Is the SBC Ruled By Women and Children? An Interview with Dr. Russell Fuller

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01:32

Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

01:38

We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we're joined by special guest, Dr. Russell Fuller, to help us answer the age -old question, is the

01:47

SBC ruled by women and children? Now, before we get to that title question,

01:54

Dr. Fuller, why don't you just take a few minutes and just introduce us to you, tell us a little bit about yourself for everyone out there listening.

02:02

Okay, I came to Christ when I was 1975, 15 years old, and went and did a business degree.

02:12

I really didn't know much about the

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Bible growing up, but I became very interested after I got saved, and even though I did a business degree,

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I noticed guys walking around with Greek New Testaments, and I'm like, that's what I want to read. So, I got really into the biblical languages, and then finally,

02:32

I went to a couple of Jewish schools. I went to Dropsy College for its last year in existence up in Philadelphia, and then

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I was at a place called Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. And again, I specialized mostly in the languages, especially

02:49

Greek and Hebrew, but other languages as well. And then after that, I worked for a small college in Kentucky called

02:59

Midcontinent, and it went out of business. It sounds like everything I'm associated with goes out of business.

03:04

And then I taught at Southern Seminary for 22 years. And now what

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I do is I teach online in something called Theology Classroom. And so, if you want to contact me about the classes that I offer, go to RussellTFuller .com,

03:21

and it will give you some more information, and you can sign up for the classes. But we teach basically the core of the

03:28

Bible curriculum. So, we teach Old Testament, New Testament. We're having a course on evangelism by Tom Rush.

03:36

And then I'm teaching like Old Testament theology and also the

03:42

Pentateuch. And then we have a New Testament course on the books of Peter. So, again, we focus on theology, language, and Old and New Testament Bible classes.

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And so, again, if any of your listeners are interested, and again, I have students from high school to in their 70s, and it's a little bit different.

04:04

We don't have exams and so forth. And so, there's no pressure. I don't call on anyone, but we try to really teach what the

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Bible teaches. And so, we want you to be mighty in Scripture, not just mighty in scholarship.

04:18

We'll hardly ever mention other scholars, really, because we want to talk about what Paul's talking about, what Moses, what

04:23

Christ, and all that. So, that's what we're about. That's what I do. So, again, I've been teaching formally in classes for about 24 years, and then

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I've been teaching the last two years on my own over Zoom. Again, theology classroom.

04:39

So, that gives you a little idea. Also, obviously, I'm married. I have three children. They're grown now. And so, that tells you a little bit.

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I still live in Louisville, Kentucky. And so, that's sort of a brief synopsis of who

04:52

I am. Dr. Fuller, it's great to have you on. I know that we recently did a podcast on some of the things that were happening with the

04:59

SBC, and we wanted to have someone who is an expert on the SBC to come in and to give us your thoughts on some of the things that were happening related to the convention itself and just the general direction of the

05:12

SBC that we're seeing now. And I know that this isn't really anything new, that there have been trends in the

05:19

SBC that have been going on for quite some time that have been going in a bit of a negative direction.

05:26

But then when Harris and I were thinking about what verse in the

05:32

Bible to talk to you about as it relates to this subject and some of the things that happened at the convention where the credentials committee were unable to know the meaning of the word pastor, we thought that we would have you on and discuss the verse that came to our mind, and the verse that came to our mind was

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Isaiah 3 .12, which I'm sure you're pretty familiar with considering that you taught

05:58

Hebrew for so long. But Isaiah 3 .12 says, My people, infants are their oppressors, and women rule over them.

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O my people, your guides mislead you, and they have swallowed up the course of your paths. And when we think about the

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SBC and some of the things that are happening with just the place of women in ministry, the

06:16

Me Too movement as it's affected the church, and then even just your standard child -centered dynamic that is present in many

06:25

SBC churches. I know that as a pastor, probably one of the most common, probably the most common source of contention and fights that I've seen happen have all revolved around children's ministry in general.

06:40

I've had more conflict over children's ministry than anything else, and it's not even close.

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So what do you think, Dr. Fuller? Is the SBC ruled by infants and women?

06:51

Is that allowed to be asked according to the program? We're asking it.

