Gospel Coalition's New Attempt to Control Narrative

AD Robles

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April 19, 2022

00:00: So there I was, it was tax day yesterday, and I was in a terrible mood because I had just written the government a big fat check and I was sad,
00:11: I was a sad boy. In any case, I checked my email, just desperate for some good news, and boy did
00:20: I get it, boy did I get it. I got an email from Colin Hansen from the Gospel Coalition, and it said, great news friend, huge announcement, something like that.
00:30: And man, it was a huge announcement indeed. Gospel Coalition has a new debate series that they're announcing, and it's gonna be gold.
00:47: Oh man, I'm not kidding. I actually am really looking forward to this. It's gonna be a goldmine for content, no question about it.
00:54: And you know, it's good news in more than that way, because I think that not only this channel, but a lot of us, we've had a huge impact.
01:05: Gospel Coalition is, they're trying to figure out how to stop the bleeding, and this is their latest attempt.
01:12: Good Faith Debates is the title of it. And the whole premise of this is, we gotta keep the gospel central, and you know, we can agree to disagree on these other matters, they're important still, but they're less important, so we can still have unity in the church, and it's gonna be the hot button issues of the day, you know, gun control, and racial reconciliation, woke church, and stuff like that.
01:39: And so we're gonna debate it, we're gonna model charitable disagreement. And it's just, it's a big cover for, hey, here's the
01:49: Overton window, and if you don't talk like we do, and if you don't debate the things that we debate, you're outside of it, and you're a bad fundamentalist heretic.
01:58: And that's what this is all about, and so they're trying to kinda outmaneuver guys like me.
02:04: It's not gonna work, obviously, but I just wanted to give you some predictions here. We'll see how well these pan out, but number one, before I even get into that, it reminds me of the government, it really does, because one of the things that the government is best at is they create problems, and then they're like, don't worry, we can fix this problem, and then they make the problem worse, right?
02:28: They create problems with massive poverty, with their weirdo interest rate cuts, and the way they do their monetary policy, and they're like, well, don't worry, we're gonna fix it.
02:39: We're gonna give you stuff, which just increases inflation, increases the problems, and all that. No kid left behind, and it makes schools even worse.
02:48: It's always that way. The government creates a problem and says, trust us, we'll fix it, and then makes it worse.
02:54: I have a feeling that these debates are actually just gonna further muddy the waters that they muddied in the first place.
03:03: Gospel Coalition is the reason for a lot of this confusion, and they're buddies, because the
03:09: Bible is clear, right? This is a doctrine about the scriptures that we've forgotten. God spoke because he wanted to be understood, and he spoke in a very clear way, and there's some things in the
03:21: Bible that are harder to understand than others, but the main themes of the scripture are crystal clear.
03:28: God spoke with clarity, with authority, and if you just let it speak, the scriptures speak, you will have clarity on a lot of issues, right?
03:38: And so Gospel Coalition wants to introduce some error. Someone wants to introduce some margin for error.
03:46: Maybe God whispers about homosexuality, stuff like that, and in order to do that in the face of a crystal clear scripture about how homosexuality is an abomination before the
03:56: Lord, you have to start muddying the waters. That's how you do it, and you have to talk about stupid things like pronoun hospitality, which are just invented out of whole cloth, and you're like, well, see, it's controversial.
04:08: It's like, well, it's actually not controversial because the scripture says he created them male and female. He created them, right?
04:14: So it's very clear if you just let God speak, but when you want to introduce error into the church, you've got to muddy the waters, and that's what
04:21: Gospel Coalition has done, and now they're doubling down on that by pretending that these are good faith debates.
04:28: You know, we can agree to disagree, and what's amazing about this are the topics, right? The topics are just a sight to behold.
04:37: They're gonna be debating pro -life movement, right? Should it be womb or womb to tomb?
04:42: And this is a euphemism. This comes from the progressive playbook, right? So whoever's doing this debate has already capitulated to the progressive framing of this, right?
04:52: You either care about life in the womb or you care about all of life, and the way you know that is whether or not you're a socialist, essentially.
