The Rise and Fall of The Gospel Coalition - Chapter 2: The Game (Ed Litton Case)

Hello there, this is A .D. Robles, and you're listening to The Rise and Fall of the

Gospel Coalition, Chapter 2. Where did those charges come from? Do you know?

No, they're unnamed. That's part of the problem. Right. So unnamed sources are presenting these things, which should make everybody take a pause.

I believe Jesus would teach us to take the vaccine as a part of God's gift to humanity.

Remember about what the

Bible whispers about, and we ought to shout about what it shouts about. And the Bible appears more to whisper when it comes to sexual sin, compared to its shouts about materialism and religious pride.

And you're wondering why multi -ethnicity isn't happening at your church? It's because you have a person that's black on the outside, but angloid on the inside.

Welcome back to the show. Before I begin, I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you to everybody who listened to the first episode and shared it, enjoyed it, all of that kind of thing.

It has already become my most -listened -to podcast on the Fight Last Feast network, and the feedback that I've been getting has been wonderful to read through.

Thank you again so much. I'm glad you enjoyed it, and I am looking forward to continuing this podcast today.

Today, we're going to start to look at some of the functional kind of rules of how

Big Eva, how Gospel Coalition, how they function day -to -day, how they operate.

If you remember in the last chapter, I said that there's sort of an unwritten set of rules, a code of conduct that the

Guild operates by. It's not written down anywhere, it's not codified, but it is zealously followed, it is strictly enforced, and I want to start talking a little bit about this code today.

One of the key factors of this code that I think you need to keep in mind is that its foundation is partiality.

It is completely partial. There is an in -group and an out -group, and if you're in the in -group, you can operate by a certain set of rules, and you've got a certain code of conduct for other people that are in the

Guild as well. You know, someone who writes for Gospel Coalition, they get treated a certain way by other people who write for Gospel Coalition, and that's one set of rules.

And then, there's a completely separate set of rules of engagement when it comes to people that are outside of the

Guild. It's totally partial. Like, you treat certain people a certain way, and other people, they're not in the club, they get treated completely differently.

It's totally imbalanced. It's totally immoral. And this is on display every single day.

All you need to do is read Big Eva articles, see what they write about, see what they don't write about, see how they write about things.

It's on display there. It's in their tweets, on their social media. You can see how they handle certain situations versus other situations.

It's just completely partial. There's two sets of rules of engagement when it comes to that.

Even their books, in many respects, betray this kind of partiality in how they engage with ideas and issues and things of that nature.

It's completely crazy. I mean, me and my wife used to listen to, or we used to watch that show about the

Scientology cult. And they used to have this thing where, you know, if you left the cult, or if you started talking against the cult, that you were fair game all of a sudden.

This is a cult tactic, right? And that's kind of how it is in Big Eva as well. You can certainly see people who are in and people who are out based on, you know, who they treat as, you know, quote -unquote fair game, that kind of thing.

I believe that this kind of bifurcated set of rules, this is one of the primary features, one of the primary weapons that Big Eva and Gospel Coalition is using as they try to manage the current decline.

I think it's just that simple. But what's ironic about it is that this set of rules also is the reason for this decline.

It makes it so that it's impossible for Big Eva or Gospel Coalition to self -correct.

This is a huge problem. Because if you're not able to sort of directly confront people in your own ranks who are doing wrong or teaching wrong or things like that, if you've got a kind of an unwritten set of rules that prevents you from doing that, there's no way to right the ship.

There's no way to right the ship. It will continue on a dangerous path because you've, by your own rules, by the way you treat your own people, you've actually taken off correction off the table completely.

And so I want to talk a little bit more about that today. There's a few different ways that this kind of partiality in how

Big Eva deals with people, a few different ways that it manifests.

One way in particular that I think is interesting is the no -show, no -call tactic.

The no -show, no -call tactic. This is something that is used on outsiders, outsiders, people who are not in the guild, so to speak.

They oftentimes are simply ignored as if they don't even exist. And it's very interesting because I've heard this story dozens and dozens of times by now where something happens, there's a woke panel that happens, or a woke sermon that's preached, or somebody shares something completely woke on Facebook, and it's completely out of character based on what the people know of the leader, of the evangelical leader.

And so they will reach out to them and say, Hey, you said that this is racist, and I'm just kind of interested, where'd you get that from?

How does this match up with what it says in the Bible here? And things like that. And they'll reach out in numerous different ways.

Sometimes it's an email, sometimes just like a text message, sometimes it's a phone call or a request for a meeting.

And the response is simply silence. Nothing. They're just completely ignored.

Now, I don't know why this happens. I mean, I have some ideas, but I don't want to speculate right this moment.

This happens all the time, and if you've experienced that,

I definitely want to hear from you, where you reach out to someone that you used to know and you used to be friends with, and you ask them about,

Hey, why are you saying this all of a sudden? How does this match up with the Bible? And you get crickets.

