Is the Evangelical Free Church Going Woke?

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To contact Pastor Chambers: [email protected] https://www.thepeakchurch.com/

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Welcome once again everyone to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris, and we're going to talk about an organization that I haven't mentioned at least often.
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I may have in passing mentioned the Evangelical Free Church before, but we're actually talking about the
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Evangelical Free Church today. And I have had emails and questions about whether or not this particular organization or some considered a denomination has, whether it's gone woke, social justice, all of that.
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And I haven't known how to answer that because I haven't researched it deeply. But today we have with us Pastor Craig Chambers, who is the pastor at the
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Peak Evangelical Free Church in Pueblo West, Colorado. And he recently returned his ordination.
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He's been in the Evangelical Free Church for about three decades and as a working in that particular organization.
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And so this is kind of a big deal. He has researched it and he has extensive notes and sources. If you want to reach out to him, his email is in the info section and you can do that and you can get a hold of all of those sources and notes.
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But I just like to start off by thanking you, Pastor Chambers, for being brave enough to, and gracious enough, to answer the invitation that I extended to you to be on the show today.
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Thank you. I appreciate it, John. So let's start with just your story a little bit.
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You just returned your ordination and after being in the church for decades,
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I would think that would be a difficult thing to do and probably not a decision that you took lightly,
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I would imagine. No, it wasn't. In fact, it took me nine months from the time
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I really understood some things were going on with the Evangelical Free Church to the time I actually returned my ordination.
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Because I wanted to take my time. I wanted to look at what the evidence was. I don't want to have any kind of false things said.
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And I will say from the outset, I consider the leadership of the EFCA to be brothers. And so therefore,
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I deal with them as brothers. But I, by necessity, wrote a, it had to be a strongly worded kind of document to say, here's what is wrong and what you need repent of.
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And so this is something that just came about because I ran up into what was happening in our country, what was happening in the believing world.
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And so I just finally figured out I needed to explore all these things.
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Yeah, I'm glad you did. Man, it's, there's so much information, and I'm sure there's even more than you uncovered that could be talked about.
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And I'm sure we'll just hit the high points today. What was the first thing, though, for you that made you question whether or not the
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Evangelical Free Church was going in the right direction? It's been a long kind of process in terms of understanding what was happening with EFCA because I've always met with all my brothers, you know, in terms of pastors.
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And we have these meetings all the time. And we have, we have, I'm going to explain EFCA in a moment, but just to kind of give you that story of what got me looking.
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We have a district superintendent with pastors, and we would meet in different locations.
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Ours is the southern part of Colorado. And so we have a meeting.
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And in those meetings, there was a difficulty between that I was aware of,
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I could sense it between the district superintendent and I, and maybe a couple pastors as well.
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I just didn't know what was wrong. And so I usually work, you know, look at myself first. And that's what
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I did. And this has been over a period of 17 years. And in doing so, I just kept recognizing there's pragmatism here.
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And finally, what turned on my light bulb was last fall or a year, whatever, it was a period of time where it got me started probably in the spring of 21.
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And then that's where I finally came to my conclusions to look into it deeply in around November.
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But in the spring of 21, he turned to me and said, disparage remark about John MacArthur, because I really appreciate
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John MacArthur. And he said, John MacArthur thinks the Bible sufficient for everything.
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And of course, he was criticizing me for thinking that the Bible is sufficient for all things.
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And I think it is. And so it was, I finally figured out it was the pragmatic view that he had, that I wasn't going along with the program.
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And he didn't like me for that reason. And not that he didn't like me personally,
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I suppose, but he just didn't like me for that reason. So that's what really got me. It just clicked. And that's when
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I began to start to study what was happening. And so here I am.
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Wow. So the light bulb went off, and you thought, wait a minute, or went on, and you said,
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I need to look into this more, see what's going on. Pragmatism was kind of the first thing. But this has gotten into the social justice stuff.
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I mean, that's where it's led you. And you've seen some evidence that the church is going in the social justice direction.
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I know you had said you wanted to explain, because it's relevant for this, kind of what the nature of the organization, or denomination, or, you know,
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I don't know how exactly you categorize the FCA. But why don't you do that? And then maybe explain to us kind of where have they gone social justice?
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Kind of where's the beef here? You're not just saying that, obviously, you have sources that are pointing this direction.
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And I have to say, social justice, it's not the main thing. But it is a big thing. And we'll get to those points.
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But starting with the evangelical free church, the EV free church, that's a short way of saying evangelical free church of America, came about from a mixture of people who found it difficult to remain in Europe, in their status churches.
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And back in Europe, you have churches are sponsored or supported by the state in earlier days, right after the
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Reformation, after the battles and the things that took place, everybody took sides. And so you have
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England with the Anglican, you have Belgium, and Germany, and all the different countries there, you would divide up between Catholic and the
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Reformation people, folks. Well, in Sweden, and in Norway, you had two different groups, because two different countries, in the state supported the state religion.
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And of course, that would be the Lutheran Church there. And people who wanted to not be entangled with the state government, through entanglement with the state church, left the state church and started what they call free churches.
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And that's what it's known in in Europe is if you're a free church person, you're not attached to a church that is supported and entangled with the government or with the state church as well.
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So that's what it meant to be free. So when we say evangelical free church, they came over here and by the time 1950 rolled about, the
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Norwegian folks and the Swedish folks joined together and decided to create this evangelical free church of America.
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And so when they did that, what they meant by free was that they were not going to take state supported funds or be part of a state religion, by religion means the religion of Christianity, but the state's version of it.
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And so that's what made them free. And the second thing, though, that makes them free in their minds is the fact that they were congregational in every church so that the church was free to determine their own faith and practice and within certain boundaries.
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So each church is autonomous in the evangelical free church, but interdependent.
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And so to remain clear about this, they're a bigger tent in regards to both theology and practice.
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So each church can lean one way or another on many issues like baptism.
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Some are pedo, some are credo. I would be credo, of course. And then having an Arminian or a
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Calvinist view, I'd be Calvinist. Each church can hold one view or practice, but every church has to allow for any other evangelical free church that a person that's a member of one goes to somewhere else.
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You have to allow that person to, of course, hold their views, which, okay, anybody does that anyway.
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But that doesn't necessarily have to change, of course, that church that they go to. Of course, then, well, anyway, that doesn't have to be.
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Every church is autonomous. So but we just have to remember that we accept those around and we accept them in graciousness and humility is the idea.
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And then, of course, bring them around what the truth is. As we meet together, we go through the
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Word of God. So the mantra of the free church is, where is it written? Which, of course, brings about the mind of sola scriptura, the scripture alone.
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Where is it written? So everything that you have, everything that you believe needs to come from, of course, the
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Word of God. And that is what our authority is. I think, however, this biblical sufficiency has a different viewpoint that's developed among the evangelical free church leadership and many of the pastors as well.
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And this is where I differ with them. So my difference is, of course, the pragmatism that they're practicing and the biblical sufficiency that they will say they believe wholeheartedly.
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And yet, by their actions, they show it's not the kind of biblical sufficiency that at least my view is correct.
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So why have I left the ESEA? I will kind of get into that now.
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And I've just said it, it's biblical sufficiency and pragmatism. But it has to do with the source of what informs me.
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And what informs them in their practice. So I believe, as I think you realize, that biblical sufficiency is being biblical or going to the
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Word of God and believing the Word of God is sufficient for all of life practice. And I've come to believe that from the evidence, they do not.
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And so I'm going to kind of go through that evidence. And when I say pragmatic, let me kind of define that too.
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I mean, a pragmatic approach is one that's intended to sort of woo people to Christ by making the gospel embraceable by the lost in answer to their needs.
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It's to make Christ an attractive alternative. And on the face of it, it's not an issue of bringing the gospel or the good news, so there's death and resurrection, glory, return, that's there, there's the structure of the gospel, it's there, of course.