06:57

That's right. And the answer I would give is, in many ways, yes. I think so. I mean, obviously,

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Isaiah is giving a real indictment about the leadership of Israel at the time,

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Judah, that it was no longer godly men, but now you had women, and they're called like children ruling over them.

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And when you look at the Southern Baptist Convention today, of course, they're very influenced by what's going on in the secular world.

07:31

If you watch what's going on in the secular world and some of the things that are popular there, they come right into the

07:38

Southern Baptist churches, and we copy these things. It's like Paul talks about, don't be led captive to these vain philosophies.

07:47

And in the Southern Baptist Convention, we are. And you mentioned, one, the Me Too movement. And a woman who's not even a

07:56

Southern Baptist herself, in many ways, is ruling over the Southern Baptist when it comes to this

08:02

Me Too movement. Are you talking about Rachel Denhollander? Yes, I am. I'm talking about Rachel Denhollander.

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And she has an enormous amount of influence in the Southern Baptist Convention.

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As you know, there was an investigation launched by— and of course, there was a committee, first of all, put together, and Rachel Denhollander was part of that.

08:25

And they got a group to come in from the outside guidepost to do an independent investigation about these things.

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And again, Rachel Denhollander, let me just say, first of all, she shouldn't have been involved at all in this.

08:43

She's already represented as a lawyer for Jennifer Lyell, who the Southern Baptist paid over a million dollars to her in a certain case.

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So she already, she has a vested interest, and she has really a conflict of interest to be involved in these things.

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But yet, she has a very powerful voice. And Al Moeller at Southern Seminary, very much influenced by her.

09:08

And if you read the guidepost report, Moeller's talked about many times, because he justifies the

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Jennifer Lyell situation, saying that Lyell had a 12 -year relationship with one of the professors.

09:24

Now again, that 12 years, she wasn't always a student for 12 years. Sometimes she was working in Chicago, sometimes in Nashville.

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But we're talking, she was 26 years old when it began. As people learn details about it, for instance, apparently the

09:42

SBCs, the Southern Baptists, they have an insurance firm, obviously, that sometimes will say, hey, we need to settle this.

09:51

But they looked at this case, and they were like 12 years, 26 years old. Let's not settle.

09:57

She does not have a good case that she was really an abuse victim. And I think they were exactly right.

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But I don't even think, not only do we not know in the Southern Baptists what a pastor is now, apparently.

10:14

We don't even know what adultery is. And again, I can remember in a faculty meeting, when

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Moeller comes in and he starts talking about how Lyell is a victim, she's done nothing wrong.

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And again, we're talking a 12 -year relationship. That's an adult.

10:32

That's an adult. I mean, we're not talking about a 12 -year -old girl or something like this happening.

10:38

Dr. Fuller, what do you think? As a person who is involved in biblical counseling, this is something that's somewhat baffling to me.

10:47

Maybe you could shed some light on it as it relates to this kind of thing. But it's baffling to me that you can have so many individuals who have devoted their lives to studying the

10:59

Bible, and it seems like they haven't done just basic work as it relates to distinctions between culpability related to sexual issues.

11:11

And so there are categories in the Bible. The Old Testament law gives us instructions that we are to follow to determine culpability in the case of what's the difference between rape and what's the difference between essentially a voluntary and swilling adultery.

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And so the law gives us these. I mean, it's pretty black and white as you read through the Old Testament. It is.

11:37

That a woman has a responsibility to cry out, and then we're now, like the SBC now is just in a wholesale way embracing this secular understanding of victimology that essentially if there are power dynamics that are present there at all, then that can't be considered to be consensual.

11:58

And so how do you get there? How do we get to where— Oh, yeah. Oh, that was the point. And I asked one of the guys at Southern, and again, he wasn't in administration.

12:08

I said, so let me get—am I understanding this correct? Because he was a professor and she was a student, it's not adultery.

12:16

But had it been her butcher, that's adultery. And the guy goes, yeah, that's the way they're explaining it.

12:24

And I'm like, this is insane. This is absolutely insane. And when you go to the scriptures, you're exactly right.