This happened to me. I mentioned in the last episode that I did an internship with Jared C.

Wilson, and I wrote for the For the Church blog and things of that nature. And then one day, my articles were disappeared, and I said in the last episode that I don't know exactly why that is or exactly what

I did that was so offensive. And that's true. I don't know exactly why.

I have some ideas, and I have some general reasons as to why, but I don't know exactly why. And the reason

I don't know is because I've been given this silent treatment.

Now, I haven't been totally stonewalled, but I have not had one conversation with Jared about what exactly it was that I did wrong.

I've exchanged a few emails and things like that, and that's for sure, but I've never actually had a video call, a phone call, where we can kind of go back and forth and hear each other's tone and solve the issue.

Like, that's something that's never happened, and not for lack of trying. I've tried many, many times.

I would say over 10 times to have conversations. I've requested conversations myself.

I've requested conversations through third parties. I've said, hey, look, if you think we need a mediator, let's get a mediator and things like that.

And I've been stonewalled every time. We've not had one conversation about the issue.

And that's a big problem because there's no way to have iron sharp iron.

There's no way to have reconciliation if there will be no conversations.

And, you know, brothers, when I say that I've tried every which way, I've tried every which way. I've tried the angry way.

I've tried the hat in hands way. I've tried the calm way. I've tried the third party way. I've tried, hey, why don't we get your pastor to mediate this call?

That way, it's kind of to your advantage and stuff like that. I've tried every which way, and I've been stonewalled.

Silence. Now, I would never have brought this up publicly, except for the fact that this is a common occurrence.

I'm not in the guild, and other people who are not in the guild have had this same tactic used against them.

No conversations, no contact, no show, no call. And this is a huge problem when it comes to self -correction.

Because if you can't even have a conversation, then how can you even consider the fact that maybe you're wrong?

Maybe things aren't the way you think they are, and that's a huge problem. So this tactic of no show, no call, silent treatment for anybody that's not in the guild, this is one of the reasons why

Gospel Coalition and Big Eva is in decline. It's not the biggest one, though, and I want to move on to the biggest one.

This is something that people have called the 11th Commandment.

And the 11th Commandment, in Christian circles, it was first applied to the

Southern Baptist Convention. The 11th Commandment is basically, Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow

Southern Baptist. This started off with Republicans, I think. You shall not speak ill of a fellow

Republican. And then in Christian circles, it became applied to Southern Baptists.

But I'd actually like to amend this rule a little bit. It's really not so much about Southern Baptists. Because if you look at Southern Baptist life, yeah, sure, oftentimes

Southern Baptists don't criticize other Southern Baptists, but sometimes they do. I think of Tom Askell, I think of Tom Buck, I think of some of these guys that are definitely fair game in Southern Baptist circles.

They're Southern Baptists all right, but anyone can write a hit piece about them at any time, and that's not a problem.

So the 11th Commandment really isn't so much about Southern Baptists, but it is very much about the

Big Eva Gospel Coalition Guild. Look, if you're a Gospel Coalition guy, you do not speak ill of another

Gospel Coalition guy. It's just that simple. You are not fair game if you're in that guild, you're in that club.

But, if you're not in that club, that's when you're fair game. And so the 11th

Commandment is really a method for really kind of insulating everyone in the guild from criticism from each other.

And again, I just can't help but see this as a way to never ever be able to correct yourself.

If people within your club, your own friends, won't criticize you because that's how the guild works, those are the rules, they can't criticize you in a very direct way, how can you ever hope to see your blind spots?

How can you ever hope to see your blind spots? The biggest example I can think of of this 11th

Commandment being applied is the Ed Litton plagiarism scandal. Ed Litton got caught, he's the current president of the

Southern Baptist Convention, he got caught essentially making a habit of plagiarizing sermons, like word -for -word plagiarism of entire sermon series even.

And caught red -handed, I mean there's no mistaking what happened, and hardly anybody would say anything negative about Ed Litton doing this.

And the thing is, Ed Litton was caught and he also lied about it numerous times in numerous different ways, and the ways that he lied about it often contradicted other ways that he lied about it.

And this was a very tragic story. And yet, no one in the guild had the guts to say anything negative about it.

And that's a big problem because, you know, we're going to talk about this in this episode, that's a big problem because, you know, if a friend is not willing to publicly hold you to account to things that you've said publicly, and things of that nature,

I think that puts you in tremendous danger. So anyway, what

I want to do today is I've decided to interview Pastor Gabe Hughes. He actually was somewhat involved in how this whole scandal got exposed and things like that, and so we're going to interview him right now.

I hope you enjoy this conversation with Pastor Gabe Hughes. All right, well, I am being joined today by Gabe Hughes.

Gabe Hughes is a pastor at First Baptist in Lindale, Texas. Gabe, where in Texas is

Lindale? It is east Texas, so if you know where Tyler's at, Longview, you've got a pretty general idea where Lindale is located.

