But again, this message is not being preached. Instead, guilt is being cast and virtue is being signaled.
Forgiveness is such a beautiful thing! When we forgive, not only do we heap coals on our offender, but we free ourselves from the anger and animosity caused by the offense. That’s true liberation theology when you can simply forgive. How Christ-like is that? He forgave us of our sins that should send us straight to hell. Can we not forgive the person that has sinned against us, whether it be a grievous or heinous offense or one that simply hurt our feelings? Forgiveness is not an easy or immediate lesson to learn. In fact, it can be a very hard lesson to learn. I know because I am one who has held grudges for a very long time. But when we can let go of the offense and the offender, the peace and joy and healing that follows is overwhelming. I know this as well since I have recently experienced it for myself with someone that I held a long grudge against and he held a long grudge against me. And when we forgave one another, the bond created was amazing. Forgiveness for the child of God is found at the cross of Christ. It’s not always easy and we don’t always forget, but there is freedom in forgiveness. So, why not forgive and be truly reconciled to your brother in Christ?
Isaiah 45:22 says, “Look unto Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth!….” Look to Christ and find forgiveness and you will also learn to forgive. This, by the way, is the same passage that was preached on the day Charles Spurgeon came to saving faith.
In Christ Alone,
[Contributed by Steve Evans]
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Are you a member of a Southern Baptist church and concerned about the recent trajectory of the SBC? Are you concerned that a portion of your tithes and offerings are being forwarded from the offering plate at your local church to the unaccountable and wasteful bureaucracy of the North American Mission Board? Are you concerned that you are helping to pay for the “Office of Kingdom Diversity” at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary or the progressive social justice agenda of the Ethics and Liberty Commission? If your church participates in the Cooperative Program, you are paying for these things. You don’t have to. It’s time for you and your church to consider direct giving. You can learn how to give around SBC waste and defund liberalism by reading The Cooperative Program and the Road to Serfdom 2nd Edition, now available in paperback and on Kindle. I wrote this short book to explain what is wrong with the Cooperative Program, its progressivist founding, its inefficiency and corruption, and what Southern Baptists can do about it to save their Convention from itself.
From the foreword by JD Hall:
“What Seth has presented in this small book are a list of ways that we can cooperate without throwing our dollars away as poor stewards, along with a thorough analysis of how Cooperative Program funds are terribly abused and ineffective. As an accountant and a Southern Baptist, Seth is uniquely positioned to give a thoroughly economic understanding of the Cooperative Program and why we need to rethink how we go about our financial partnerships.”
*The free 1st Edition E-book version is still available from Pulpit & Pen
**Please note that the preceding is my personal opinion. It is not necessarily the opinion of any entity by which I am employed, any church at which I am a member, any church which I attend, or the educational institution at which I am enrolled. Any copyrighted material displayed or referenced is done under the doctrine of fair use
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