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A woman, if she's raped, she's to cry out. And we even have an example of this in the

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Bible, Amnon and Tamar, where— And Dinah. Yeah, Amnon rapes

12:43

Tamar. And not only does she lift up her voice at the time of the rape, but even later on, she raises her voice.

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Now, of course, Absalom will tell her, hey, just be quiet for right now. You could say he was hiding it.

12:58

Well, yeah, but he had a plan and he carried it out, and that was to murder Amnon, his brother, or half -brother probably, or part -brother.

13:10

But anyway, we have examples in the scripture. It's very clear. And again, for 12 years, she didn't cry out.

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And what she said later is she decided to cry out because David Seales, the professor, was going to go on mission trips again.

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But yet she also says, you know, he threatened me to do all these things to me if I ever said anything.

13:34

And Moeller acted like, oh, yeah, there was all these physical threats and so forth.

13:40

Well, wait a minute. If you're concerned about Seales going on another mission trip, why didn't you come out much earlier and protect all women when he's making verbal –

13:49

I mean, he's threatening you physically. Why don't you go to the police and do something about that? Why do you wait 12, 13 years and then finally say, oh, he's about to go on a mission trip.

14:00

He might harm somebody. Well, wait a minute. If he's threatened bodily harm and so forth, why aren't you with the police?

14:07

And by the way, there was an article written, Megan Besham, I think is her name. And, of course, she did some research on this, and she did not contact the

14:16

Louisville Police Department where all this – a lot of this happened apparently. And then second of all, she says, no, it was the

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Jefferson County that I – the Jefferson Township or the city of Jefferson Town here in Louisville.

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That's where it was. Well, she contacted them, and again, the police have no record of them at all.

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So, again, a lot of this looks very flimsy. And at the

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Southern Baptist Convention, they did something this year that I don't think I've ever seen before where they apologized to certain individuals.

14:48

And, again, Jennifer Lyle was one of them. And, again, I think this is a very sad precedent. Now, I don't know the stories of the other ladies on here.

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But, again, this – and I'm not saying some of them were not sexually obese. I just don't know the situation.

15:04

But, again, they're following the world completely. And also their idea is this. If a woman makes a claim, she must be believed.

15:12

And if you apply this – and, again, they won't – if you've been credibly accused, you go on this list.

15:19

Well, you could easily look at a guy like Joseph in the Bible and say he was credibly accused.

15:25

She even had his garment beside her, you know. Women don't lie about that.

15:32

Oh, yeah. Let me tell you this one. There was a guy – one of my students at Southern Seminary, he was a career policeman.

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And he contacted me recently, and he said to me, he goes, Russell, I can't tell you over my – and I forgot how long he was a policeman, probably 25, 30 years.

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He goes, we got false reports on people every day because they want us to go and hassle somebody.

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And so people will claim this happened, and they know it's false. We have to go check it out.

16:02

And, again, it's just to intimidate people. It's to use us in a certain way. And so he's like, you'd be shocked at how many false accusations are brought to the police every day.

16:14

Yeah. And think about this, guys. Guys, think about this. Let's go back to high school together for a second.

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You know, you fall in love with a person in high school, and they're the greatest person of all time.

16:26

And then when you break up, they're the most evil, wicked people of all time. You know how that works?

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Woman scorned. Hell has no fury like a woman scorned. And so now, you know, you want to get back at them any way you can.

16:40

And sometimes there's false accusations, and sometimes there were things done that were consensual.

16:46

But when things go bad, well, wait a minute. It wasn't consensual. I was raped, you know.

16:52

These things go on. And does rape go on? Absolutely, it does.

16:58

But these things are very difficult, and it's not so easy to say someone made a credible accusation.

17:05

You go on a list. Southern Baptist Convention's going down a very dangerous road. Go with that list. They've already had to correct it.

17:12

They've already made mistakes putting people on the list. And by the way, how in the world can the

17:18

Southern Baptist Convention be an investigation agency to determine these things?

17:23

What we have, by the way, in the country is we have a federal list of sexual abusers, and many states have lists.

17:31

I don't know why they're not using something like that. That'll also keep them away from legal liability.

17:36

Because you put some guy who's innocent on there, there's going to be some lawsuits coming down the road. Matter of fact, they're inviting lawsuits right now, and it's not going to be a good ending for this.

