Aimee Byrd, Denny Burk and #BigEva Politics

Hey there, smooth AD Robles here. I have to say, I was minding my own business on Facebook, just scrolling, checking out things, seeing what's going on. I fixed myself a nice macchiato, so smooth, baby.

That's right, it's very smooth. And I saw an article shared in the notorious group Geneva Commons. It's been recently renamed GC, which, you know, I like Geneva Commons better, but hey, you know, not everyone has to do things the way I do, that's fine.

That's fine, but I saw this article shared, and I was not surprised that an article like this would be shared in Geneva Commons, but I was very much surprised at the source of this article. This article is written by Denny Burke, and it was published on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary's website, which I guess it's going to be in the magazine or something like that, but it comes out on the website first.

Fantastic, I love it. I love when you give people options as far as reading your materials. Don't put it behind a paywall, all that kind of stuff. It's very helpful to people like me who are not going to buy your magazine.

Anyway, I was very surprised about this article because you don't usually see this level of directness in Big Eva. You know, I've been told on numerous occasions that criticizing a brother or sister in Christ is off-limits for a minister of the gospel or even just a parishioner, and as preposterous as you might think that sounds, that is a very common practice in Big Eva, and this is unique in Big Eva circles because not only is it a direct refutation of a book in a very direct way in very matter-of-fact terms, which I very much appreciate, but also even the title itself names names, which is somewhat interesting.

Now, I have to say, I want to see more of this kind of thing. I think it's very helpful to the body of Christ to know who you're criticizing and specifically what you're criticizing. I think that it's only fair to people to know that kind of thing, but let me just say, Denny Burke, that this is going to be tantamount to you coming out as a misogynist in some circles.

You'll be called a misogynist. You'll be called a—what is the other term that they use? A sexist or something like that. I don't know. I can't keep up with all these terms, but look at the title, A Way Station to Egalitarianism.

Wow, that's spicy. That's direct. And then the rest of the title is A Review Essay of Amy Bird's Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. There is a direct and clear accusation there, and if you read the article, you will find yourself nodding in agreement quite often, but the level of directness is very unique.

And so, Denny Burke, let me just say that when the mob comes for you and calls you misogynist, sexist, all that kind of stuff, they'll probably even call you racist. Who knows? When they do it, I just want you to know that we're here for you.

You can just reach out to Smooth AD. I'll tell you how to handle the mob. It's okay. It's okay. We got your back, buddy. That's all I wanted to say, and so I hope you find this video helpful. Take care, and God bless.

Amy Byrd, Egalitarianism, and Big Eva Directness

Ooh, that's smooth. All right. Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised by this article. You know, I have pretty much avoided the controversy with Amy Bird. I find her writing extremely distasteful. I don't mean the content, like what she's saying, although that is also distasteful, but I can read all kinds of content that I don't agree with.

That's not the problem. I just don't like her writing style. I find it very annoying, and I'm much—. There are some people that I disagree with that I really love their writing style, like, for example, Joel McDermott's more modern stuff.

His older stuff I agreed a lot with. The more recent stuff I don't agree with more, but I can read it. I don't find his writing style so off-putting, but Amy Bird's, I don't know. I can't get through it.

It's just not fun. So I've avoided that controversy. It kind of felt like grabbing a passing dog by the ears kind of thing for me. A number of people have asked me what I think about Amy Bird and all this kind of stuff.

I don't really care about it. I just don't. It's just not my thing. Fine. But I do know about the controversy. I know what she's putting forward in her book. I've seen many quotations from her book and that kind of thing.

So I understand that she's pushing egalitarianism low-key. She's pushing the minimal amount of complementarianism possible, and it's not biblically faithful in any way. Again, I don't feel like her writing is very helpful in any way.

If you're going to read someone that you disagree with, then you need to find someone that you can at least know where they're coming from. And I'm not really sure where Amy's coming from. I think that she's clearly very influenced by feminism, obviously.

But I'm not really sure what she's trying to accomplish, and I don't really like that kind of stuff. That's just my opinion. Fine. I was part of the Geneva Commons dox attempt, although I don't care about being doxed.

I mean, my stuff is out there online anyway. But yeah, that was particularly hilarious. Very lunchroom schoolgirl, mean girl type thing. Amy, it's just really funny that you want to be this leader in the church, and then you end up doing what high school girls do.

It's very, very—it's perfect. Put it that way. It's perfect and precious. Anyway, what I found amazing about this article— and Denny Burke, seriously, well done. This is showing a side of Big Eva that is so rarely shown.

I appreciate it, and I want to see more of this because this is the kind of thing that actually helps the body of Christ. Vague articles, vague Big Eva articles, all that kind of stuff, like the typical fair you get at Gospel Coalition, is the opposite of helpful.