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But it's a matter of acting as though it is by our efforts, and that people are overcome with this attraction.
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And we're the ones that are being the architects and the enablers of the lost being brought into the kingdom.
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And worse, this extends to a disciple. While some may say all the right words of believing
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God for these things, the practice speaks to something different. It is what is practiced that seems to make the gospel less than it is, and to end up being the means to pollute the stream of believing disciples.
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So what's my evidence? Well, I began with the social justice thing, and did you have any questions before we go on there,
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John? No, I think you're on a good roll here, and I think the sequence you're choosing to go down is perfect, so yeah, please keep going.
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All right, so I began with the social justice system, and of course it was fighting racism with racism, and then
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I went into the feminist system, or what's become that, and we started to have now women pastors.
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I've looked at the shameful silence of the leadership, and that they've had other pastors, and we'll go into that too, who begged for answers in writing, but they were ignored to the point that they and their churches left, and the cry from the
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EFC leaders against Christian nationalism, which actually is against certain people who are
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Christian nationalists, and we'll get to that, but they would then be pushing their form of Christian nationalism, which would be from the leftward side, and then the promotion of the godless teaching, of course, with non -EFC conferences being offered and supported by them financially as well, and sending people there.
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These conferences that are not EFC conferences, but are just horrendous ones, and therefore through their support of it, they're acting in disregard of what they say they believe.
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So much of this is in my letter that I wrote. There's my cover letter there, in which
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I tell them that I differ in sufficiency of scripture, and then I explain it why in about seven pages, and then
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I have two pages of references to that, and so just to start,
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I was assured by many that there were no woke people in the national leadership, nor in the district.
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There's 17 districts that make up Evie Free, and remember
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Evie Free is an autonomous kind of thing, so supposedly the national does not have authority over the churches, but by their teaching, of course, they're exercising the authority of bending the wheel towards what their teaching is, and so therefore they're kind of growing in a certain kind of power, and they're pushing things through the national organization, and limiting others who would say, no wait, this is not right, and so they're limited to people that they want to push along, and so that has been a problem, and that's what brings us to this whole thing of them saying that they are not woke, and neither are any of the district superintendents.
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That's just simply flat out not true. Our national leadership promotes things like this, the cross and racial reconciliation.
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Jarvis Williams, I'm sure you're familiar with Jarvis Williams. He's an SBA. Yeah, he's a false teacher, yeah, but that's interesting, so when you say that they were promoting it, was it in an official capacity?
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Was it posted on their Facebook? So that's on their website, then? This is on their website.
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Okay. Evangelicals more broadly, and EFC more specifically, are people of the book, where it is written, and then they promote him, so I'm not saying anything they're not saying.
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You go to their website, you'll find this talk, you'll find this statement, then. That is an audio thing.
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You can listen to it, download and listen to it. Here, I just looked up Jarvis Williams, things that he's written, right?
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Oh yeah. He writes and says that, well, he redefines critical race theory to include all the groups of the others, and the others being, it's not just people of color or something of that nature.
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It has to do with, even if you're male or it's another group, and a female,
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Jew, Gentile, so forth, all these different things, slave or free, he considers as a part of racial reconciliation, reconciliation that we need to have.
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Now, our district superintendent stayed over, a district over in Kansas, writes this, and I'll just quote it on March 11th, 2021, in his article, his name is
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Colby Kisner, he's the Midwest district superintendent, of whom we're told none of it were woke.
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He writes an article about white privilege, and he says, quote, I think it's fair to say that the incarnate
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Jesus had all kinds of privilege, even if one doesn't care for the term itself. That included an ethnic privilege in certain contexts, but also gender, lineage, righteousness, access to the
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Father and Spirit, and of course, divinity. It's not a question of whether or not he had something called privilege, but what he did with it, he used his privilege to give privilege to others without guilt.
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So, then he put out other resources that are woke and passionate with the districts, and I'm just,
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I look at this, and I'm going, okay, Jesus had an ethnic privilege. Did he communicate that to us?
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Was that given without guilt? No. He didn't communicate his gender to us. I mean, we're male and female still.
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He didn't communicate his lineage to us. I'm not of the tribe of, you know, Judah. Righteousness, yes.
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Access to the Father by the Spirit, sure. But he did not communicate his divinity to us.
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So, to use the idea that he communicates things to us by his privileges means that, of course, that we're communicating stuff, but we then have to delineate what he does and what he does not.
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And so, it's not a biblical approach. It's a pragmatic approach. Our EFCA president,
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Kevlin Copland, and he's the, he is our president, or was mine, but he's the president of EFCA, and he's representative, of course, of our leadership, and he has not publicly acknowledged his woke statements are his resources, or what he finds objectable and challenged on it by those who question him.
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What they do do is they repeat, we're not woke, and it's a cover. That's not a resolution.
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So, let's move on to, then, some other things concerning social justice.
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And here is where I'll follow mostly what I have in my letter, but I will show you what's said here.
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We have a Greg Strand. He's sort of like the resident theologian for the Free Church.
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He also is over all the ordination aspects of the
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Evangelical Free Church, examining the doctrine of men and things of this nature for ordination. He writes in his
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Juneteenth article here, he talks about, of course, listening, learning, loving.
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He goes into standpoint epistemology, and he talks about lamenting.
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He says in there, I'll just kind of quote this, we call our nation to lament, to repent, and then my thing is he's calling us to do this, but he's saying that these things as though we have not objectively done so, and I believe our nation has repented of the sin that they had in terms of slavery and racial prejudice.
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Go ahead. Is there anything concrete that, like, when you repent, you're diametrically opposed to the direction you were going?
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So, you turn around and you go the opposite way. So, what is exactly, I mean, is there anything he puts in there as far as his recommendation to churches on what they should be doing in order to repent, or is it just?
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Yes, it's listen, and of course, it is to, he'll call us to a repentance of lament.
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He called us all together to lament. So, just get together, feel bad about it, you know. Well, there's that, and they're saying that we have not objectively repented of this ever, and he's wrong.
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Yeah, well, if it's Juneteenth, it's talking about, he's talking about slavery. I mean, that's what that's about. So, what do you,
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I mean, is there a guy in your congregation that owns slaves? I don't think so. Like, so, it's,
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I find this a lot. It's not just him, but it's like a lot of denominations where they make these statements.
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Jarvis Williams, to his credit, will tell you what you ought to do, and it's, he has a whole list of things that he expects churches to do, but most of the time, it's just lament, listen.
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There's really nothing concrete you can do except just feel really guilty about it, apparently, and I guess
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Jesus doesn't come into it anywhere to absolve you of this guilt. So, it ends up being just a manipulative tool that's wielded to, for political purposes, really, to neutralize anyone who would stand against BLM or CRT or any of that.
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So, it sounds to me like that's what's going on in the EV -free church as well, the same thing that's going on in so many other denominations.
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It's just, it's rhetoric without any actual biblical grounded action, actions that can be taken, and it's just an accusation, and it's what the devil does, accuser of the brother, just an accusation, but without any way of getting rid of that accusation or the guilt that comes along with it.
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So, we do move in, if I go past Greg Strand now, we do move into another Juneteenth article that they have.
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Oh, more than one, okay. Yes, in fact, this is a repeated kind of thing, but this is
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Alexandro Mendes. He goes by Alex Mendes, and he is an actual director, he's on staff at our national office, at the national office for the
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EFCA, and I think it's in Church Plenty. And so, he writes these things, and I'll tell you that he does give some specifics here.
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He says, even today, we see the ramifications of the injustice that followed the
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Emancipation Proclamation and Juneteenth. Systems of injustice continue to limit the freedoms of minorities.
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Our present cultural realities have revealed with greater clarity how unjust practices are still embedded deep within the fabric of American society.