17:49

And it's interesting, too. We're talking about is the SBC ruled by women and children.

17:55

And from my perspective, it seems like you're at the convention's annual meeting,

18:03

I guess, last week or two weeks ago now. I can't even remember now, but it's pretty recent.

18:10

You have a bunch of men up on the stage, but then they're basically bending over backwards to try and apologize to these women and whatever else.

18:24

And they even present it as, when it comes to the Guidepost Report and the voting on that, essentially the way it's presented is if you don't get on board with this, then you are in favor of sexual assault.

18:41

When there's a lot of people out there just trying to say, Okay, number one, no one is in favor.

18:48

No one who is a genuine believer, follower of Christ is in favor of sexual assault.

18:55

That's correct. But then we do have issues. So we want things addressed, but then there's just got to be better ways than going out and hiring a secular organization that, by the way, doesn't agree with our worldview when it comes to sexuality.

19:12

Correct. I think they probably, like you said, they've already had to come out and make corrections because I think they're probably biased in their judgment.

19:23

But they're not looking to the Bible as a sufficient guide to tell them how to handle these things, and so why would they get it right?

19:29

That's right. So it is interesting just to see. You have all these men who are quote -unquote leading, but then really it is like the women are the ones in charge.

19:39

If you don't get on board with them, then you're in favor of sexual assault. Yeah. Let me tell you this.

19:45

If you go back to the 2019 convention, which was close to you guys in Birmingham, Alabama.

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We were there. It was a cesspool of iniquity. Yes, it was. And let me tell you, they changed that.

19:58

We talk about resolutions, but resolutions, they have some weight, but they really don't affect the governance of the

20:05

Southern Baptist Convention. They really give you a snapshot into the mind of the convention at that time, and it does have influence.

20:11

I don't want to say it's just a mere, we want to make this statement.

20:17

No, it's a little stronger than that. But when you change the constitution of the

20:24

Southern Baptist Convention, that's a much stronger thing. And in 2019, they changed it to say that if you don't see sexual abuse as the convention does, your church will not be in friendly cooperation with the

20:37

Southern Baptist Convention. Now, when they say if you don't see sexual abuse as we do, clearly you must see it through a

20:44

Me Too lens. And they basically changed it to say, if you don't see it the way we see it, the credentials committee could rule your church as not friendly with the

20:58

Southern Baptist Convention. A lot of folks don't know that, but it's there. And matter of fact, in the Guidestone Report, they even quote that.

21:04

They show that where it happened, you see. And so if you want to see that, go to that Guidestone Report. By the way, also in 2019, since you were there, if you remember, a guy named

21:15

Jimmy Scroggins gets up on stage. He's a mega pastor down in Florida.

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And he talks about how they had some, I guess, sexual abuse task force they were putting together, something like this.

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A woman has to be on there. We have to have women on there, as if men couldn't do it. You have to have women on there as well.

21:35

But then also, he gets up, and there was an election for a certain position. And he goes, we need a woman in that position just because it's a woman.

21:43

She was totally unqualified. Of course, she did get in because, again, Scroggins was representing the elite there at the convention or the establishment at the convention.

21:54

She gets in there. She gets elected. She has to resign that position a few months later because she's completely incompetent at what she was doing.

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But again, what we were doing is blowing our horns, see how good we are, see how sweet we are to women, and this kind of stuff.

22:10

Again, we're looking, as James Merritt says, the world is watching. And the

22:15

Southern Baptist Convention, they're constantly looking for the world's approval. And so if the

22:21

New York Times and the Washington Post, if they think the Southern Baptist Convention is going in the right way, they are so happy.

22:28

And so the Southern Baptist Convention just wants to be where the spirit of the age is. That's where the

22:34

Southern Baptist Convention is. So to me, when I look at people like Scroggins and Merritt and Ed Litton and even

22:43

Brett Barber, children are leading us right now. Well, it was embarrassing.

22:49

I mean, seeing Barber win, I mean, that has to be the most humiliating loss that anyone has ever had.

22:56

What's interesting about, if you think about this, you know, Litton was, you know, you know how it is in the

23:01

Southern Baptist Convention. Once you get elected president, they normally will elect you for a second year.

