The Perverse Logic of Gospel Coalition Canada

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Now, let's jump into the topic today, my goodness gracious. I wasn't going to talk about Gospel Coalition Canada's ridiculous positions anymore, but I saw this tweet from Tim Stephens, someone shared it on Gab, and I just decided to do it because I just want to really highlight just the dishonesty and the cowardice and just the general behavior of so much of Gospel Coalition and Gospel Coalition -associated people.

I can connect this to what's going on in the SPC as well, and I'm intending to do that, but here's a tweet from Tim Stephens, and he says this.

He says, I just got a tip that the police may be on their way to arrest me. Why? I continue to lead our church to worship

Jesus as Lord over every earthly power. More to come. Pray, brothers and sisters, stand firm, keep the faith.

So this is a pastor in Canada who was arrested, and I think he was arrested once before, or maybe he's just a new pastor who's being arrested, and his big crime is that he refuses to shut down his church, and he continues to preach

Christ on Sunday to his congregation. He continues to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs on the

Lord's Day. He continues to serve the elements to his congregation on Sundays, and he continues to greet each other with the

Holy Kiss on Sundays. He refuses to accept that the civil governing authority has the authority to close down church because someone might get the sniffles.

So that's a very radical, outrageous claim, I know, especially when you worship the state.

That's an outrageous claim. But he's not willing to say we have no king but Caesar.

Absolutely not. We have a king, and his name is Jesus Christ. He's our Lord, he's our

Savior. We do what he says, not what you say. Pretty simple, right? I mean, it's not complicated stuff.

At the beginning of all this craziness, I remember the cross -politic guys had

Jonathan Lehman on their show, and Jonathan Lehman was presenting this ridiculous position where it's like, oh, we've got to build the cultural capital.

And Chocolate Knox at one point says, yeah, but you know, if there was something worth fighting for, you would think it would be worship on Sunday, right?

Like, worship on Sunday is not a small little thing. It's a major thing.

And I think what we've betrayed about our beliefs on Sunday is that really, you know, we might talk a big game, we might buy the

Nine Marks books and talk about how important the gathering of the saints is and stuff like that, but we really don't believe it.

I mean, if we can go weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and not really feel any different not going to church on Sunday, then we really don't believe it.

We can speak it with our mouths, but we don't believe it. I mean, what James says is, you say you have faith, show me your faith by your works.

I've got works. When you see how I act, what I do, it proves that I believe what

I say I believe. When you act and you don't do the things that you say you believe, then why should

I believe you? You know what I mean? So let's, the reason why I wanted to bring this up is because Paul Carter, a

Canadian pastor who a lot of people, you know, after I did my first video on Paul Carter, a lot of people reached out to me and said, hey,

AD, you know, he's a good guy. He's a really conservative guy. And that may be, you know what

I mean? That may be, but I'm just judging these articles on their own merit. And I have to say that this is,

I'm trying to be nice today. This is, it's hard to imagine putting yourself in the mindset, in the mental place that Paul Carter must've been when he wrote this article.

This article does not name the pastors who have been arrested. This article does not even address it.

It's as if it didn't happen. The first article didn't really address it either. Now this one addresses it slightly more, but still does not use any names, doesn't go into any detail.

And the whole point of this article is that sure, you know, pastors are being arrested, but you know, it's not real persecution.

Here's, here's, here's the, the key, the key paragraph here. And I encourage you to read this all, this all, this whole article, because it's all a bunch of nonsense.

So let's, let's see if I can find it here. Hold on. Here's, here's, here's what I'm talking about.

He says, as I write this, a number of churches in Canada are wrestling with the question of how they should understand the challenges we currently face with respect to the health and safety protocols enacted by the government in the battle against COVID -19.

Does this qualify as persecution? When the government says that you can only allow a hundred people in your sanctuary that can normally seat 650, that can certainly feel like persecution.

It will undoubtedly be difficult. That is the reality I'm facing here for the next two to three months. May his church shrink to zero.

Sorry, that wasn't in the article. That will mean waking up at four in the morning to run multiple services inside and outside, morning and evening, to serve our entire congregation.

That is going to be difficult. It is going to be borderline exhausting, but I have a hard time thinking that, of that as persecution.

Brothers and sisters in North Korea are meeting in groups of four to five in basements and root cellars, whispering hymns in the dark, knowing full well that if they get caught, they will be executed or sent to internment camps.

That is persecution. What we're experiencing here in Ontario and throughout most of the provinces in Canada is inconvenient and exhausting, but it doesn't feel to me like persecution, and I don't think it would be helpful for our people if I called it that.

And so his point is that it's not as bad as it is in North Korea, and it's not as bad as it's been in the past, therefore it's not persecution.