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So, this is something that we are just told. There's no counter argument that's allowed here that goes on within the national setup.
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So, racism in the past, as white and black, is still an offensive thing that's going on today, and that's without offering the evidence or proof of that.
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So, then here he gets to some actions. He says, under we believe that God created
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Adam and Eve in his image, he said this should cause us to hurt when we see life wasted.
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Sure, who disagrees with that? Then he says, slavery inherently devalued the image of God present in every human life.
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Even today, so now he goes from that time to now, we do not value the image of God as seen in the lives of people of color.
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I'm sorry, I do. And all the pastors that I know do. All the Evie Free Churches that I've ever been and seen and heard of, or had rough shoulders with, do.
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They see the image of God in everyone. But he says we don't.
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He says, when police take the lives and dignity of black men and women, we should grieve and lament. He doesn't point out, well, in the lives of black women and men who weren't criminals, or hadn't done something wrong, or weren't threatening the lives of the police officers, or any of the circumstances that surround these kinds of things, that's left off.
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It's all that, no matter if it's just that the person is black, the officer's guilty.
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That's a problem, as you well know. And then he says this, and this is a socialist goal that we get out of this.
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Remember not to exploit laborers. So he tells us, work for better jobs, for better housing, for all.
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Call and or email your local representatives and tell them to fight for housing and wages.
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And then he goes on to more of a Christian narrative from there. So it's not like and I just kind of point this out.
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This also bleeds into the Christian nationalist idea that the E .V.
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Free Church leadership seems to have, and even in writing, is that if you have sort of a leftist socialist view, that's the right view to have.
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But when they talk about Christian nationalism, they have for years now been just saying disparaging Christian nationalists.
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And then when you go, what's a Christian nationalist? I think basically what they mean by Christian nationalism is someone who is maybe a conservative or on the right, whatever they want to call it.
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Trump would actually be a Christian nationalist from their perspective. And there's lots of downness on that.
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But the side that would be more conservative and say, hey, you know, blessed is the nation as God is the
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Lord. That would be Christian nationalism from their perspective and is very much disparaged, while their form of Christian nationalism is uplifted.
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So it's just like racism to fight racism. There's Christian nationalism to fight
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Christian nationalism. It just doesn't, it never works. There's another article by Alexandro Mandis, the same guy, called
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Only in America's History of Injustice. And of course, what he says in there is that we are to own up to the sins of our grandparents and our parents.
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It's like Ezekiel 18 doesn't exist. Yeah. And most of the time,
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I'll note that they, I mean, even talking about like how we deny the image of God today, and that that was just making a broad brush that like, that was like everyone who was a slave holder must have done that.
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I mean, I get nervous about that kind of thing. Because if you go back into your New Testament, and you start doing that, you're going to be and even the
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Old Testament, actually, you start doing that to men who were called faithful and who were even how, you know, letting the early church meet at their home and stuff.
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And it's like, it's not like the Bible hasn't spoken on some of the topics that they're addressing. But it's like, they don't really, that it never enters into it.
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It seems like it's just whatever the current thing is that you see going on in the world, they just want to like strap their caboose to it.
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And how can we be part of this as well. And that probably fits into the critique you're making of the pragmatism.
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There's just not a lot of biblical thinking behind this. And so I that is a survey, actually, as you were doing that,
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I went to their website, could, and they have a whole blog section. And you're right, like, there,
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I didn't even realize that the evangelical free church had this section, but there's a lot of different ethical issues that they weighed in on.
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And, and it's discouraging to see that this, you know, the same thing that's affecting so many of the other large
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Christian denominations, organizations is happening there as well. And so, so you're talking about it, you're concerned about it.
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I mean, have you, have you had any positive interactions? Or has it mostly been just a denial that Oh, no, we're not doing any of this.
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We're not going that direction. You're saying we are. There's some positive interactions.
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The latest blog that came out, for example, was Kevin Copeland, the president, who was,
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I'm trying to remember the name of the pastor who did this blog. I can't recall his name offhand.
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It's the latest one that I read. But he made a lot of good statements in there, very positive things.
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And, and so Kevin attached his comments on the front, you know, how we're supportive of this, and it actually was a very good blog.
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But I will say that, not but I will say also, that there's a lot of good in the
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EFCA. I don't want to disparage the EFCA, like it's black.
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It's wholly dark. It is. It is not it is. There's light in the
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EFCA. There's a lot of good things. And I could say a lot of good things about them, and I have.
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But that's not what this part is about. It's just to address the things that are so dangerous as to undercut both disciple, discipling people, and even evangelizing folks.
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So if we can move on from social justice, I'll go to... Sure, yeah, please.
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Yeah. Because I don't want to carry this on for too long. But nonetheless, we have, we have here the, the, the another light bulb that went off for me.
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And that is that we, well, women in leadership. We have now women pastors in the
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EFCA. And it is a very crafty thing that took place to get them to this point.
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And it is a crafty thing that's going to continue to go on. Unless it's in, in this one is they are very much so entrenched into.
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You said that was a big tent in, in, in the, but, but that was something that wasn't from the ground floor.
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They weren't allowing women pastors that it sounds like that this is a new thing. They'll point to, in earlier history of Be Free, they'll point to some gals that were ordained.
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I think it used the word very loosely, so many years ago, back in the 1800s, early 1900s.
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And they would use that they have one or two examples, doing some sort of missions work.
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And, and yet when the 1950, when we came a, and it's not a denomination, they'll get mad to say that.
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So you've got to say movement. Denomination, there's less autonomy, but people say it's just a movement.
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Although I think it's moved into being a denomination, but nonetheless, this is what is going on is using certain examples and causing that to be overshadowing what, what
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Evie Free actually believed in. And by 1988, we had a conference, which very clearly delineated that we are complementarian in our practice in the
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Evie Free Church, because that is what the Bible taught in the practice of the church.
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And it is what the scripture is taught. However, the doors started being open, saying, well, yes, this is what the scripture teaches, and we're complementarian.
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But you know what we could do? Let's, let's, we're a big tent. So therefore, let's let people who don't agree with that, egalitarian pastors be ordained in the
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Evie Free Church, as long as they don't promote egalitarian issues.
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Well, what could go wrong? So this is what happened. And I will go through that now with, with this woman in leadership, and in another one that will come about after that, if I can find my place here and what
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I wrote. And if I can't, I can just do it all from memory anyway.
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Okay, this woman in leadership article that you can have, and I'll set that one to the side.
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It's from January of 2020. And, and he progresses us in our obedience to the
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Word of God in a certain manner. What, what has gone on is, to me in this craftiness, is we have flipped where we were into a completely different thought pattern, which is a pragmatic thought pattern, and is against what
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I would see as biblical belief sufficient. We're well past that line,
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I think, when we depart from, from, from the
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Word, and we start entering into, well, the oxymoronic issue of women as pastors.
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When was this line crossed? I've already talked about that. But we really did cross it even further in 2012 with another conference.
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And when we did then authorize these egalitarian, you know, men to become pastors, and it was crafty, then it was a pathway to lead towards what we're going towards.
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And so the progression of this craftiness has been brought to us now in the article I just showed you.
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And I'm going to actually simply use his words, and I will quote from him. And maybe that'll be helpful for you.
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He indicates that many women in the EFCA feel their gifts are not used well, and that they often struggle to find their place.
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They long for the recognition of their gifts and abilities. And what is it that they desire?
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We are assured that it's not ordination, because we still don't ordain women, but they desire to use their leadership and teaching gifts to build up the church, but without distinction.
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They want to advance the mission of the EFCA as they live in obedience to the teaching of the scriptures. Obedience to the teaching of the scriptures sound good, but sounding good and being good, these are my words here, differ.
36:29
So now, quoting him, quote, many women in the free church across the country have significant leadership positions in the workplace, in other words, in the world, yet feel their leadership gifts have limited value and application in the local church.