23:08

Right. You know, so normally you get two years. And usually you don't even have opposition your second time unless there's a real conflict going on.

23:16

Well, as you know, Litton did not run again because of his plagiarism. And obviously he was getting pressure from the establishment.

23:23

Again, it was the secular media mocking us that I think finally got the establishment to say, you know, we're going to have to have

23:30

Ed step down, you know. But the thing is, the man they put in his place,

23:35

Brett Barber, is a big defender of Litton's… Plagiarism.

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Plagiarism. As a matter of fact, he even says that God inspired Mark to plagiarize Peter in writing his gospel.

23:47

That's something, Dr. Fuller, that is just so, like, when I was at Southern, when

23:53

I was at Southern, I noticed that there's this sycophantic kind of culture that's there that is just undeniable.

24:01

I mean, it is, I mean, it's very, like, you know, I went to a master's university before that.

24:06

And, you know, going from master's university to coming to Southern, one of the things that was very clear to me is that you had, like, a very strong and powerful unspoken rule that you do not criticize individuals in the

24:20

SBC. Correct. So whoever, like, the higher -ups are who are telling you, like, what to believe, you just follow them unquestionably because they have all the power and they have all the, you know, the job opportunities.

24:32

And, like, if you, you know, if you dare to criticize them, I mean, you're out, you know. That's right. As you know for sure.

24:38

Oh. You know, you could speak to that, but then, like. Yeah, let me just say this about it. That was true with the faculty.

24:46

That was true with the students. Both, there's faculty members and there are students that learned how to play the game real quick.

24:53

They knew how to move up the ladder. They knew exactly what to say. If the leadership says the sky is orange, yes, it is, you know.

25:00

Well, there was a thing that was so strange to me is that I'm looking at, like, situations like that, you know, with faculty and with students.

25:09

And it is, it's like you're in bizarro world where. Yes. Someone, someone said to believe this and everyone's just jumping on it.

25:17

You know, you have, like, professors who were good in other areas and then all of a sudden it's like when the higher -ups need to be defended, they go out and say things that you, you have to suspect that they don't believe.

25:29

Oh, yeah. They come out there and run cover for it to keep their job and get, and then, you know, surprise, they get a promotion or something like that.

25:37

Oh, yeah. And it was just like the most bizarre thing to watch, you know, on my end. Like, just watching this kind of, you know, sick dynamic that it just is obvious, like, what's happening, you know.

25:49

And I guess I'm used to being blunt and I'm used to just letting it go, you know. The worst thing you could do in a

25:57

Southern Baptist agency is to speak the truth. If you speak the truth, you're not going to last long in any of the

26:04

Southern Baptist agencies. I don't care what they are. Matter of fact, if you think of Bobby Lopez at Southwestern, see, that's how he transgressed.

26:14

He wanted to speak the truth about homosexuality as a former homosexual himself, but he was going against the narrative of Russell Moore.

26:23

And so, he was told, you just basically can't go against the narrative of Russell Moore. And he's like, you know,

26:29

I'm going to tell the truth. I know what I'm talking about is true, and he was correct. But again, to go against, and again,

26:36

Russell Moore had nothing to do with Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. But you can't say any, you can't, you can't go against the approved narrative in the

26:47

Southern Baptist Convention. If you do, you'll be looking for another job like Bobby Lopez did.

26:54

So, oh yeah, you cannot, notice, you know, for instance, think about this.

27:02

The North American Mission Board, NAM, they went into the

27:07

Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans and just purely lied about the

27:12

Southern Baptist Convention. They go to a federal court, appeals court, and they say that the

27:18

Southern Baptist Convention is not a bunch of independent churches and organizations that cooperate with each other, which is the truth.

27:26

They say we're like the United Methodist Church, we're like the Catholic Church, we're an umbrella. They lie, and guess what?

27:33

Not one, not one leader of the Southern Baptist Convention or any of the heads of the agencies will say a word.

27:44

Now, someone did ask Al Mohler, well, what about that? And he goes, I can't talk about an ongoing court case.

27:49

Well, first of all, it really hasn't gone to, they haven't, NAM keeps delaying, so there is no court case going on, really.