All it does is muddy the waters, and this kind of an article clears up the waters so much. It's so helpful, and I think the way you've put some of your points here is so helpful for the social justice movement at large because this is all related.

Amy Byrd's stuff is related to the race stuff. The race stuff is related to the sexuality stuff, the LGBT type stuff as well. It's all related. It's all the same fundamental force being pushed on the church.

And the tactics that are used by Amy Byrd are the same tactics that are used by Matthew Vines, are the same tactics that are used by Jamar Tisby, and we can confront them in the same way. So, Denny Burke, thank you for giving us this blueprint that we can use anywhere, and I hope that you'll use them in all the fronts of our battle right now.

Byrd's Complementarianism and Feminist Headship

But anyway, a review of Amy Byrd's book. This is very interesting. Now, I encourage you to read this. This is extremely interesting. But I want to take a few kind of snippets on this and show you what I'm talking about here.

The first thing comes within the first few paragraphs. Here's what he says in his article. He says, quote, Byrd's views, at first blush, appear to be a classic narrow complementarian perspective, a male-only headship, eldership rather, with husband as head of the home.

In other words, her view sounds a little bit like Cathy Keller's view that a woman can do whatever an unordained man can do in ministry. But when you press into the details of Byrd's argument, it looks like she may be going further than that.

This is very common in the social justice controversy because what'll happen is you'll get a presentation. This gospel coalition is notorious for this. They'll put forward, you know, in the beginning, they'll say something that's thoroughly biblical, right?

It's a truism. You can't really argue with it. But they actually, when you look deep into the arguments, they're actually saying a lot more than what that truism says. And now I'm not saying that narrow complementarianism is a truism, but, you know, male-only eldership, of course, you know, every Christian should agree with that.

And husband as the head of the home, every Christian should agree with that. So those are true. But the thing is, though, that when you look into what that actually means at the home and what eldership actually means and how eldership is a role, it's not just a title.

It's a role. It's about teaching and stuff. When you get down to the nitty-gritty, you can see that there's something being pushed here that is actually not biblical. In fact, it's anti-biblical. And you can say the same thing with justice.

You can say the same thing with the race stuff. You can say the same thing with the celibate gay Christianity stuff. It's a very similar tactic. You take something that sounds pretty biblical that no one would disagree with, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty of the argument, you're actually saying much more than that.

And if you look at the next sentence here, this is a very common tactic as well. So he goes on. He says, for example, when defining headship, Byrd relies on a feminist scholar named Sarah Coakley to deny that headship involves any authority on a husband's part.

Headship is bottom-up rather than top-down. Byrd uses the word headship, but she still fills it with Sarah Coakley's meaning. The result is that rhetorically, Byrd sounds like a narrow complimentarian.

Substantively, she embraces a feminist definition of headship. This is the strategy. This is the primary strategy of all social justice advocates in Christianity because they'll use the same words as you.

For example, justice, right? They'll use the same words as you. For example, racist. They'll use the same words as you. For example, restitution. But they adopt definitions of those words that do not come from the Bible.

All of a sudden, justice means equity, equal wealth, equal income, stuff like that. All of a sudden, racism means being white. You know what I mean? Being white and not being anti-racist, according to their definitions.

All of a sudden, restitution means reparation. The sons pay for the sins of the father. It's very insidious to work and argue in this way where you're using language that you know your readers will identify with while injecting it with meaning that has nothing to do with the Bible.

It has something to do with a pagan ideology. Feminism is a pagan ideology. It's a different religion. Likewise, this woke stuff, this social justice stuff, it's a different religion. It's a different worldview.

It's a different ideology. I'll never forget that this is exactly what happened with that Matthew Hall video. If you remember, Matthew Hall said, I am a racist. He kind of made that weird face where he's like, how about that?

You know what I mean? It's like, so is he coming out as like, I don't like black people? No, he wasn't doing that. He was adopting a different definition of racist, you see. When he said, I am a racist, what he meant was that I'm white, and I've benefited from white privilege and white supremacy, and I need to come to terms with those benefits that I have.

I was born up in just sort of this invisible bag of privilege. That's something that Matt Chandler said. He's like, yeah, but that's not really what racist really means. That's not how we use it. You're actually using a foreign definition there to make a weird point.

You know what I mean? It's the same kind of thing. He's identifying it here with feminism, or I'm sorry, with headship. Yeah, she's saying headship, but she's injecting a pagan definition to headship, just like Matthew Hall in that video was injecting a pagan definition into the word racist to, I don't know, appear cool to the kids or something like that.

Sources, Women Teaching Men, and the Missing Biblical Texts

I'm not really sure. One thing I want to mention here in praise of Amy Byrd is something that Denny Burke recognizes here. He says, Byrd's uses of sources in general is troubling. For example, Byrd recommends the website intersexandfaith .org to his readers as a resource for understanding intersex.