Now, there was a time where this was kind of a mecca of contemporary Christian music. Keith Green came out of here,

Harvest, Dallas Home. Dallas is, in fact, a member of our church, and there was what,

Youth With a Mission, YWAM. That's still out of Lindale. So yeah, there's, oh, and Leonard Ravenhill, forgot about him.

He also preached out of Lindale, Texas. So it's kind of interesting to be here with all of the

Christian history that comes out of this little bitty town in east Texas. That's great.

I remember on a video once I said I was going to be in the Texas area, and people laughed at me. They're like, do you know how big

Texas is? I live in New England, so no, I don't. Right, yeah, you just described about an eighth of the country right there.

All right, well, Gabe was kind enough to join me. We're going to talk about the situation a year or so ago regarding the plagiarism scandal with Ed Litton, who is the president of the

Southern Baptist Convention. He's still the president, right? He is still the president. All he has said is that he's not going to run again.

He did not actually resign. Right, he didn't resign. He's still the president, but he won't be next time around. But Gabe did a really well done kind of like a timeline of all of the events surrounding this scandal, if that's what you want to call it.

I call it a situation regarding Ed Litton and plagiarism. And it was really good, really orderly.

And, you know, Gabe, I didn't even realize that when I read when I first read the timeline, I didn't realize that you were like,

I don't want to say a central figure, but you're you're one of you're like the tip of the spear that that knocked over the first domino almost.

Yeah, that was kind of interesting to be in on that. You know, the senior pastor here at First Baptist Church is

Tom Buck. A lot of you are probably familiar with Tom, and he tends to be on the front line of a lot of those breaking issues that happened in the

Southern Baptist Convention. This all took place while he was on vacation. And so, when

I'm holding down the fort here at the church I end up getting us into some trouble. So you're like over for the troublemaker for the second string troublemaker and you fulfilled your duty.

That's right. That's exactly what I did. All right, well, so, so that's interesting I'm going to link to that article in the description of this.

But my first question for you, Gabe is, why did you feel like it was important to sort of write this down and to get it orderly and to get an account there that people could go to and see, you know what happened with this scandal

I was just so important. Well, like you said, I was kind of one of the first to break something on the plagiarism,

I had started out by tweeting that Ed Litton had essentially preached the same thing that J .D.

Greer had preached from Romans chapter one that the Bible whispers about sexual sin. So the same comment that Greer had made

Litton was preaching in a sermon, as though, hey, we haven't learned anything in the amount of time since it took

Greer to say that and it circulate all over the internet. Well, then there was a listener to my podcast, who went and listened to the whole sermon that Ed Litton did from Romans one, and he went, wait a second, this is the same sermon, it's the same thing that J .D.

Greer preached. So he spliced it together with Greer's comments and Litton's comments and it was clear plagiarism.

And he sent it to me and said, here, would you post this? And I asked his permission, you know, do you mind if I post the video?

I talked to him about it much later after this thing became a bigger deal than we thought it was going to be. And I said, you know,

I kind of felt bad when I shared your video because it suddenly occurred to me, you were telling me to rip your video off and put it on my channel and not play it from your channel.

And he said, yeah, that's okay. But it still got out there. He didn't want credit for it. He just wanted, you know, he was just the guy that kind of noticed that this had taken place and left it up to me to put it out there.

And so once I did, you know, that was on a Friday or something like that, then it blew up over the weekend. And then, you know,

Litton's issuing statements now about what happened. The church is making contradictory statements, which are different than what

Litton said. And for a while there, I really did not add fuel to the fire except to say things like, you know, the church has since taken down over a hundred sermons.

They've either deleted or hidden those sermons to try to cover their tracks. And then that ended up in Newsweek.

There were even secular media sources that were covering how big this had blown up in just a few days.

And so I left it to kind of, to other people to do their own investigating.

There were other people that started doing videos and splicing those things together and releasing them. And it turns out that this went back years, like something like eight or 10 years that Litton had been plagiarizing even sermons from Tim Keller.

And so there was another guy that he had listened to some stuff that I had put out on the podcast, and he wanted to write an article about it.

But he was a lesser known guy, had a small church, but was very involved in Southern Baptist life.

And he said, you know, how do we get our voices out there when we have such little influence? So he asked if he could write an article and I would post it on my blog.

And so I did and shared his article about the plagiarism scandal, but I myself did not add anything else to it until stuff just kind of started to die down.

But we still had not seen any real change happen in response to the fact that Ed Litton has clearly plagiarized and lied about it over and over and over again.

And so I decided this thing has spanned several months now, let me pull it all together in one concise place where you can see everything that's taken place since June.

And so I put that together in that article, which I published, I guess that was in December. That might have been the last thing that I put on my blog at the end of 2021.

And, you know, again, just to show that really there was no legitimate change that had happened in the

Southern Baptist Convention as a result of all of this. People were either running cover for Litton, or if they were saying, why hasn't something happened as a result of this?