27:56

They haven't even done depositions yet. Moreover, Al Mohler, can't you tell us whether the

28:02

Southern Baptist Convention is a group of cooperating churches and, you know, different organizations?

28:08

SBC, Paulity 101, huh? Yeah, exactly. So then, by the way, we turned right around and went into the

28:15

Supreme Court and lied right to them as well and said that we're an umbrella organization when they know good and well it's not, and not one, not one leader of the

28:25

Southern Baptist Convention will come out and tell the truth. I mean, what does that tell you right there?

28:31

And by the way, if you want to just keep going, I mean, you have something like Tom Rainer gets a million dollars and a brand new

28:39

Lexus on the way out the door. He quits. He gets a million dollars by Jimmy Scroggins.

28:46

I mentioned him twice today. And again, this is totally illegal. The rest of the board had no idea what he was doing.

28:54

So basically, two people, that's what I understand, gave Tom Rainer a million dollars plus a brand new

29:00

Lexus on the way out the door. And by the way, the only way we know that, by the way, is they said certain things in threatening

29:09

Rainer to take him to court. That was the only reason that stuff came out. Otherwise, we wouldn't even know about it.

29:15

That's how corrupt the Southern Baptist Convention is. And when this comes out, again, there's not one voice crying out saying, this is wrong.

29:26

This is corrupt. Not one voice. So it shows you the

29:31

Southern Baptist Convention, they're watching everybody's back.

29:38

It's almost like a mafia family, to be quite honest with you. Yeah, and I think you see that a lot, even in this most recent annual meeting.

29:49

I mean, on Twitter, from the left in the

29:54

SBC, all I see everywhere is, there is no drift. There is no drift. There is no drift. We don't need to change the direction.

30:02

We don't need to change the direction. That's right. I don't understand where any of that, what do you mean there's no drift?

30:08

We're talking about what is the past. How can you say that? I mean, this is so ridiculous about that.

30:13

How can you say there's no drift while at the same time saying we need massive reform as it relates to our handling of sexual abuse?

30:21

So how can you hold those two thoughts together? Is that the reasoning of children?

30:27

See, that's not moving left, you see. I mean, that is moving left.

30:34

So to them, like for instance, Al Mohler, Danny Akin came out about a year or so ago and said there's no leftward drift in the

30:43

Southern Baptist Convention. Then Mohler gets up at this convention and says, if we have to argue about what a pastor means, we're in big trouble.

30:54

Wait a minute, what is it, Al? Are we moving to the, is that not a leftward drift that we can't even, look at a church like Warren.

31:03

When the woman, by the way, who was speaking for the Credentials Committee, since we're talking about women and children, when she gets up and she talks about it, she goes, well, you know,

31:14

Southern Baptist churches use the term pastor in so confusing ways, in so many different ways, you know, we don't know what to do with this.

31:22

She does have a point there. But here's the thing. When it came to Rick Warren, it was very clear what he was doing.

31:30

He was ordaining women, and then the pastors to replace him was one that was a teaching pastor, and it was a woman, of course.

31:38

It's very clear what he's doing. And by the way, when he got his five minutes or six minutes at the convention, he never denied, he never said, hey, guys,

31:45

I'm against women pastors. No, he doubled down on this.

31:51

And so it was very clear that they knew what, you might be confused what that, some church over here, what they mean by pastor.

31:58

But you could not be confused with what Rick Warren. And again, Rick Warren, he didn't come out and say, oh,

32:05

I'm against this. No, he said it's just a secondary issue. That's what he said.

32:11

And again, clearly, they're moving to the left. And that's why they have to say all the time, we're not moving to the left, we're not moving to the left.

32:22

They have to say that to keep people on message, shall we say.

32:29

But let me tell you, even they know they're moving to the left. Hitler's view of propaganda is essentially you just tell the lie over and over and over again until people believe it, right?

32:42

That's correct. That is what's happening. That's what's happening in the broader culture.

32:47

These riots are not riots. It's mostly peaceful protest.

32:53

This vaccine is killing everyone. This coronavirus is killing everyone. Where you look around, you're like, well, who, what is happening here?

33:01

We're all the bodies in the streets. If we're, this is a massive plague, but it seems like they're doing the same kind of thing where it's just like there is no drift.