Okay, whatever. But I want to commend Amy Byrd for at least giving us her sources, because so often social justice warriors actually don't give you your sources. I'll never forget when I was reviewing The Woke Church Book by Eric Mason, a number of times in that video review, I said, He's obviously referencing something here, but he doesn't include it in the sources.

He doesn't include it in the notes, and that would be so helpful. I think he doesn't, because if we saw his sources, we would know that he's a critical race theorist and all of these things. I can't prove that, obviously, but at least Amy shows you her sources here.

That's at least somewhat helpful. I appreciate that. Thank you, Amy Byrd, for doing that. Here's something else I want to reference. Denny Burke says, Quote, Byrd chafes against limitations on women teaching men.

She accepts a male-only eldership, but otherwise embraces women teaching men and exercising authority over them. She writes, and this is a quote from her book, Quote, Lay women, like their brothers in faith, they too are encouraged to seek the greater gifts and to mature in their knowledge of the faith so that they can teach others.

There's no qualifier in these verses saying that men are not to learn from women or that women are only to teach their own sex and children. Any divinely ordained differences that men and women have do not prohibit women from teaching.

It would be disobedient to scripture to withhold women from teaching. And so that last sentence there is especially interesting because he's, essentially Amy Byrd is saying that you're being disobedient to scripture if you prohibit women from teaching men, right?

Now you might be thinking to yourself, that's really weird for Amy to say that because Paul says, I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man. And so you would think that that would be, you need to address that kind of thing, especially if you're going to accuse someone of sin.

And, but here's what Denny Burke says, Byrd accuses broad complementarians of being disobedient to scripture in prohibiting women from teaching men. Yet she herself does not explain key biblical texts that say women shouldn't teach men.

You can't write a book arguing that women can teach men and then not deal with the key biblical text that says women shouldn't teach men. So can you imagine having a text that so clearly and so obviously it can be used against what you're saying in the book.

In fact, almost word for word, it teaches the opposite of what you're saying and not even addressing it, not exegeting it, not explaining it. Can you imagine doing that? And yet this is what social justice advocates in the church do, whether they're feminists, whether they're gay or whether they're race, you know, based social justice warriors.

They always, always, always do this. And so when you see a social justice presentation, you know, whatever, whether it's an article or a video, whatever, you'll so often see them say something about, I don't know, reparations or something like that.

And then you bring up the obvious verse where it's like, well, how did the sons pay for the sins of the father? Like that seems to go directly against this, but you won't even see that addressed. It won't even be addressed.

This is a tactic that is commonly used. It is the opposite of helpful. What it becomes is it becomes a propaganda piece. It doesn't actually become a useful, you know, like, okay, I'm going to understand where you're coming from anymore.

No, it just becomes propaganda. It's a marketing piece and all of that kind of thing. And so this is very common in social justice, you know, advocacy. And I, you know, I'm very grateful for Denny Burke for, for, for exposing this, exposing it directly while naming names.

This is extremely helpful. This is the real crux of the article here. And I think this is the way Denny Burke put. This is genius. I'm serious. I'm not joking. This is, this is genius. The way he puts this, I'm just going to read two paragraphs here because I think that you'll, you'll see why I think this is so important.

Why Popular Christian Books Win Without Good Arguments

Denny Burke says it's often this way in popular Christian books, they tap into something that people are already feeling. This is true of Robert Bell's material. It was true of Donald Miller Miller's blue light jazz.

And to be sure, both writers are extremely gifted, but many gifted writers never get noticed. Which ones do the ones that articulate what people are already feeling. So that they can identify with it.

I don't know how popular birds book will prove to be, but she's sharp and she's tapping into something. And here's the catch. Ready? Listen to this. If you, if you've been kind of zoning out, listen to this, the bad arguments, even when brilliantly presented and popular in their moment, don't last.

Where are Robert Bell's and Donald Miller Miller today? Where are their arguments? The world has moved on. And the only thing left behind are a vast number of sheep who were led astray a decade ago. Who knows how those sheep are faring in the faith today.

This is my, this is my big, this is my big problem with social justice, because what the social justice advocates in the church are doing is they're tapping into the spirit of the world. People are feeling this way already.

People are exhausted from constantly having to be the ogre, right? People are exhausted from constantly having to be that stick in the mud where you're like, you're against gay marriage. Gay marriage isn't a thing.

You're against this. You're against trans rights and stuff like that. You like, like the Bible forces you into all these unpopular positions and it's tiring. And then you, you, you know, you get any reasonable sounding excuse to not do that, to not have to be that stick in the mud, to not have to be holding the line all the time.

It's exhausting and you get sick of it. And so the very first argument that comes to you that sounds plausible, you accept it because it's a relief. It's like, oh, finally, I don't have to be that ogre anymore.