They were being gaslighted and accused of things that, you know, being political or making a bigger deal out of it than it really was.

And the most heartbreaking thing really was to see how the seminaries responded to it, running cover for Litton instead of, you know, basically saying, hey, if he had been part of our seminary, we would have revoked his doctorate, which is exactly the course that that would have taken place.

Yeah. So, Gabe, you know, when I first heard about it, I, you know, obviously I heard the same thing that everybody did about the, you know, the

Bible whispering about sexual sin, you know, and I thought to myself, well, that's really dumb, you know, but I could see how someone might not, you know, attribute that to someone else.

I could see someone thinking like, like, like thinking, okay, well, this is, I like this is kind of a snazzy little way to say this, you know,

I want to, I want to soft pedal the sexual thing too. So, I can say it this way and maybe forgetting that he got it from somewhere else.

I could see that. But you're so right that it was, and that was the initial problem like people were like, oh, wow, he says the same dumb thing that J .D.

Greer said. But then when you, when you splice it together, and you've realized that it's not just a turn of phrase, it is the entire sermon, it is almost every turn of phrase, it's the whole structure of it, it's beyond the outline, it's just, you know, in many places word for word.

And then it turned out to be the entire series. And then it turned out to be the entire, it was

Romans, right? It was the series on Romans. Right. And so, when you saw that and then, and then it became so wow this is this is kind of, this is kind of weird.

And then, you know, to me and I'm going to ask you this question as well. To me the craziest part was, you know, how the church, you know, started like taking down all the sermons like like you said like there's like almost 100 sermons or more than 100 sermons that they deleted from their website.

And they had various excuses as to why they did it they contradicted each other. But just like, so how deep is this over 100 sermons, is this every sermon like nobody really knows it's like that that's when

I realized it was it was a big deal. What was the craziest part of the story in your opinion, you know, it just out of everything that happened.

I think the craziest thing is, is why it was so difficult for him to just say,

Look, you're right. I mean I was preaching JD Greer sermons, I liked his series on Romans, I decided

I wanted to do it at my church. So, if you want to accuse me of plagiarism yes I plagiarized,

I had asked JD Greer's permission. It wasn't like I just stole it from him and Greer gave me permission and you know we have to take that story.

We have to take their explanation for what it is we can't accuse Littner or Greer of just making that up.

So Littner had asked Greer's permission Greer gave it to him, and he preached the sermons that Greer preached, and how hard would it have been for Littner to just come out and say, you caught me

I mean it's it's clear there it is right there. I preach JD Greer sermons, please forgive me.

I'm going to, I'm going to attempt to do you know a better job than I've been doing and whatever it would have been and then people could have argued about whether or not he should have lost their job.

And, and that would have been the debate from that point on, but that's not what he did it was lie after lie after lie continuing to try to cover it up and it was just one of those things where this doesn't have to be that big a scandal but you've made it into that.

Yeah, yeah. How would you characterize that you just said lie after lie, and that might be it but how would you characterize the response of it of Ed Litton, and his church and the other elders of this church like it was,

I guess that's it lie after I mean what would you say, what was the response. Well, I mean you understand that the responsibilities that we have of a pastor in first and second

Timothy, you know Paul telling Timothy and second Timothy 215 be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman, who does not need to be ashamed accurately handling the word of truth.

And that's not what Litton did you go to the very beginning of first Timothy where Paul says the aim of our charge is love that echoes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith

Litton has a compromise conscience, his faith is not sincere. He, it's almost like does the guy even have an original thought in his head at all.

In addition to the sermon series we came up with interviews that Litton had done where he was making statements in the interview that were plagiarizing things from other people.

It was just one thing after the next and instead of the guy just admitting his own sin or even acknowledging that it was sin.

The thing that he said was sin was something that didn't even really appear to be sin.

If you go to the interview that he did with Adam Greenway at at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

He told Greenway that he did not believe that he plagiarized, but he said, here's what

I believe my sin was my sin was that I did not tell my congregation that this is what

I was doing. And to me I was going, I don't know I mean I've done things in sermons before where it wasn't an original thought, and I did not tell anybody that this wasn't my thought

I just don't think you have to. I don't think you have to qualify or caveat every single thing you say is a sermon, of course, as having been from something else.

I mean there are times that I'll repeat something where I don't even remember where I got it from. I know it's not mine. But do

I really have to tell people that this didn't come from me it came from somebody else.

So to me I'm hearing Litton say that and I'm going, I. Okay, if your heart's convicted and you think that's a sin, then sure according to what

Paul says in Romans 14 whatever does not proceed from faith is sin, or from James if you know the right thing to do and you don't do it then that sin.

So sure, if you think that sin and okay, but I don't see that that that Litton in that sense had broken the law of God in any way.

But with the plagiarism he did he lied. He stole. He took things and claim that they were his own that were not.