33:09

There is no drift as they take us as far away as they can. Unfortunately, they have to say that.

33:16

But yet, it's not only do you see a move to the left, you see just flat -out corruption.

33:23

You don't see any type of transparency with them. We know more about the budget and the line items of Planned Parenthood than we know any of the agencies of the

33:34

Southern Baptist Convention. What does that tell you? So, again, there's no such thing as transparency in the

33:42

Southern Baptist Convention. It's really, it's an apostate convention, and it's going in a direction, and it's rotting away in its heresies and its corruptions at a rate that sort of surprises me.

34:01

I can't believe how fast they're going down. And next year, of course, as you know, what's going to, for next year down in Louisiana, they are,

34:09

Brett Barber's going to appoint a committee that's going to look at these recommendations from the

34:14

Guidepost investigation. And they're going to look at the recommendations that Guidepost made, and I think you're going to see most, if not all, of these things go right through.

34:24

I think that's what you'll see. What concerns me, I know a lot of people on my side of the fence, on the conservative side, say, you know, we can win

34:33

New Orleans and so forth. But I tell you what, if the pastors of the

34:38

Southern Baptist Convention can't rise up against something as simple, clear, plain as plagiarism, how in the world are they going to rise up to this stuff?

34:49

I just don't see it. You know, people talk about the conservative resurgence of the 80s, and we can repeat this.

34:57

But in the conservative resurgence of the 80s, you had people in the churches ready to go.

35:04

You had pastors ready to stand up. I don't see that right now. I just don't see it. Now, there are certain groups who are trying, but I just do not see the rank and file of the

35:14

Southern Baptist Convention doing anything right now on this. And even the leaders, you know, some of them still call these guys good brothers and so forth.

35:27

And I'm like, ugh. You don't bring, like, cultural Marxism into the Southern Baptist Convention, and you're a good brother.

35:33

You know, a good brother doesn't bring in MeTooism to the Southern Baptist Convention.

35:39

And then, really, the soft peddling of homosexuality that we have. I think that's going to be becoming a bigger and bigger issue in the

35:48

Southern Baptist Convention, because, again, things like same -sex -attracted Christianity is being accepted.

35:55

It's accepted at Southern. You can go and see videos of Herschel York, who's the dean at the School of Theology at Southern Seminary.

36:03

He interviews the Anglican priest.

36:09

Sam Mulberry. Yes, Sam Mulberry. And, I mean, he's all with the guy about same -sex -attracted and so forth.

36:15

And, of course, you know, Albero say things like we're all sexually broken, and they're trying to level off.

36:21

You know, there's no difference, really, between homosexuality and heterosexuality. You know, it's all sin.

36:27

He's trying to level. And Moeller's like, that's right. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And so, again, Moeller repenting.

36:35

Remember that term, repenting, that he does not believe in sexual orientation.

36:41

Now he does. He repented that he did not believe it. That implies that if you don't believe in sexual orientation, according to Al Moeller, you're in sin, you see.

36:51

This is – we're far down the road on homosexuality as well.

36:57

And I think down the road, what you're seeing in the PCA – I think the PCA is a little ahead of us, at least on this issue, on the revoice issue or whatever.

37:05

But I think it's coming to the Southern Baptist Convention as well. It seems like once you start having those conversations of, you know, women pastors and whatnot, normally the same -sex attraction stuff is right behind it.

37:19

That's right. See, here's the thing. Once you accept any of these vain philosophies, what's wrong with the other vain philosophy that comes down?

37:29

Suppose you accept something like critical race theory. What's going to stop you from Me Too? What's going to stop you from same -sex attracted

37:37

Christianity or the so -called B -side? They call it B -side. That's just the same -sex attracted folks.

37:44

If you go to the A -side, then that's a real gay guy right there. The thing is, you know, when you say A -side, B -side, it reminds me of the old records.

37:52

It's the same record, whether it's an A -side or B -side. And so to me, whether you're A -side or B -side, you're promoting homosexuality.

38:00

And this stuff is accepted. And by the way, when you see these things, let me assure you, these things are far deeper at the seminaries and the agencies, because you're just seeing the tip of the iceberg, you see.