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Certainly there are opportunities within the ministries where women have traditionally led, such as women's and children's ministries, unquote.
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They have been able to lead and teach, of course, other women and children, but that's not good enough.
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He says that all is well with that, but, quote, not all women have an interest in or an aptitude for these ministries, in other words, unquote.
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They don't really care to teach other women only or our children. They want to broaden.
37:20
Well, there's only one place to go, right, and that is to prove that they can exercise authority and teach over men as well.
37:29
So that's where it goes. That's what they want, and so we're looking into how can we transform the
37:36
EFCA churches in order to skirt what we apparently affirm to be the teaching of the
37:42
Word of God and complementarianism, but now cross the line and affirm women can preach and teach and eventually get obtained.
37:55
So here's how they're working that out. They're doing the same thing that the
38:00
Southern Baptist Convention has really come up against with Rick Warren, not yet in ordination, but what he started it out with, and that is differentiating the function and the office of being pastor as though you can make that different, and so he does that too.
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Quote, there is both a prescriptive and descriptive dimensions to this within the evangelical free church.
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Prescriptively, we are complementarian based on the 1988 EFCA conference decision on ordination outlined in, quote, ministerial prevention in evangelical free church
38:41
America, unquote, still quoting him though. The conference specified ordination in EFCA as being available only to men and primarily, although not exclusively, focused on the role of senior pastor in the local churches and those in the pastoral ministry whose primary responsibility is preaching and teaching the word.
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Now, unquote, he said, if you listen to it,
39:09
I read it, but if you listen to it, he is saying this role for ordination is only for senior pastor and those in pastoral ministry, so both in the office and the function and then he goes on, and I'll quote him, says, thus, quote, the role of senior pastor in the
39:33
EFCA is a role reserved for men, unquote. Well, he just snipped out the other pastors on his own, and so now, all of a sudden, it's not for all pastors and elders.
39:50
It's for just the senior ones. Just the senior, yeah. It's the senior. As is written here, for those in pastoral ministry preaching and teaching the word, that's no longer the case, so he writes prescriptive and descriptive.
40:04
He divides them as though we can have a function, a difference between, of course, the office and its function.
40:11
We have to say that shepherding is now open to women as a function, and of course, when you do that, even though the office is not open to them, you now open them up to be pastors, and what did come on as a light bulb moment for me as well is when
40:30
I opened up my, let's call them the Pulse. That's our district quarterly letter that goes out.
40:39
It has all the churches in there, and you can pray for them, so it lists all the staff, and on the staff of one of our churches, of course, now we have a pastor.
40:46
It could be any name, Barbara, my wife's name,
40:51
Denise, Cindy, whatever it is, but it's a gal, and this is the first time in our district, but it's been in eastern and western districts already, and so now it's just kind of spreading out, so of course, what egalitarians will do is push this until the large churches with large budgets either have to be tossed from the
41:24
EFCA when they eventually do or bring women vis -a -vis Rick Warren and the
41:30
SBC, but will they get tossed? I didn't see him get tossed.
41:37
A question I was going to ask is the doctrine, I mean, is there anything in their doctrinal statement that can really, are they directly contradicting it, or are they going to have to change it somehow, because this hasn't taken place on that kind of a level yet, but it's just kind of,
41:56
I mean, where are they at? It sounds like it's in transition. And it could go that direction, but it's kind of subversive at this point.
42:07
To complicate things, they have a statement of faith. A statement of faith is a creed, is a systematic theology, is a confession,
42:18
Westminster Confession, 1689, London Baptists, all these things are systematic theologies, right?
42:26
There's statements where we reduce down in a systematic way what we believe the scripture is teaching.
42:32
They have a short statement, or creed, or whatever you want to call it, of what we, you have to believe to be an even geography person.
42:46
It's very vanilla. It's just typical, you know, Trinity, cross, things of this nature,
42:53
Holy Spirit. But we have this separate statements that are not the same as what you have to believe, the things that are recognized as true within the
43:09
EB3. It's our spiritual sort of statements. That's pretty extensive. And there it starts to argue different things, and that's where we go off on.
43:18
And right now, we're still complementarian, but that obviously is on its way out the window.
43:26
And it's because he argues, and I'll show that in just a moment, that he's really pushing for egalitarianism throughout all the churches.
43:37
All right. Did that answer your question? Yeah. Yeah, it did.
43:43
Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Sure. No problem. Okay. So he says, quote, however, it is important to note that in addition to the certificate of ordination, which is available only to men, the
43:56
EFCA does offer a permanent certificate of Christian ministry credential, which is available to both women and men.
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Descriptively, we are complementarian. He had just written in the paragraph above, prescriptively, we are complementarian, but he just puts it in a different category now.
44:15
But going on with the quotation, in that most EFCA churches conclude that biblical texts teach the roles of elder and senior pastor are reserved for men.
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Based on that, which is the complementarian view, based on that understanding and application of the biblical text, it is encouraging to see a significant and growing number of our churches, which by the way, are complementarian, right?
44:42
In terms of their supposed to be understanding. It's encouraging to see a significant and growing number of our churches seeking ways to expand opportunities for women to effectively use their gifts and abilities to lead and teach within the church.
45:00
I don't know the way to take that, right? To me, that's clear enough.
45:05
Just double speak. I mean, it's... It is. Yeah. It's opposite world. It's upside down.
45:11
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It reminds me of when Jesus went after the Pharisees so often for hypocrisy, and that's what this is.
45:17
It's just, you're saying one thing, so you kind of have like a safety. If someone challenges you, you say, no, look,
45:23
I said we're complementarian. But then it's like, but over here, you totally contradicted what you said over here. It's amazing they think that they can get away with stuff like that, but then they do.
45:33
So he did. He has. He still is. Yeah. And I'm saying that to me, I think of it as a snake.
45:41
The whole thing is craftiness. It's a pragmatic approach.
45:47
All right. So I'll go on and say that now our Christian certificate of Christian ministry includes the opportunity for women to lead and teach.
45:57
It's not what these things are intended for, but... So it's not restricted to just other women and children.
46:04
It goes on. So what does this mean, quoting him now? This means more churches are hiring women to serve in a variety of ministry roles, and including women in various leadership positions.
46:19
In our polity, beyond the conference position of an ordination and the role of senior pastor, you notice he doesn't say all, the local
46:30
EFCA churches have the right and the responsibility to determine their understanding of the biblical texts related to women and leadership in their church, and how to live that out in their local ministry context, unquote.
46:43
Well, that's more dangerous than any other sentence, because then what do you say? Every local church should determine their view of the incarnation, or their view of the
46:51
Trinity. I mean, that's stupid. Well, those things are... Remember that statement of faith?
46:57
Those are excluded. That's called a primary issue. Okay. I got you now.
47:03
These don't seem to be a secondary issue with them. So not to me. I think it's primary, because it affects your biblical sufficiency.
47:12
But nonetheless... Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. So he goes on and says then, the means that the
47:25
EFCA churches will have, varying understandings, and that's what it means. It is extremely important that we exercise grace and humility toward one another, and not make right and wrong judgments.
47:38
In other words, to me, biblical judgments, related to how congregations determine their local leadership structure and practices, unquote.
47:48
So I cannot say he means anything else, except for he wants to promote egalitarian views beyond our current polity.
47:56
And that's what he's doing. So what is that going to look like? Quoting him again. For example, some churches choose to align title pastor only to the men on their ministry staff, while other churches give the title pastor to ministry staff, both women and men.
48:18
And here we are. That's what I'm saying. Unquote. So continuing with the quote here. Those using the title pastor for only male ministry staff, base their positions on New Testament terms overseer, elder, pastor, shepherd, as referring to the same leadership office in the church, which is reserved for men.
48:40
In this case, they choose not to give female ministry staff the title pastor to avoid confusion, unquote.