05:00: So if you're a socialist, you care about all of life, but if you are a pro -lifer fundamentalist, then you only care about life in the womb.
05:07: So the way this is framed is all wrong, right? What they're trying to do is they're trying to capitulate to the fundamental premises of the progressives while pretending that there's substantive debate here.
05:18: See, the reality is the scripture is crystal clear. You shall not murder, right?
05:23: That's the debate. We're talking about whether or not you should be allowed to murder or not, and also whether or not you should be allowed to steal if it's for a good cause.
05:32: So God has been crystal clear. You shall not murder and you shall not steal, okay?
05:39: So if you want to debate that and pretend it's all about this holistic whole life, you've gotta start muddying the waters.
05:45: Well, how do you do that? Well, you start to say, well, you know, government really is not stealing if they're stealing for giving free stuff to people and healthcare is a human right after all and all of that.
05:57: And so you see, it's not really stealing because that's not what the scripture says. You know, render on to Caesar, by the way.
06:03: And so just because you're taxed at a marginal rate of 30, 40%, doesn't mean that that's a bad thing, even though the scripture says it is, tyranny and stuff like, this is the thing.
06:14: So in order to have this be a debate, you have to already capitulate that God, maybe he didn't really say thou shalt not murder or thou shalt not steal.
06:24: See, the way they're framing this is trying to set the terms of the debate. No, you don't have to be a socialist to be holistically pro -life, which by the way, who cares about being holistically pro -life?
06:35: That's a made up invention of humanity. That needs to be challenged at its fundamental roots.
06:41: Pro -life is not in the scripture, right? I just wanna obey God, fear God and keep his commandments. That includes the commandment to murder and the commandment to steal.
06:49: But you see what they're trying to do is hijack this debate, right? What we should be talking about as Christians is, hey, how do we execute justice upon those who murder babies?
07:00: That's the real debate, that's the real issue. That's where we're coming into conflict with the culture, not this nonsense about socialism.
07:07: But of course, that's not what Gospel Coalition wants you to do. So they're trying to muddy the waters here.
07:12: And that's the first thing about this debate series is my prediction, that every single time, every one of these debates, there's gonna be a muddying of the waters, not clarity.
07:22: They're saying their goal is clarity. That's actually not gonna happen. It's gonna be more confusing than when you went in.
07:28: And my second prediction is that every single time, there'll be a fundamental capitulation to the narratives and the lies of the progressives.
07:40: Let me give you another example. Debate number four is titled this. What's the best approach for the church to address racial injustice?
07:51: This is the strategy of this entire debate series, right? Even agreeing to a debate titled that is capitulating because first we need to figure out if there is racial injustice in the
08:03: United States. And I don't mean any examples. Of course, there's examples of racial injustice because people are sinners.
08:10: And of course, there'll be some racists out there and things like that. But that's actually not the debate. That's what they like to pretend the debate is that a guy like me says, what, you're saying there's no racism in the
08:20: United States? No, that's not what I'm saying. Let's try to be adults here. What I'm saying is prove that there's systemic injustice, a rampant problem inherent in the system.
08:30: And if you do that, then we can talk about how to fix it. But the problem is you can't do that.
08:36: This debate assumes it, right? So it's like seeing another black guy get killed by a white cop, right?
08:43: And you see it, you don't know what happened. You have none of the context and people are gonna debate.
08:49: We're gonna have a good faith debate. How do we address this racism? And it's like, that's actually not the debate.
08:56: How do you know it's racism? Is it racism? That's the debate. See a guy like Justin Gibney, well, if the victim has black skin, then it must be racism, right?
09:05: That needs to be challenged. That needs to be challenged. And so what they're trying to do here is my second prediction is every single time they're gonna frame this in such a way that already capitulates the fundamental premises of the progressives.
09:19: The fundamental false premises of the progressives will be capitulated to every single time.
09:27: And again, it'll obfuscate the debate completely. Every time they say, here's where the debate is, it's actually not where the debate is.
09:34: It's way more over this way. It's way more over this way. It's not, how should we think about gun control?