The idea being, and again, he basically ignores the arrests, right? He says, well, you know, they're just telling you you can't have that many people in your church, so that's not persecution, you know, they're just making life more difficult for you.

That's not persecution. But of course he ignores the people that have not obeyed that and have been arrested.

So it's kind of an irrelevant article, but it's also a very devious, sneaky article, because to write an article about what's going on in Canada and to ignore those who have been arrested,

I think, you know, you have to understand that to be a very strategic thing. And I think

I know why he does it, because in the scripture, it talks about arrests as persecution, and obviously so.

I mean, you know, if you think that the only thing that qualifies as persecution is if they kill you, which there's an article here that kind of tries to make that case.

Let me see if I can find it here. Here's an article Paul wrote a couple of weeks ago. He says, when they are arresting your pastor and chopping him into little bits and throwing him into Lake Ontario, it is time to take shelter into a barn.

And he says that's persecution. So in Paul's mind, unless they're killing you or cutting off your limbs and arms and throwing you into a river, or a lake rather, then it's not persecution, which is a stupid position, and it's not biblical.

So I think what happens here is that Paul ignores the arrests because he knows that the Bible speaks of arrests as persecution.

Here's Acts chapter 5. After the apostles had been arrested and they were beaten, they departed from the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.

So they certainly didn't see that. I think every pastor would agree that when they were arrested, that that was persecution, although this doesn't actually use the word persecution, but the book of Acts does use that word.

This is Acts chapter 9, and this is when the apostle Paul is converted.

So he's Saul, and then he becomes Paul. And if you remember, a bright light was shown all around him.

He went blind, he falls to the ground, and he hears the Lord, he hears Christ say, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

So this is a good passage because it says, why are you persecuting me? And Paul responds, and he says, who are you,

Lord? And Christ says to him, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

So Jesus uses the word persecuting. Now we understand, as we read this, that Jesus is talking about Paul, Saul rather, persecuting his body.

He's persecuting the apostles. So he was, what was he doing? So let's go back into chapter 8 to find out what was

Paul doing that Jesus himself describes as persecution. So here is what had happened.

If you remember, Stephen, he was a deacon, he gets stoned to death because they say he committed blasphemy.

Now, of course, he did not commit blasphemy. This guy knew the Old Testament better than probably they did.

You remember, he goes through the whole presentation, the whole sermon, from Genesis all the way to the end of the

Old Testament, talking about how Christ is Lord, right? And then they get all pissed off because he accuses them of killing the

Lord, right? So here's what happens. They stone him, right? They stone him.

And Saul, it says, consents to his being stoned, right? And so they had stoned

Stephen, and Saul was very pleased with that, right? And here's what the next sentence says.

This is Acts chapter 8. He said this. At that time, a great persecution arose against the church, which was at Jerusalem.

They were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. And so he says, after they had stoned

Stephen, a great persecution arose. That's the word that the scripture uses.

A great persecution arose after the death of Stephen. So the persecution started after the death of Stephen.

What were they doing? Were they chopping up people into bits and throwing them into Lake Ontario? Is that what they were doing?

Were they just executing people willy -nilly and all that? Is that what they were doing? No. We don't actually have to guess here because the scripture itself tells us what they were doing.

It says this, a sentence later. As for Saul, he made havoc on the church, entering every house, dragging off men and women, and committing them to prison.

And so in the biblical witness, the word persecution is used for arrests, for putting someone in jail.

That's what the word persecution is used for in the scripture. And in this case, it was a great persecution.

It was a widespread great persecution. And so he was going into houses, dragging off men and women.

And the idea of the persecution is to scatter the church. He wants to set examples for people.

So it's not that he was arresting every single person. No, he was trying to arrest people that he could make an example of, throw them in prison, and then everybody else would scatter.

That's the point. So it's supposed to have a chilling effect. That's what persecution is, by the way. It's very rare that persecution is applied across the board like peanut butter to everybody.

No, what they do is they take people that have a lot of standing, or they brought attention to themselves, or whatever, and they make an example out of them.

And the purpose is to get everyone to fear so that nobody else will do the thing that is so offensive to them.

In this case, it's preaching Christ. In the case of Canada, it's having church on Sunday as the

Lord has commanded. And so somebody on Gab was saying, well, I just think that this is a big story. They just want you to think that they're winning.

They think that they have the power instead of us. Of course. Of course. That's the thing. Like, if people like Paul Carter weren't writing articles downplaying the persecution in Canada, and instead they were opening up their churches,

Canada would back down. Canada would say, you know what, we're not going to arrest every Christian here.

But no, people like Paul Carter are providing cover for the Canadian government and saying there's not even mentioning the arrests.