48:49
Avoid confusion. I'm worried about avoiding confusion. No, I'm not worried about avoiding confusion.
48:58
That is, like we were saying, that's opposite world talk. I'm concerned to be precise with the teaching of the
49:04
Word of God so as to not create confusion. But he is creating confusion so that we can be transferred, be made to change into a transformational church.
49:20
We'll talk about that too in a moment. Transformational church who is able to sidle up with this world and make the gospel more attractive because we don't have any issue that we have to fight about concerning women.
49:35
That's what I think is going on. And it seems pretty clear to me anyway. So going to his thing again, we have permission, you know, for him to entitle women as pastors, quote, thus they may use the title pastor for both female and male ministry staff, unquote.
49:59
Crafty. In his Developing Female Leaders Toward Fulfillment of Our Mission, this is another blog of his.
50:09
It's a later one. In fact, this one is more recent, I believe. This is, I don't know what,
50:16
I don't have a date on here, but this is a more recent one. Well, anyway, in this one, he says.
50:25
Is it Developing Female Leaders, you said, towards fulfillment? Developing Female Leadership Toward Fulfillment of Our Mission.
50:32
It's dated November 9th, 2021. Yep. Yep. I got the date. Yep. Okay. Thank you. So Kevin Kempelen brings up that transformational church model.
50:41
I just mentioned that. And what he means by that, what he has in mind, and we used to have a saying, and that saying was that we are, the
50:54
EFCA exists to glorify God by multiplying churches among all people. Well, now he's put in a different descriptor.
51:03
He says the EFCA exists to glorify God by multiplying transformational churches among all people.
51:12
What does he mean by that? Whatever he means by it, of course, it's something different than that had existed.
51:18
You transform from one thing to another, right? So to effectively live out this mission, quoting him, we need to recognize and acknowledge the gifts, abilities, perspectives, and roles of both women and men in the
51:34
EFCA. When we honor and affirm each other's gifts, respect and listen to each other's perspectives, and champion biblically appropriate ways to serve together, we strengthen church's effectiveness in our mission.
51:46
Again, unquote. Again, he is justifying with adjectives like biblically and appropriate.
51:52
He'll use those words, biblically appropriate, to say that we need to champion things that are unbiblical and inappropriate to strengthen the church's effectiveness in our mission.
52:02
This is my statement here. So here's the three things he says. Here's three steps for the women for doing this transformational process.
52:12
And you know what this is. This is critical theory. Whatever you put between the C and the T is what you're trying to destroy, and this is you're trying to destroy complementarianism, so you're putting that in there.
52:24
Well, here's how you do it. First, identify and encourage female leaders in your church.
52:31
Find women who love the Word, who are godly and faithful and steadfast, and have a shown leadership in a church ministry.
52:41
You know, that describes my wife. My wife is godly, and she is faithful, and she is steadfast.
52:48
She leads this woman's ministry we have in our church by teaching the women, and she will teach children too.
52:56
But if you want to talk about someone who's biblical and godly, she would never, never do what we're being told to do here.
53:05
So let's just go on with that. Find these women. This may seem simple, but it's an essential step in this process.
53:11
But what kind of women are we really trying to find? Two, intentionally find opportunities for women to serve in leading and teaching within your understanding of what the scriptures in your local church affirm.
53:23
So do it what your local church affirms, but what does he want the local church to affirm? He wants them to go into egalitarian mode.
53:32
So in other words, your church ought to affirm what he indicated in the previous article. So quoting him again, in many cases we're just not opening the doors for gifted women to lead.
53:43
Whatever the position for these leaders, create pathways for opportunities and bring women into those roles.
53:52
Three, include women in the conversation. We need, and let me unquote there, and just insert a little thought, of course, we need to change our epistemological viewpoint to include
54:09
Eve's perspective, right? Let's get her perspective on this. And so here's what he says.
54:17
Include them in conversation, quote, with humility and grace, invite women to be part of a healthy dialogue in a church about where women can serve, how to cultivate their gifts, and what the church can do to support them, unquote.
54:33
Yeah, I mean, I don't know that you need to add much commentary.
54:38
It just is obvious that he wants to push things in a egalitarian direction, and he's not really hiding it.
54:48
No, not to me. I think it's pretty clear. So we could be done with that issue, because I think
54:53
I've said enough. I think I've given enough evidence to show where I got to.
55:01
Yeah, so you're seeing this stuff come out of the denomination through their, through really blogs, through statements on the website.
55:10
It's not like they're convening a whole gathering to say, you know, we've determined now, this is our new position, and being very open about it.
55:21
It's all subversive, kind of gradual steps in a certain direction, and then you wake up one day, and it's like, hey, how did all these women pastors get in here, you know?
55:34
Or like, why are we, you know, all of a sudden all BLM supporters or something?
55:40
Like, it doesn't happen overnight through some kind of a biblical argument, and everyone gains a new conviction.
55:46
It happens through stuff like this over time. And so were there other issues too that you wanted to talk about that concerned you, or were those the main ones?
55:56
There's a couple of other issues. I'll be as quick as I can about those, just to conclude it up here.
56:03
But basically, I wanted to demonstrate that I'm just not the only one that's struggling with this, or was struggling with this, in the
56:10
EFCA. There's been many others, and some of them have left, their churches left, they've turned in their, you know, certificates of ordination, and that kind of stuff, and also the church's membership.
56:27
So I just want to, I'll just use one example of that, and then I'll finally conclude with an example of a man who's going through the wringer here, and who is a
56:39
EFCA pastor, who may not be for long. So last fall of 2019,
56:50
Pastor Rob Bernowski of Desert Hills Evangelical Free Church at the time, actually
57:00
November 5th, he wrote a letter, he and his church leaders wrote a letter to the
57:08
EFCA, and to the pastors, warning them about something that they were doing, and saying this ought not to be the case.
57:16
What are you doing? And what it was, was a mosaic church conference.
57:22
Are you familiar with mosaic church? I have heard of it, but I am not. Yeah, I want you to let the audience know, since I don't even have a basic familiarity.
57:31
Okay, so basically, it's way out there.
57:38
Okay. Mark DeYumas, I think is his name, and his wife, pastoring these things.
57:46
But anyway, they had a conference, and he writes, this is the first letter that he writes.
57:53
Of course, I can send this to you too. But he writes in there that they were very troubled by the
57:59
EFCA's partnership with this conference. And yes, you would be troubled. I'm not going to read all of it, but just some specific points here.
58:08
He brings out what they're concerned about. First of all, women in leadership. They had women leading the sessions, and the first session was on women's leadership.
58:21
Oh, man. And there's Stacey Duran, who had the title of lead pastor, which is, of course, what we would probably call senior pastor.
58:29
She's leading it. And this is something that the evangelical free church took funds from the churches and supported this conference, being a supporter of the conference directly with money, and also sending people there, like Alex Mendez, who wrote what we talked earlier on in social justice, and owning
58:50
American, and that kind of thing. He went there as well. So they're all there, and they're going to be hearing these things.
58:58
There's another gal, Georgiana de la Moria, I'm probably slaughtering the name,
59:05
I suppose. But she is the co -lead pastor at Cornerstone Church. And then the biggest concern of the group was
59:13
Grace G. Kim. I'm probably not pronouncing that well enough as well, either.
59:20
But her second book is entitled The Holy Spirit. Well, I say chi, because I do the
59:27
Greek, but maybe it's chi, I don't know. But chi and another, a model of global and intercultural pneumatology.
59:36
Now, this is a thing that's promoting Christians to be, quote, open to the cultural, spiritual, and religious understanding of the
59:44
East. It's chi. It's chi. It's the chi force. Yeah, that's pagan, Eastern religion, mysticism.
59:52
Okay. Yeah. That's crazy to me that they had a session on that. So, wow.