And they were things that very plainly contradicted, even what's put in the student syllabus in every single one of the

Southern Baptist seminaries. Well, and, and, and just to kind of make sure that in case you're not aware of this, of what has all happened and I'm going to again

I'm going to put the link to your article in this in this video. Some of what was plagiarized was like personal stories like things that happened to me like I went to this such and such a place and I had this thought at this time.

And it's like, that's beyond like because I think some people hear this and they hear what he said, and they're like, well yeah well that that that could happen like yeah you know you have a theological thought.

And, you know, you don't really remember where it came from it wasn't yours but you don't say anything I mean why would you like, like, it's not we're not talking about that kind of stuff we're talking about like stories of personal experiences that the, that the person who originally wrote it allegedly had

Ed Litton didn't have the same exact experience and yet he's saying he did, because plagiarizing the sermon like it goes that crazy it gets that weird.

I think it was, I think it was Justin Peters was the first one that put up a clip of him with with Greer doing a personal experience story of something that happened to him and drivers

Ed and then Litton, with the exact same story. Yeah, but if you if you go and you listen to that clip if you go find it.

It's really kind of pathetic that Litton, it's it's not Litton story it's

Greer's. And when Litton tells it it's so much lower quality. And what

Greer says, like Litton has trouble with even structuring a sentence, the way that he's recalling the story and you can tell that it's almost like there's a conflict of conscience going on within him, as he's recalling the story that didn't ever actually happened to him.

I'm going to ask you to speculate if you're not comfortable with that we just, we don't have to, you don't have to say it but like, what do you think it was, why do you think the response was the way it was like why wasn't it just, you know, hey, this is wrong and I don't mean just from Ed Litton right like because obviously, you know, we, we have a tendency to want to cover and hide our own sins and that's that's that's the sin nature right.

But what I mean is like people who who weren't involved in it like the reaction like he didn't really get called to the carpet by many, you know,

SPC leaders, there's a few but but you know none of the seminary presidents really did it. No, no, no one really held them to account.

Why do you think that is. Yeah, like you said it would be speculative and I really don't know.

I think something that you said there was, was pretty key about how we just have that nature within ourselves to want to hide sin.

Sure, even when it seems like it's something as you know it's not like the guy is getting accused of murder.

Right, stole a sermon from somebody else. Why can't he just simply say, yeah, you're right,

I took his sermon, I like the way Greer preached his sermon so I'm going to preach his sermon. And instead he lied about it.

Just said he only took an outline, but I mean, very plainly it was much much more than an outline.

And then you've got people like Greenway when he did that interview with Lytton at Southwestern Baptist never asked him any hard questions it that interview was a cover, it was a cover for Lytton.

It was so that he could give the explanation once to that crowd at Southwestern Baptist, and then go do the circuit and and preach at all the other

Southern Baptist seminaries and not have to answer questions about the plagiarism scandal, because I've already talked about that at Southwestern Baptist.

Now, now to Midwestern's credit and to SBTS credit they did not have Lytton come in but I believe every other sermon seminary did.

And, and yeah it was just instead of calling this guy to account and saying, look man you need to come clean, you need to resign.

Instead they ran cover for him and why they did that. An 11th commandment thing, I don't know where you know the thing in the

Southern Baptist Convention is you don't call out another Southern Baptist. Unless he's Tom askew.

That's right, unless his name is Tom then apparently it's okay to say something about it.

Maybe one day you'll be on that list too. Maybe you are already I don't know. I don't know.

Just by association, I'm sure. That's right. That's right. The one I found interesting and I'm going to ask for your thoughts on this was

Jason Allen's response because he actually did say something about about preaching other people's sermons

I think his tweet said something how it's wrong to pass off other people's sermons as your own and this was all during the time when this was all happening he where he said that.

But why I find that interesting and so good for him I mean that's it's a it's a very easy position to take. In fact, it's a position that everyone in evangelical land took before this happened.

So, so good for Jason Allen but but Jason Allen did not name

Ed Litton in it, he just kind of said this as if it was a general thought into the ether. And so, what do you think about that, what do you make of that.

I, I, I'm. Yeah, again, trying to figure out what the motivation is of a person when they do that are they are they assuming that we already know what he's talking about.

And so it's not necessary for him to have to say it. Yeah. Or is it the sort of a thing where, you know,

I just want to give a general condemnation of the sin I don't want to have to call anybody out, which to me, you know, it just kind of seems like you're volleying arrows into a crowd, rather than targeting the person that said this guy is the lawbreaker, he's the one that needs to answer for the wrong that he has done.

Instead, we're, you know, with the with the woke culture and everything else that's going on it's almost like we need to accuse everybody of sin, rather than single certain people out for the wickedness that they have done pointing out what that sin is and saying that this person needs to repent.

Yeah. Yeah, interesting. I appreciate those thoughts. Yeah, because I, because I think it's pretty clear that he was talking about this situation so you know there is that you know maybe we shouldn't have to name the person and all that and.