Not even mentioning the arrests. Because I think if Paul did mention the arrests, then he would have to admit that it is persecution since the word of God, Paul Carter, with all due respect,

I don't care what you have to say. The word of God counts prison and arresting people and putting them in jail as persecution, regardless of whether you chop them into bits and throw them into a

Lake Ontario or not. So that might be your standard, Paul, right?

But I actually don't care what your standard is. The word of God says that arrests are persecution.

And the sad part is that Paul himself knows this. And I'm not, this is not just my opinion that he knows this.

He knows this. Let me show you how I know. This is, this is the article, the same article where he talks about,

I kid you not, let me just scroll down to make sure that I'm not missing this, right? This is the same article where he talks about when they arrest your pastor and chop them into little bits.

Only then is it persecution. The same article starts off this way.

Let me just read this to you. I'm going to read it slowly because I think you'll see the problem here instantly.

This is Paul Carter. Around the year AD 63, the apostle

Peter wrote a letter to some Christians living in Northern Asia Minor who were beginning to experience the first headwinds of social and state persecution at the hands of the

Romans. They were not yet being arrested, nor had the practice of their faith been criminalized, but they were facing legitimate discrimination.

Thomas R. Schreiner characterizes their various difficulties, saying the only specific suffering noted is discrimination and mistreatment and verbal abuse from former colleagues and friends.

The apostle Peter wrote to stabilize these congregations so as to preserve their active gospel witness in the culture.

He wanted them to right size the challenges they faced. So he asked them, and I'm not going to continue. You can read the rest of this article if you want, but if you notice here,

I'm sure you did that in the example that he's using, that he calls the beginning headwinds of persecution, are people saying mean things about you.

And then he says they weren't yet being arrested, acknowledging full well that, of course, if they were being arrested, that would be a lot harder.

That would be more intense persecution. And therefore, we can understand that Paul Carter knows that being arrested for having church is persecution.

Paul Carter knows this full well and yet pretends he consistently and continues to write articles for the

Gospel Coalition pretending that that's not happening, because he knows that the Word of God, the scriptures, call arrests, imprisonment, persecution.

He knows that all logic dictates that arrests, imprisonment for having church is persecution, and he himself knows because he has written that this is persecution as well.

And I think that the argument that he would make was it's not widespread, right?

They're not going around arresting tons of pastors and stuff like that. Therefore, it's not persecution. It's just like these one -off things.

I'm not sure that's exactly what he would say, but I'm pretty sure that's something that he would say. And here's why, though.

This is the twisted part about this. You know why it's not widespread? Because we have a gaggle of Paul Carters that are just willingly complying.

They don't want to be persecuted, so they're just like, you know what? I won't have church. I'll do what you say. I won't hand out the elements.

I won't sing. I'll only have church for a third of my congregation. It worked on you.

They told you to stop preaching Christ. Like here, the apostles here, they said, stop preaching

Christ, and they beat them, and they sent them on their way. And what does it say? It says, they left and they rejoiced.

They rejoiced because they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name. And then the very next verse is, and daily in the temple and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach

Jesus Christ. You see, that's why the persecution continued. They said, okay,

I understand you've got your authority and all that kind of stuff, but I got to do what I've got to do. I've got to preach Christ.

And so if you're going to beat me, go ahead and beat me. I'm glad for it, and I'm going to continue to do what I've got to do.

That's what the apostles said, so the persecution intensified. But what Paul Carter did is, oh, you don't want me to have church for all my congregation?

Okay. And then the persecution stopped because it worked. And so this is the perverse thing about this.

In his opinion, persecution isn't real because he's capitulated to it. He said, okay, master,

I will do what you say. In fact, if you want me to write an article to show everybody how great you are and how you're not persecuting anybody, and my

Christian brothers over here who are being arrested don't even exist, sure, I'll do that too. You see what

I'm saying? So like, this is perverse. This is perverse. This would be like if Peter got beaten by the authorities here, and then he said, okay, you don't want me to preach

Christ? Okay, I won't preach Christ. And then other people continued preaching Christ, and they were getting beaten and stuff like that.

And then Peter wrote an article in the Gospel Coalition Jerusalem and said, there's no persecution.

This is just an inconvenience. I mean, sure, I can't preach Christ anymore publicly, but I've got to figure out my ways.

I've got Zoom calls. If Peter did that, you'd be like, are you insane, Peter? The only reason you're not experienced is because you're disobeying.

You capitulated to it. And that's what Paul Carter has done. Paul Carter said, well, it's not persecution because all you got to do is comply and you're totally fine.

I feel for my brothers and sisters in Canada. You know, I've been sending books to people in Canada and, you know, the shipping to get it up there is a lot more, and so I don't end up really making anything on some of these books.

But I'm glad to do it because I feel so bad for the people in Canada that this is the majority of their leadership, guys.

This is the majority of their leadership. This brother, Tim, is being arrested for having church on Sunday and they're trying to make an example of Tim and they're making a successful example of Tim because Paul over here is pretending it's not happening.