59:57
Okay. Yeah, they want to unite spiritual ideas and Christianity with those of Confucianism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Buddhism.
01:00:06
You can get that from Wikipedia. All right, so these are these concerns that we have. And a little bit more really gets to the
01:00:13
LBGTQ. And we're just going to touch lightly on that, because the
01:00:19
Evie Free Church currently says that LBGTQ, this is sin.
01:00:27
To practice this is sin. There's no ambiguity about that. But then there's an additional thing here, and that is that we should be welcoming of homosexuals.
01:00:38
Well, what does that even mean? And I think what it means is this, to them, Evie Free, is that we need to welcome same -sex attracted individuals.
01:00:47
And not that they practice this, we don't recommend their practice, but we welcome them even in their same -sex attraction, which to me is saying that what
01:00:58
Jesus said concerning lust can be going out the window. It's okay to be selling same -self attracted.
01:01:05
There's nothing especially wrong with you. It's just something that you have to deal with. But maybe it doesn't really push dealing with it.
01:01:13
You know, it's not like, let's go ahead and mortify the flesh. Not only the actions, but the attitudes and thoughts of the flesh that come into you to, like Jesus would talk about lust, this would be perverted lust.
01:01:27
But in other words, just be welcoming, non -condemning. And I just, the point is, is that we are to love people who are of the world, and we also love people who are struggling with their sin.
01:01:44
And if their homosexual identity was they had in the past before coming to Christ, when they came to Christ, their identity changed.
01:01:55
And so now we deal with them as believers who are struggling with sin. There's a big difference. We're not trying to promote any acceptance of that.
01:02:04
We're trying to help them in their struggle to mortify the flesh. We all do. We all have our struggles.
01:02:10
And that's one that we do too. So there's just sort of a bit there that's starting.
01:02:16
And you know, if you're on the hilltop and it's all snow and you start that bent, you just are going to slide.
01:02:23
And that's what the concern is there. I'm not going to go any further than that. They had all these
01:02:28
LGBTQ people and they're promoting it as a legitimate lifestyle for Christians.
01:02:34
So they say the EFCA leadership states that we are not moving in this direction. But tragically, they say with their words, what they say with their words is contradicted by what the
01:02:45
EFCA is doing with our financial resources, recommendations, and promotions. So that's what this letter does here.
01:02:53
And they write that as a warning. And then what happens is that started that day that they wrote it and went on for a week.
01:03:00
And then they wrote another letter saying, sure enough, this is all what happened. And that's their letter.
01:03:06
This is what happened there. And I won't go through too much of this either. But they said, look, these are false teachers.
01:03:14
The Mosaic Conference invited people who are false teachers to be speakers and leaders of various sessions.
01:03:20
It is unbiblical and therefore unacceptable for spiritual leaders within the church, within EFCA church, or leadership, to partner with false teachers in sponsoring a conference for several reasons.
01:03:34
First, spiritual leaders are not to partner with deceivers, but to expose their false teaching. He goes into scripture.
01:03:40
Second, the New Testament frequently warns the church about false teachers and the danger they pose to the mission of the gospel.
01:03:47
He goes into all those kinds of things too. And he goes on and gives certain examples.
01:03:54
And here he gets to someone who writes while they're at the conference there.
01:04:00
What an honor to share the platform with these powerful women of God at the Mosaic Conference.
01:04:05
Pastors, Michelle Higgins, Susie Gamis, Gamis, I don't know,
01:04:10
Noemi, whatever her name is, Chavez. They can preach, man, you know, kind of thing. And then it goes on.
01:04:19
And the founder and the organizer, which is Mark DeYumas, he writes, in juxtaposition to a white pastor's recent comment telling another woman to go home, the question is to ask, which one is the real prophet?
01:04:38
My answer, money is on Mark, dear sister, you know, Ruth Beth Moore. And he just complains about John MacArthur calling him a white pastor kind of thing, which of course, here's a faithful man reduced to color of his skin, right, not 50 years of ministry.
01:04:54
But he goes on, just kind of complains about that, just wants this kind of stuff out too. There's a dissent here.
01:05:00
But let me finish with this last one. He's quoting now Alex Mandis, remember
01:05:05
Alexander Mandis, One in America, and all the stuff in social justice, he went. He was, by funds from the churches, he was paid to attend and go there.
01:05:14
And he's also on the national board, you know, national directors, at least on the staff there.
01:05:21
He tweets, quote, at multi -ethnic church planting conference in Dallas, there is a question that came to mind.
01:05:29
Why do we largely invest in demographic that is becoming less and less, and grudgingly resource a demographic, and he writes this in a poor manner, but you can understand, he says, what will be more and more?
01:05:45
What he does is he then links the article, it says here, showing how white populations are declining in the
01:05:51
U .S., while Hispanic groups are rapidly increasing. And the question that comes to his mind is, why are we spending so much on white people, when soon there'll be a small percentage of the population?
01:06:04
Nothing about this question reflects biblical concerns. Nothing, you know.
01:06:11
So where do we find the apostles in the New Testament accessing census data to figure out who to preach the gospel to?
01:06:20
So that's what they said. And then finally, six months later, they did leave the church.
01:06:28
They became, instead of Desert Hills Evangelical Free Church, they became Desert Hills Bible Church, because they had not found any other association yet to go to, which is a problem, you know.
01:06:40
So that's... You're not the only one.
01:06:46
There's others who are, and I know of a pastor right now who's considering it, and his church is thinking of leaving.
01:06:52
So I don't know how widespread it is, but it does sound similar to what's happening in the SBC. And they're kind of just bleeding conservative churches.
01:07:01
And you would think that that would create in the leadership kind of a pause, and like, hold on, we should do something.
01:07:06
We should say something. But it doesn't sound like it is. It's just a denial, and let's keep going forward.
01:07:13
So that's sad. So last example. Please. Okay. Jeff Clear.
01:07:21
Jeff Clear is a pastor with the EFCA. He's a good brother in Christ.
01:07:27
He's a very humble guy, from my context with him. I've spoke with him, you know.
01:07:33
But he wrote this book, Wilk Free Church. He wrote it to all
01:07:39
Evangelical churches, but he did an appendix in here just to the
01:07:44
Evangelical Free Church. And I won't read things out of this, but I will tell you what happened.
01:07:50
Just the story here. What he did was he went to a conference thing that was 2019,
01:08:00
I believe, spring of 2019. And who was there was Greg Strand, our sort of resident theologian, who gave a really good argument against social justice.
01:08:13
I think that's the year. But nonetheless, he gave a really good argument against social justice. He gave a biblical argument against it, spending an hour on it.
01:08:22
That's wonderful. So there's good things. But then he turned around. Well, not turned around, but he picked out a pastor, one of the black pastors in the
01:08:33
EFCA, who happens to be woke. And he had him come forward and speak for a half hour.
01:08:41
And it's like, Jeff was thinking, this is going to be a parody.
01:08:47
It's going to be something that's going to come out, and they're going to say, aha, see, actually, this is what this is all about. But that's not what happened.
01:08:53
He spoke for a half hour on critical theory, critical race theory, and promoted it.
01:08:59
And at the end of that half hour, Greg Strand says, amen, amen. I agree with you. So he put this in here.
01:09:11
And then, eventually, this book got into apparently too many hands, and there was stuff going on.
01:09:21
And here's the response. And here's the unofficial response to charges that the
01:09:27
EFCA has adopted a worldview. And I told you before,
01:09:33
I think they have, you know, or at least they are pretty well into allowing that to be promoted through the
01:09:41
EFCA, and they're the leaders. The first question you might ask is, why did they make it official?
01:09:48
That's a different issue. Let's just go on. They write, Greg writes, in light of the discussion about Jeff Clear's book,
01:09:56
The Woke Free Church, for the deliverance of the body of Christ from social justice captivity, and the claims and criticism he makes, and also the discussion occurring in broader evangelicalism,
01:10:07
I thought it would be instructive to share with you a response to a question I was asked earlier in the summer, along with my response.