Listen to what he says up here. I missed this paragraph. I don't want to miss this. He says, either way, there's a generation looking for a doorway and bird provides it, which means she doesn't really need to make good arguments.

She doesn't need to do careful exegesis. She can invoke whatever sources she wants. Why? Because she's got a pre-made audience. This audience is ready to jump and is just looking for a reasonably intelligent pretext for doing so.

This encapsulates the social justice movement so well. People are so sick of being that stick in the mud Christian that always gets made fun of in the media. That's always a stick in the mud. That's always getting told that they're a bigot and they're backwards and they're Neanderthals and all that stuff.

People are sick of it. And so the very first person that comes to them with a plausible sounding argument, no matter how preposterous the argument really is on the underneath, they're like, oh, great, perfect.

I'm in social justice. Loving your neighbor. All of a sudden, loving your neighbor becomes what the world is doing. And guys like hear me. Loving your neighbor is very rarely going to be what the world is doing.

The world gets some things right on accident, not because they have proper sources or foundations or ideologies. Like people are against murder in general in our country because, you know, in their hearts, they know the law.

God put that in there. But they don't even get that right. They don't even get that right. And so to use pagan ideologies as a guide for how the church should act, which is so often what we hear from social justice wars.

Oh, yeah, the church is behind on this. They should be doing what Starbucks is doing. They should be doing what NASCAR is doing. They should be doing this and that, hip-hop culture, all that stuff. It's like that's not how you do this.

That's not how you do this. The Bible is enough for that kind of stuff. And so we don't have to use racist in a weird way the way Matt Paul used racist. And Denny Burke shows us why, because all that does is cater to a pre-made audience and uses pagan ideologies to do it, to appear cool or to appear palatable or to, you know, release that pressure valve of always having to be the ogre in the conversation.

And it doesn't do you any good because, as he says here, who knows how those sheep are faring in the faith today. I worry about people that are in this social justice movement now, what that's going to mean for their faith later.

Because these are not just oopsied kinds of doctrines. These are anti-Christ doctrines. They're anti-Christian doctrines. They remake what the gospel is. It's completely different. It's a false gospel.

It's a different religion. And so I worry about those people. And Denny Burke has given us a very, very helpful article for how to deal with any social justice argument. And so thanks, Denny. I didn't know you were there.

I didn't know you were doing this stuff. And so I'm very, very appreciative. Anyway, I'm going to go back to my coffee. I'm going to look more into this Denny Burke guy. Denny Burke. Wait a minute. Denny Burke is the guy who interviewed Matthew Hall?

Because the guy who interviewed Matthew Hall and covered for his he was doing this exact same thing. Like what's going on here? Look, this is what Matthew Hall said.

Think more biblically. And what I mean by that is I have a pretty historic and I think Pauline or biblical view of the power of sin. The problem is a lot worse than we think. What I mean by that is both individually.

Like I am a racist. That freaks you out. If you think the worst thing somebody can call you is a racist, then you're not thinking biblically. Because guess what? I'm going to struggle with racism and white supremacy until the day I die and get my glorified body.

Denny, this is the thing, man.

This is the thing. You did that cover fire video with Matthew Hall and you didn't challenge the very same things you challenged in Amy Bird's book. He's doing the same thing. He's using weird definitions for words that don't come from the Bible.

He's doing it because there's a pre-made audience that's already expecting him to do it. And he doesn't have to have real arguments here. Denny, this is the problem. So I guess the question that we need to ask you, Denny, is how did Amy fall out of favor with the guild?

That's the question we need to ask you. Because clearly Matthew Hall is in the guild, so you defend him for this 20-minute long video from the attacks that people have rightfully so put against him when he starts saying I'm a racist and other kinds of things that come directly from critical theory.

So on the one hand, you're criticizing it in Amy Bird. On the other hand, you're not criticizing it in Matthew Hall. They're doing the same thing fundamentally on two different issues. Granted, but it's the same thing.

Everything you said in your article could apply to Matthew Hall. So maybe you really are a misogynist. Maybe Amy Bird's going to have a point when she eventually, inevitably comes out with the argument that you're a misogynist.

I don't know if it's happened yet. Maybe it has. But it definitely is coming. So what's the deal? Why is Amy Bird not in the guild and Matthew Hall is in the guild? I'm going to call for a new hashtag.

Justice for Amy Bird. Actually, this is not a new hashtag because this is a hashtag that I think Michael Foster developed a few weeks ago because he saw the inconsistency for how Amy was being treated.

You're coming to Amy's defense here. How are you going to come at her so directly? I agree with everything that you're saying and I want to affirm it. But there's uneven scales here. You do a puff piece with Matthew Hall doing the same exact thing that Amy's doing and then you come at Amy so hard.

Why is that? Why is that? Anyway, I hope you found this video helpful. God bless.