But I just found that so interesting because there was just, but but but there was, there was really no, you know, leader of a seminary or leader in general that took a strong stance, but there actually was a few guys in it known quantities in the

Southern Baptist Convention who did kind of come strong, and you mentioned this in your article it was the elders of a certain church that included

Denny Burke and and Jim Hamilton. Yeah, that was Kenwood Baptist Church in Louisville, in Kentucky right and so they came out and said that you know look he should not only should he resign as, as the president of the

SBC, he should resign from his pastorate for this this right. This is a big deal. And I gotta,

I gotta take my hats off to those guys I mean that's, it certainly seems like they were willing to do and say something that very few people were willing to do.

And, and so, I mean, in the article I think you said you agreed with what they said. Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. And one thing about that too is you, you talk about Denny Burke being almost a right hand man to our molar, he has a very close connection to molar and Burke is not going to do something like that without molars, knowing that he's going to do it and giving his approval of it.

So I think that you could even give credit to Albert molar in that sense that that these two men from his seminary did take such a strong stance.

Now while molar did not take it upon himself to issue some kind of a statement condemning Lytton, he did leave it to the q &a that had happened at SBTS where a student had asked a question about plagiarism.

And then molar answered it directly, he did not try to dance around it, he did not try to excuse himself from having to respond to the situation.

He clearly stated this is what Lytton has done this is why I haven't responded to it up to this point, because the two of them were in an election against one another.

And Lytton one and if molar came out condemning Lytton his actions, you know, just weeks after that had taken place, then it was just going to look like, you know, he was he was retaliating against a political opponent opponent that he lost to.

And so would the message have been rightly perceived with that condemnation if given the circumstances that had led up to it.

So I get that I understand that. And, and the, you know, the position that the

President took in that q &a, which was very strongly condemning of what it was that that Lytton had done.

But one thing that I would like to see more of from our seminary presidents, even more so than the condemnation of the plagiarism stuff is just how bad the teaching doctrine is in the

Southern Baptist Convention right now. Because that's what started the whole thing that what began the exposure of the plagiarism scandal was singling out the bad teaching that J .D.

Greer was preaching from his pulpit and what Ed Lytton was echoing from his. And then from there, we came into this plagiarism scandal.

Really, they're more unqualified on the fact that they were teaching such horrible things like the Bible whispers about sexual sin, or homosexuality doesn't actually send a person to hell.

Those kinds of things are going to lead people into unrighteousness and probably more grave sins than even what letting them get away with lying is going to do.

Yeah. Yeah, no, that's that's such a good point because there's so many layers to the problem here.

But, and I think you're, you know, we were speaking a little bit before the interview where you said that that was kind of something you wanted to emphasize like, not only was there plagiarism not only was there lying and weird covering up just very, very bizarre covering up of what had happened, but also the things that he chose to plagiarize were horrible.

Like, like, like, of all things to want to plagiarize you, you choose this, this, this, this, this kind of snazzy little thing to say that of course is going to tickle ears but it's actually not true.

Oh man, in your article you mentioned that the section of verses that allegedly whisper about sexual sin, do anything but whisper about sexual sin.

It actually emphasizes it. Right. Exactly. And so it's just, you know, that that part of the, of the, of the situation wasn't really emphasized because it's not as sensational as the lying and the, and this plagiarism, but it's like fundamentally it's, it's probably the most important part like this is what's spreading and being passed off as like, you know, awesome preaching.

And it's not. Yeah. And incidentally, Greer and Lytton were both repeating things that came from Tim Keller from Tim Keller right.

This is not this is not, listen, I don't blame the SPC on this one that that's a Presbyterian thing. That's right.

There you go. Leave the Presbyterians in their arena. Don't pull their doctrine into ours. Well, I'm actually,

I'm actually Presbyterian by confession, even though I go to a Baptist church. So, but yeah, no,

I don't listen, I don't hold you guys accountable for that. But anyway, so, so yeah, let me ask you this and this is what we'll wrap up with this and unless there's anything else you want to bring up, but what do you think we ought to learn from this right like because part of this podcast

Gabe is, I want to point out some of the things that are very in evangelical leadership and things like that, but I don't want it to be all negative,

I want to, I want to be able to move forward, I want to be able to give advice for for how to move forward like, how can we get better at handling something like this say there's another plagiarism scandal and a similar situation or any kind of scandal really you can you can we can do better.

What do you think we ought to learn from this. Well, it's numbers 3223 where we get the statements, be sure your sin will find you out, and that what is hidden will come into the light,

Jesus saying in Revelation chapter two I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each person according to their works.

And there is there is nothing that we can say or do that is hidden from God. Let's say Ed Litton had done all of this, and it never would have been discovered, and nobody ever would have known about it.

God still would have known the condition of his heart. God still would have known that this man is a liar who is going to lie and deceive and cover up instead of admit and confess his sins and repent and desire that reconciliation can happen.