01:10:15
The question is, of course, what is your position on the social justice issue? And what he does is he goes on his position.
01:10:23
It's not too necessarily bad here. He just tries to redefine things. I'm not going to go into all of that.
01:10:31
You can read it if you just email me and ask. I'll send you all the links, and you can read all these things for yourself.
01:10:37
But he does say some things that are concerning to me. There's a little bit of a completion, that crack that opens up between the gospel and social justice in there to me.
01:10:47
But then Kevin Pilon puts in additional remarks, and as in his additional remarks, he says this,
01:10:58
EFCA has apparently joined the woke culture. He's quoting someone else.
01:11:05
And then he says, no he's not. I'm sorry, this is all him. EFCA has apparently joined the woke culture.
01:11:12
He's going to try and be a little bit sarcastic back. But he says this, quote, calls for social justice are echoing within the organization.
01:11:24
Okay, that's a flat out statement that we have a problem. There are calls in our organization that are echoing amongst our organization that we need to go and support social justice, the world's social justice.
01:11:41
How can the EFCA justify this? And so he goes in, and he tries to say some things, and he goes on, but not very much.
01:11:51
But basically saying we're not woke. So let me tell you what this paper did not do.
01:11:57
What this paper did not do was address anything written in the book that they're supposedly talking about, which is
01:12:07
Jeff Kluwer's or Jeff Kluwer's and Kluwer himself. Kluwer, I'm trying to say it right himself.
01:12:13
Instead, this is what they do. And I'll read this, and then
01:12:18
I'll show you the paper too. It's just a very short thing. I wrote
01:12:24
Woke Free Church for the Deliverance of the Body of Christ from Social Justice Captivity. This is general speaking.
01:12:31
It is because I love the EFCA that I was willing to say some hard things aimed toward correction.
01:12:38
But I was also very careful to offer words of encouragement and affirmation to those leaders of the
01:12:44
EFCA that I named in the book. Sadly, I have yet to receive a response.
01:12:51
Some pastors were sent to rebuke me. He had four pastors come show up at his door.
01:12:57
I think it's four or five, but four. Sent by the EFCA office, national office.
01:13:07
And they were sent to rebuke me for writing the book. But no one has addressed the substance of the claims of the book.
01:13:15
In other words, just what I said on this paper, they don't talk about what he said.
01:13:21
They only say, we're rebuking you for writing the book. And then they give four things.
01:13:27
So let me read this now. Worse still, the leadership has chosen to threaten me with being defrocked, meaning they're going to take away his ordination.
01:13:38
They're not going to wait for him to send it to him. The charges are misrepresentation,
01:13:46
Christian nationalism, attitude, and influence. I have asked for at least one example of anything
01:13:55
I wrote in Wilt Free Church that the leadership claims to be a misrepresentation, but they have flatly refused to provide it.
01:14:05
They won't name a thing. As for the second charge, I have not yet been given any definition of Christian nationalism or examples of my teaching it, whatever it is.
01:14:17
And the other two charges are likewise hard to answer. I am praying for justice to be done.
01:14:22
My conscience is clear, but that doesn't make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. But if I have erred in anyone's mind,
01:14:28
I think it is incumbent upon the ones bringing the charges to tell me where they say
01:14:35
I have erred. Please pray for me to have wisdom from above and get in situational right after that.
01:14:41
He got a letter from the EFCA and telling them that he is actually being defrocked this
01:14:50
September. I don't have a copy of that, but that's what he's received.
01:14:55
I don't understand the charge of Christian nationalism. How is that a charge? What does that even mean?
01:15:01
They just don't define it, I guess. Well, what I was telling you before when I was speaking earlier about trying to define
01:15:07
Christian nationalism, what I think they mean by Christian nationalism is if you're a conservative and you think that we ought to be voting for people who, not necessarily
01:15:17
Christians or anything, but we're voting for people who will uphold just what's written in the heart of man by God.
01:15:25
It's the law that he writes in the heart of us so that we have some sanity and we are following things rightly and wrongly, understanding what's right and wrong by that even.
01:15:39
That's just the natural revelation of God. That would be Christian nationalism to them. Rather, they want the leftist socialist view that I see, that I showed you, that I think
01:15:50
I demonstrated well enough for that. They want this kind of view. That's not
01:15:56
Christian nationalism to them when, in fact, it's doing the same thing. Let's vote for the right people. Let's push the same agenda.
01:16:02
Let's email our representatives. Let's do all this kind of stuff. That's not Christian nationalism, but this is.
01:16:10
So to them, I think it's to effect a change in the nation, to make the nation more righteously
01:16:19
Christianized, is what I think they would define as Christian nationalism.
01:16:26
They're against it. They're just terribly against it. It's horrible. Now, they don't say anything about it.
01:16:31
So go ahead. No, that's interesting. I'm trying to remember, because I've heard of this book before,
01:16:39
I believe. As you were telling the story, I feel like someone had conveyed this already to me.
01:16:47
I don't know to what extent there's been exposure of this, but to me, of all the things that you mentioned, that's the biggest deal, in a way, just because that's where the rubber's meeting the road.
01:17:00
It's affecting someone's life. They're actually taking an aggressive position, and that is policy.
01:17:09
Procedure is policy. When you start applying these things, that is what your denomination believes now, or your organization, or however you want to categorize the
01:17:18
EFCA. That's kind of disturbing, to be honest.
01:17:25
I'd be curious from you to see what advice you'd have for pastors or churches in a similar situation, because I would imagine, and all
01:17:34
I'm doing is really letting you have a platform at my invitation, but just, hey, share this information.
01:17:41
I'd be curious to see what happens with you as this video makes its rounds, and then others who might have concerns.
01:17:51
What would you say to them? I don't know if you want to encourage leaving, but that seems to be the obvious choice.
01:17:59
Do you have anything to share as far as direction? This is a more difficult thing.
01:18:07
I'm not trying to be cowardly. I hope I'm not cowardly. I don't think so, no. I don't want to push people any direction on this.
01:18:16
What I want to do is to at least expose the truth. I'm all for being open, and the leadership has not, to me, been open yet.
01:18:27
Now, Kevin, the compellion, is going to contact me next week and set up a time where he and I can talk just face -to -face, well,
01:18:36
Zoom -to -Zoom or whatever it is. Now that I have Zoom on my computer, thank you, I can do that. It's not like I am encouraging people to leave the
01:18:50
ESA per se. I am providing, I think, known facts about what is going on.
01:18:58
If that is a cause for them to go, okay. If that is not a cause, if they think, oh, this is all secondary issues.
01:19:05
They don't care about women pastors. They don't care about social justice stuff.
01:19:11
They define it well enough to be biblical justice, maybe, things of that nature. If they're not concerned about that, then they're not.
01:19:20
I consider, go ahead. I don't understand the polity necessarily of the
01:19:26
EFCA. Is there a way conservatives could band together and get their own leadership in charge so that some of these situations resolve themselves and leadership can come back to more of an orthodox position on this?
01:19:46
Or is that just beyond the pale? No. Anybody who wants to get together and talk can talk.
01:19:52
But what has happened is the public discussion of it through the EFCA is shut down.
01:19:59
The control of the blogs, the control of what's said, what's promoted to all the churches is just through the
01:20:07
EFCA. Of course, they're not allowing Jeff. There's many other pastors, by the way, that I know of who do meet and talk about these things.
01:20:20
Are there elections every year? If you wanted to set the denomination right, is there a mechanism by which to even do that or is that just not possible is my question.
01:20:36
Is that a dangerous question? No, it's not a dangerous question. It's just that I'm pretty ignorant on these kinds of things sometimes.