09:40: It's, does the government have the authority to control guns? It's not, is the woke church a stepping stone to theological compromise?
09:49: It's actually, is the woke church compromise? And it is. See, they're like, well, this is debate number two.
09:56: Is the woke church a stepping stone to theological compromise? That's the debate. That's not the debate. That's not the debate.
10:03: It's not that we're making a slippery slope argument. It's that we're saying, you've already compromised.
10:09: You've already compromised when you gave us the theology of abject heretics and pretended that it's actually okay.
10:16: You're the one who did this. And see, this is the whole point. This debate series is trying to say, look, there's peace.
10:23: Look at it. Look at the high quality here. Put a lot of money into this, a lot of time, a lot of effort. And all of this is saying, look, there's peace.
10:32: We've got gospel unity. We can agree to disagree on these fundamental premises. And here's the truth, guys.
10:39: Here's the truth. There is no peace when you've got a group of Christians that are promoting stealing.
10:47: There is no peace when you've got a group of Christians that are promoting partiality in the church.
10:53: Whiteness is wicked. We gotta have white spaces and colored spaces and things like that. There is no unity when you've got that going on.
11:01: Any unity that you claim is false unity. And that's what they're trying to do here. That's my third prediction, is this whole thing is going to be a huge effort in pretending there is peace when there is none.
11:15: You can't have gospel unity when one person's like, yeah, you know, not only should we not steal, but yeah, you know, you shouldn't vote for candidates who are promoting killing children.
11:27: And the other side is like, we should steal and also vote for candidates that are promoting killing children because they promise to steal for a good cause.
11:37: And they promise to control guns. So they obviously care about life. There is no unity there. There is no peace there.
11:43: It doesn't matter how many times Gospel Coalition tries to pretend that there's peace there. When you've got someone saying, look,
11:50: I don't feel safe worshiping with white people. And the other person saying, hey, that's actually partiality.
11:55: You shouldn't bring that mess into the church. You actually can't have unity no matter how much you pretend that you can.
12:02: You can put on makeup. You can put the greatest lighting. You can have the best camera work and you can have the nicest tones.
12:08: But when one person is promoting sin in the church as if it's a good thing that should be pursued, there will never be peace, never.
12:20: And it's not like we're talking complex issues. It's not like we're talking baptism or something like that, where it's like, there's some complexities there.
12:26: You can see the arguments and things like that. We're talking basic things like stealing.
12:32: Is it okay to steal for a good cause? Is it okay for the sons to pay for the sins of the fathers?
12:38: Is it okay to vote for candidates that want to kill more children and think it's a fundamental human right to offer kids unto
12:45: Moloch? We're talking basic things. These are not complicated things. Gospel Coalition is doing its best to continue to muddy the waters.
12:52: But every time they do this, more people wake up. And I have to say that I am so grateful for this debate series.
13:00: I cannot wait to do content on it. I will see if my three predictions come true. But the bottom line is they're pouring money into this.
13:10: I would love to see the budget for this series. It looks very high quality, like I said. They're pouring money into this project, guys.
13:17: And the reason that they're doing it is because we forced them to do it.
13:23: There is no peace. They've got smooth words, but there's war in their hearts. So they brought war to us.
13:28: And we are not backing down. And we're not letting them forget what they've done. And so you can keep pretending there's peace, but there is no peace.
13:39: We won't let there be peace. It's just that simple. If you're gonna promote wickedness in the church, we will be there every moment of that day.
13:48: The heat will not be turned down. It'll be turned up. You're gonna be running for the hills.
13:54: It's just that simple. You guys, I heard somebody describe you guys as the neo -mainline church. I won't rest until that's exactly what everybody thinks you are.
14:04: You're a byword. Oh, you go to a mainline church. That's obviously the non -Bible believing church. I won't rest until that is the way that they see you.
14:13: It's just that simple. And by the way, I'm not alone. I'm not alone.
14:19: So keep working on your little Overton window thing here. I'm looking forward to it.
14:25: Keep pouring money into it. I think it's a waste of money. You do you. But yeah, that's all