And the other tragic thing about all of this you know is, is that this comes from a litany of guys, no pun intended litany, but but a litany of guys that that are all woke and all kind of push a reconciliation among classes of people and things like that and yet when it comes to this kind of a thing where you send and broken relationships and have lost trust, and yet you don't seek any reconciliation.

How do we believe you when you say that you're laboring for racial reconciliation. Sure. So there's there's a need to be consistent in everything that we say and do and understanding that God knows the, the motivations of our hearts that we not do anything out of selfish ambition and evil desire, but we humble ourselves before God, we be as David was in the psalm saying

God if there is any hidden way in me find it out that I may live a holy and upright life before you, and that this would be our way that we we desire holiness with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength, not just what we not just what we can show to other people, not just what other people will see and what they perceive about us, but knowing that holiness before God is is something that has got to happen from the heart.

There may not be anybody that sees the righteousness that we must walk in and certainly not receiving any praise from man for the righteousness that we pursue, but this is what we must desire in Christ, not the praise of any man, but knowing that we are all accountable before God for every thought and action that we have.

Yeah, that's powerful, you know, I think that and I even think about my own life, you know, it's, you have a tendency to when you because you know this plagiarism thing it started with one sermon right it started with one phrase or one story or something like that and then you don't get caught so you do it again and you do it again and eventually you do it long enough.

And you think that maybe your sin won't find you out, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe you'll be able to cover this forever and the more time that passes, the more that seems plausible, but it's not plausible

I mean that that verse that you quoted man it hit me even thinking about it's just like, like, no, no, that's a that's a sure thing like that that's not maybe it'll find you out you know maybe you know maybe eventually it'll come out no no it's going to.

Right. And so, the, you got to take your, your fight with sin deadly serious because it is deadly serious.

Yeah, absolutely. I you know even the, even the instruction that we have in James chapter five that we must confess our sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

If we're going to see reconciliation happen within a church, if we're going to see healing take place in the

Southern Baptist Convention or anywhere else, then there must be that confession of sin, not desiring to cover up those things but to recognize here's where we have sinned against God.

Here is where we must root this out, and we must repent of it, meaning that we stopped doing it.

And we're going to go back to the sound words of the faith that something like the Southern Baptist Convention was founded upon from the very beginning, and we do what the

Bible says, and and not going after pleasing man anymore. There's so much man pleasing happening in the

Southern Baptist Convention, and I think that that, you know, just general kind of atmosphere within the

SBC could have very well contributed to why Ed Litton didn't want to confess that he had plagiarized, why so many people were willing to cover for him, why somebody didn't want to call him out.

It could just have been a whole environment and narrative of man pleasing. Yeah.

Well, hey, thank you so much, Pastor, for joining us. I really appreciate it. Now you mentioned you have a podcast.

Tell everybody where they can find your podcast, what it's called. Yeah, so if you just search for WWUTT on whatever device that you use to listen to podcasts, that stands for when we understand the text, you'll come right into that podcast.

I picked a name that nobody else has. No one's calling their podcast, what?

It's just Bible teaching. I do New Testament on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I do

Old Testament on Thursday. Right now, I'm in Ecclesiastes, and then my wife, Becky, joins me on Friday, and we take questions from the listeners.

So that's kind of the gist of the podcast. Yeah, it's really good. I catch a lot of the shorter snippets that you do, and you've got a real knack for breaking something down into a very bite -sized, easy -to -understand chunk.

I always say that I can always tell a smart person when they can say something in two minutes that takes me like 20 minutes.

So God bless you, man. It's really helpful. Well, I sure appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, and like you said, there's the videos out there, too, that are just kind of the short bursts of Bible truth, and you can find those on YouTube.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that interview. Pastor Gabe, just a solid guy. Highly recommend that you follow his podcast and his writings and things of that nature.

Very helpful stuff. Definitely not in the guild, and that is a good thing.

I want to drive this point home, though, because, you know, this 11th commandment of refusing to criticize people that you would consider friends in the faith publicly, this is so damaging, not only to the people that you're hoping to protect, but also just the people in general.

I think one thing that we need to consider is that Ed Litton made a mockery of himself.

He made a fool of himself. There's no question about it. The numerous types of lies, the numerous ways he's tried to wiggle out of his wrongdoing, then he kind of repented but didn't repent of a real thing.

He made a complete fool of himself, but he didn't only make a mockery of himself, he allowed

Christ's name to be drug through the mud in order to protect himself, and it didn't have to be this way.

It didn't have to be this way. If even one seminary president had the guts to call him out by name and to say, this has to stop, we don't allow this kind of thing in the

Southern Baptist Convention. This is not tolerable. This is not something we can tolerate. If even one person had the guts to do that,

I think Ed Litton would have been stopped in his tracks. I don't think it's enough to not name him but say things against plagiarism, to talk tough to a ghost,

I don't think that's enough. I don't think it's enough for Al Mohler to send his errand boys,

Denny Burke and Jim Hamilton to go say what he ought to have said in the first place. I don't take that excuse as something that's valid.