Well, all you got to do is listen to them. Stop preaching Christ on Sunday the way you were commanded to all your congregation and all that stuff and you'll be fine.

And he's saying that that's not persecution because when you, it's not persecution if you comply with it and then they stop.

I mean, it's just, it's absolutely insane. It's absolutely insane. But I feel for brothers like this because the reason why they're able to make an example of Tim is because cowards like Paul—and I'm sorry, this is, he's a public coward, you know what

I mean? He's doing this publicly—are giving lots of people cover to just not meet for church on Sunday and that's a real problem because if every

Canadian church opened today and did what they had to do today, this would stop. This would stop.

They would not have the guts to arrest every Christian pastor in Canada. This would stop. And so it's just a real perverse situation.

And I'm going to relate this to the SBC stuff, the SBC stuff that's happening this week.

John Harris gabbed here. He said, When Democratic Party dirty tricks show up at the

Southern Baptist Convention, you know that unless those behind them receive a rousing defeat, the leadership of the convention can not be considered operating by Christian standards any longer.

And in case you're wondering what I'm referring to, the way Mike Stone is being treated right now is what I expect from Democrats going after a

Republican presidential candidate, not people who call themselves Christian. Now I don't know about the inter -workings of what's going on here.

I don't really know a whole lot about Mike Stone. I care about the SBC, but it's just not my primary lane, right?

I love my Southern Baptist brothers. It's not my primary lane, so I don't devote a ton of time thinking about it or looking into it and stuff like that.

So I don't know about the election. I know that I would never, I would never vote for Al Mohler.

Not a chance. But I do talk to Southern Baptists, and I've talked to some Southern Baptists recently, and I've just noticed this mindset of being unwilling to fight, unwilling to go to blows over serious things.

Like you'll sit through a presentation on critical theory, and you'll identify every area where it's so bad, it's so brutal.

It's like it overturns Christian unity, it overturns the gospel, it counts

Christ's blood as no effect. Like there's so many perverse teachings of it. But then they'll say all that, and they got all the right answers there, and they'll see the

Democratic Party tricks show up. They see that Russell Moore's little leak letter thing is just a scam, it's just a politically motivated scam.

They see all the dangers, but they're like, well, but I just want to get along. I don't want, it's not,

I don't think that it's worth it to fight it, I just don't, unity is most important.

It's like, yeah, unity is important, of course, but unity over truth. If the critical theory stuff that you claim to be so against is such a big deal, then you need to act, because it's a threat to the unity of the church you claim to want to have unity with.

You have to fight. Unity requires fighting a lot of the time. It just simply does.

And I just, there's just this mindset of just a complacency, just I refuse to fight as if that's a positive thing.

I refuse to come across too harsh as if that's a positive thing when the unity of the church of God is at stake.

That's not the position that Paul took. That's not the position that Jesus took. It's necessary, if you love your neighbor, it is necessary to fight sometimes.

Necessary. And what I get is, with all this, all these dirty tricks, what I think is likely to happen in the

SBC, again, this is a very unstudied, unlearned opinion, I think probably the

Democratic side of this, you know, the side that's using the dirty tricks, the side that's leaking letters fakely, the side that's calling everyone and their mother a racist, they're going to end up winning.

They're going to end up winning. And it'll either be through their own candidate or it'll be through Al Mohler, because Al Mohler's the king of this, right?

He'll write the scathing rebuke of critical theory all while he employs critical theory. And you know, by the way,

I'm just going to treat Al Mohler the way he told me he wanted to be treated. He said, look at who I platform.

Well, you platform a bunch of people who are very influenced by critical theory. Obviously so.

So you can say what you want all day long. And I like that standard, by the way, Al. I think that's actually an appropriate standard, because as James says, show me your faith by your work.

So you say you have faith that critical theory is dangerous to the gospel, yet you employ critical theorists at your school.

All right, well, you've shown me your faith by your works. You're full of hot air. It's just that simple.

And so I just hope that this attitude of not being willing to fight for things that you claim to think are important just dies a very unceremonious death, an unceremonious death.

That's why I just don't think that Paul Carter is going to be effective for his congregation as he pretends that there's no fight coming, there's no persecution coming, because I've complied with everything and they've been totally fine to me.

It's like that's not the kind of leadership that we need right now. That's not the kind of leadership that we need right now.

Paul Carter doesn't have your back. If you're in Canada and you're opening your church because you think that's what the

Lord says, Paul Carter and Gospel Coalition doesn't have your back. And that's sad, but you have to acknowledge it and move forward, because who cares if they have your back or not?

Christ has your back. And so you need to do what you need to do, and you need to fight over the things that you need to fight for, knowing that he who is with you is greater than those who are against you.