01:20:43
I don't know if you got all your friends show up at whatever the annual meeting is and then say, all right, we're voting our guy in as the new president or whatever the highest position is.
01:20:53
And now we've taken the denomination back or we've set it right or whatever.
01:21:00
I have shown you my understanding is that Kevin, not so much
01:21:07
Craig, he's fencing. What I see with the leadership of the
01:21:15
EFCA is either trying to fence him or sit or they're trying to push an agenda.
01:21:22
I think Kevin has done wrong and has been crafty and he does need to repent to this, but I do see them all as brothers.
01:21:30
And so again, I would say this, if there can be a change affected by just simply acknowledging where you've done wrong.
01:21:43
And yet there's just this cover and no acknowledgement of wrongdoing and no repentance that's going on because they don't think they need to repent.
01:22:00
And so therefore, this would be something that is incumbent upon everyone in the pre -church to at least examine.
01:22:09
And if you examine it and you see from the evidence that what I personally see, it's fine.
01:22:16
And if you think that you need to leave because of that, that's fine. I'm not encouraging anyone to leave.
01:22:23
I don't press. Okay. So I'm not encouraging my church to leave. I want them to think it through.
01:22:30
And if they do leave, that's fine. I know a few of them want to, but simply because I've turned in my ordination and I'm not part of the
01:22:41
Evie Free Church any longer. And they love me. They trust me, but I don't want it done on relationship.
01:22:49
I want it done on actual facts. And so I think I would just encourage everybody to look at the facts and may come to a different conclusion.
01:22:58
That's fine. And I'm okay with that. Yeah. I hear you on that. And that makes sense.
01:23:04
And I think you've done a good job presenting facts. And so this is not, I'm not trying to get you to say anything you don't want to say.
01:23:11
And this is totally my opinion here, but when you have leadership like this, even if they repent and acknowledge everything they've done and say, we don't want to do that anymore.
01:23:20
Trust has to be rebuilt. I mean, you've talking about some of these situations years now of the wrong position being out there.
01:23:29
And just because someone repents and I forgive them and we're back into a good relationship doesn't mean that I want them running my organization anymore.
01:23:40
So that's something to consider that there would, in my mind, there would have to be a time period of building trust here again.
01:23:49
So, you might not be the person to talk to about this, but I would wonder for those watching who are evangelical free and you're listening and you think, man, can we affect change?
01:24:01
I would wonder what mechanism that would be, whether that's an annual meeting they have, or I don't know how officers are elected and stuff, but maybe if it's still worth it and possible, it may not be get some guys in there that aren't going to be fence sitters, that aren't going to be vague or general about these things, but specific and biblical and that you can count on to get into some of these positions so that the denomination can go in a better direction.
01:24:27
I mean, that would be amazing, I would think. So, yeah. And you don't need to comment on that, by the way.
01:24:34
I just wanted to, that was sort of my two cents I wanted to put out there. Okay. Please do. And that is there are fellows that I know of, of course, and you know some too that I don't know, but they're throughout the
01:24:47
ESCA. And I would just say that for me personally, and this I can say,
01:24:53
I don't think there's coming back from this. I think what we've done is we've entered into something that is not reversible, especially women in ministry, in pastoral ministry, that kind of stuff.
01:25:05
I don't think that's going to happen. If it does happen, I praise God. But the reason
01:25:10
I left is obviously I think that this stuff is just not redeemable to me.
01:25:19
And also, I'm getting a little bit older, and that's not an excuse, but I've got too much other stuff to do for bringing out the
01:25:30
Word of God and proclaiming it and teaching it and sharing it and living it out in my life.
01:25:35
I don't have that many more years to do that with. And to spend my time, you're a young guy,
01:25:41
John, and you can see how it can affect you and your time to address these issues and to go through them and to try and affect change in that way.
01:25:51
I'm a little bit older, and my time I have to carve out to do what is more beneficial, and that is
01:26:03
I don't want to into a fight that's going to just drag out and all I do is maybe not get anywhere with it.
01:26:10
I really do want to move on to just do what God's called me to do in ministry.
01:26:17
Now, for other people, they may have that time. There are lots of pastors, again,
01:26:23
I will say, who are really hurting because they have not gotten any answers from the national office to the questions they're asking.
01:26:34
They're all asking the same questions I am, and they're not getting any answers. I know of so many, and so I just would say that, again,
01:26:45
I've already said my piece, but I just am hoping that folks, if they can't see that this is going to turn around, then go a different direction and follow what
01:26:57
God has for you. I can't find yet a place to go.
01:27:03
What I mean by that is what are we going to do about ordination? Maybe nothing. What are we going to do about what if the church wants to leave?
01:27:13
Where are we going to go? We're not Lone Rangers. We're people who want to be associated in a greater scale.
01:27:20
I'm wondering, where are all these Southern Baptist church guys going who have left the
01:27:25
Southern Baptist Church, and daily there's churches leaving the SBC. Where do they go?
01:27:33
I don't know the answer. I think a lot of it, they're independent now, or some of them still remain in some local associations.
01:27:42
I know that there's different things popping up. I've heard about the FIRE Network out in Colorado, and I've heard about, well, the
01:27:51
IFCA is an organization I interviewed the president of recently. It's not for everyone, but that's another association that's not going woke.
01:27:59
I don't know of a lot though. We really do need more. I don't know the answer to that.
01:28:07
It's a curious thing. It's probably for another discussion sometime, but I've wondered why there hasn't been, because there's a whole market in a sense.
01:28:17
I'm just thinking pragmatic here, not to be a pragmatist, but thinking practically. You have a whole bunch of people who don't want to go woke.
01:28:27
In fact, most of them don't in many of these organizations, and their leadership is trying to take them to these places.
01:28:32
There should be tons of alternatives popping up all over the place to attract these people, and yet there's something about intimidation, the social stigma that would come if you led that.
01:28:46
There's something about, there's a fear, there's intrepidation. I don't know exactly how to make sense of all of it, but yeah,
01:28:54
I do my best when I do hear of a good organization. I try to book someone to come on and talk about it, and maybe someone listening to this podcast right now is that person.
01:29:04
They need to start one that's going to do some of the functions that some of these organizations, like ordination for chaplaincy, like missions work.
01:29:12
Some of these things, you need a cooperative effort to actually pull off.
01:29:19
Yeah, I wish I had a better answer for you. Sorry, I don't. Thank you for your bravery and for sharing about the
01:29:27
EFCA, because you've opened my eyes. I didn't realize it was this bad. I knew that there was some stuff happening, but it's just, in one sense, it's discouraging, but I'm really glad there are pastors like yourself out there.
01:29:41
Like you said, there's a pastor that even just left that from Desert Hills, and there's more.
01:29:48
Yeah, I'm sure there's a lot more. I mean, the gospel is going to go forward, and the Christ Church is going to be built, and it sounds like he may not be using the
01:29:57
EFCA as much to do that. That's a sad thing, but we just praise
01:30:03
God that he reveals the truth, and that we have the truth, and we don't need to be like in the days of yore when the
01:30:08
Catholic Church was, the Roman Catholic Church, just pretty much controlled even the language and everything so that people were ignorant of this.
01:30:18
We have the truth now. We can compare what people are saying to what the Word of God says, so. Praise God. Yeah, so anyway.
01:30:25
Well, anywhere you want to send anyone, or I think I asked you that at the beginning, and you didn't really have anything, but I know
01:30:32
I'll put your email address in the info section, so any final thoughts you have? Which one did you put in?
01:30:39
Oh, I haven't put it. Well, I will put your email address. Gregmilla at yahoo .com is the one I prefer.
01:30:45
Okay, so C -R -A -I -G -M -E -L -A at yahoo .com.
01:30:52
All right. Well, I will put that in the info section for everyone, and if you have any questions for Pastor Chambers, please email him at that address, and he can help you out, so God bless.