I just didn't want it to appear too political. Sometimes you just got a man up and you know they're going to criticize you, but you know it's the right thing and you do it anyway.

I think Ed Litton could have been stopped in his tracks, but his friends were cowards.

His friends were cowards, would not call him to account, and so he got emboldened to continue his march of lying and sinning, dragging

Christ's name through the mud the entire way. You think you're protecting yourselves, guys, but you're actually doing the opposite.

You're putting yourselves in tremendous danger by refusing to critique yourselves.

That's a big problem. Not only is it a big problem for yourselves, but it's a big problem for the entire body of Christ.

We read the pages of Scripture and we get this kind of thing so often where it's like, look at the

Scripture, Jesus is so gentle with the woman at the well, the woman caught in adultery, things of that nature, and all of that is true.

He was very gentle with the people, but the example of Jesus Christ is likewise very clear that it's not just dealing with the people that Jesus did.

Jesus also dealt with the leaders, the leaders that would teach correctly but did not do what they said.

The Pharisees I'm talking about. Jesus Christ says, do what they say, don't do what they do, right?

And the way that Jesus dealt with the Pharisees was that he would rip them.

He treated them very differently than he treated the woman at the well. That's the example of Christ.

He was aggressive, he didn't let them get away with hypocrisy, he directly confronted them, he would name names when necessary, he would offend them when necessary, and he went after it.

And then he treated the people very differently than the way he treated the Pharisees, the people that were leading them astray.

With Big Eva and Gospel Coalition, they actually invert that example of Christ because Big Eva does talk tough.

They do. They talk tough all the time. In fact, they talk tough publicly to the media, sometimes even to the pagan media, but they invert the example of Christ.

And they talk tough to the people in the pews. They will call the people in the pews all kinds of names, much to the applause and the accolades of the pagans.

Meanwhile, they protect each other. They protect the leadership, the awful, hypocritical, sinful leadership, all while they're ripping apart the flock, oftentimes without cause.

And so they've actually inverted the example of Christ in the way that they apply this 11th commandment.

They don't talk ill of people that are in the guild, but basically everybody else is fair game, and by the way, they'll rip them apart to the pagans.

I remember that one Atlantic article that I did a video about where it's basically talking about how pastors' jobs are so hard because of all these idiot sheep.

They voted for Trump, by the way. You see, guys, here's how we move forward, in my opinion.

Big Eva is a sinking ship. Big Eva is in decline. I don't think there's really any question about that.

And there's going to be new institutions and new law groups or whatever it is, conference circuits and things like that, but we need to strike the 11th commandment from our memory at all costs.

Because the reality is that you should seek out friends that will get your back and they'll defend you when you need to be defended.

But when you need to be rebuked, when you need to be called to account for sins that you've committed, you need to find yourself friends that are not afraid to do that, that will do that.

Those are actual friends, right? Those are actual friends who will prevent you at all costs from making a fool of yourself the way

Ed lit and made a fool of himself with this plagiarism scandal. They will stop you in your tracks.

They will put the fear of God in you. Those are the kinds of friends that we need. This 11th commandment is so antithetical to friendship.

It's so antithetical to unity. It's antithetical to the truth. And so we need to strike it from our memories as if it was never a thing.

This is absolutely harmful to the body of Christ. It's harmful to the people that it aims to protect.

And I think this Ed Litton scandal is one of the clearest examples I have of something like this.

And I want to end speaking directly to some of my Gospel Coalition and Big Eva fans.

And I know I have it on good authority that a lot of you guys listened to the first podcast episode and probably will listen to this one as well.

Look, you can consider me your enemy if you want, because I've criticized you and things like that.

And as I said, this is why I've been kind of blackballed from Big Eva circles, because I dared to criticize some of the teaching.

You can consider me your enemy because I tell you the truth. That's up to you. I can't force you to change your mind on that.

But the reality is, though, that if you've gathered unto yourself friends and co -workers and even underlings that won't call you to account when you've done something wrong, when you've taught something wrong, when you've treated people incorrectly.

If you've got friends that you've gathered to yourselves that are unwilling to call you out when you do something as insane as plagiarize entire sermon series and then lie about it consistently.

If you've gathered to yourself a group of people that are unwilling to do that, whether it's guild rules or whatever the reason, you've gathered people together that, sure, they'll flatter you, but they actually don't care about your soul.

They actually don't care about you. So consider me an enemy if you want, but the reality is that I'm telling you the truth.

And if you've got people around you that won't tell you the truth due to some guild rules or whatever it is, then those people are actually your true enemies.

Those people don't love you. In fact, they're using you. They're using you when they won't tell you the truth and confront you.

And so I'm glad you're watching. I hope you continue to watch because I will hold that mirror up to your face as long as I have to in order to get you to wake up.

I hope you found this podcast helpful. Don't forget to join us next time on The Rise and Fall of Gospel Coalition.