38:14

Once again, it's like, think of a train car. Once you see one, you know, a hopper car or whatever, okay?

38:24

Once you see one of the cars, there's more to come, and they're just going to keep coming down the road.

38:31

But in the Southern Baptist Convention, we've decided to go the way of the world. We want the world's approval. We don't want the reproach of Christ.

38:38

What we want is the approval of the world. We want the praise of man. And so once you go down that road, once you accept one, all of these things will fall into place.

38:49

So you think, I mean, if you're to try to tie together some of those various things, you have the social justice pressure that's obvious.

38:56

It just seems like David Blatt preaches his famous sermon, let justice roll down like water.

39:04

Which, by the way, the old liberals used to preach that same text exactly like Hitler.

39:12

Economic disparities are facto evidence of oppression, essentially.

39:18

But you think about these various things you have. The social justice philosophies that are being imported in, they're just swallowing it whole cloth.

39:26

I mean, they have no resistance whatsoever. The same thing with the Me Too movement, with the Me Too pressure.

39:32

There's just no pushback, really. And I mean, it's taken far too long for them to even realize that there are problems.

39:40

And then, so you have like the social justice stuff that's been going on for a while, the Me Too stuff, the SSA stuff.

39:46

I mean, that's been happening for years and years and years. I mean, where they were platforming Sam Alberry, Jackie Hill Perry, and all that.

39:53

And I mean, this was going on far before anyone saw it as a problem. Meaning, me being a person who has no influence whatsoever,

40:03

I could look out and say, why isn't anyone speaking to these things? And I've been saying those things for years in my own mind with no one really to talk to about it.

40:11

But what is the thing that ties it together? I'm looking at it, and I'm just kind of a guy who thinks everything

40:21

I believe, I need to find it in the Bible somewhere. And if it's not in there, then I don't care. It's like I'm going to form my doctrine from the

40:29

Bible, and that's just been my posture for many, many years. But what I don't really understand is how you can have individuals who are just blindsided by these things, and just who are supposed to be like experts in the

40:41

Bible and teachers of the Bible. Like, what happened? How do they not see it, Russell? Tell us how they're missing it.

40:48

I think how they're missing it is... It's not hard, though. These are not complicated issues if you believe in the sufficiency of the

40:56

Bible and you believe that God has spoken. And you think, hey, whatever we do, we need to substantiate it in the

41:04

Bible. But then for some reason, it's just... I'll tell you how

41:09

I think it happens. A lot of these guys who teach at a seminary, they've gone off to different schools.

41:17

And sometimes it's another seminary. They get their degree. And when they're getting their degree, they get infected.

41:23

They get infected with the idea that, hey, there's these new views. And really what it is, it's the spirit of the age again.

41:30

It's these... What's going on in the world, what we'll do is we'll take their philosophies and not import them necessarily exactly the same way.

41:39

We'll put a Christian veneer on it. So instead of calling it critical race theory, we'll call it racial reconciliation.

41:45

And we'll change some of the terms so that it doesn't look like critical race theory, but it's critical race theory.

41:53

So a lot of these guys, they get infected with false teachings. And let me tell you, these false...

42:00

When these guys get infected with this, they believe this is what we've been missing in our churches.

42:07

They really think they're trying to save the church. In other words, it's like we're going to be thought cavemen, you see, if we just think, well, what the

42:19

Bible says. And so we have to bring in these worldly... Because look, we just happened to discover that these worldly philosophies are very compatible with what the

42:28

Bible already teaches. And you start going down that type of mindset. And then when they get into a seminary, they're very subversive.

42:38

And what they really want to get into their students is the heresy that so excites them, you see.

42:47

And so this is what goes on all the time. And I've seen it. I can't tell you. I'll give you a for instance.

42:55

When I was at school at Hebrew Union, there were students from all the seminaries around.

43:01

And this one guy, he walks up to me. He teaches at Dallas now, by the way, Dallas Seminary. He walks up to me while...

43:08

And this is years ago, though. And he goes, you believe in Adam and Eve, don't you? And I went, yeah,

43:13

I do. And he goes, how can any thinking person believe in Adam and Eve? And I said to him, well, let me tell you, you're going to tell people you believe in Adam and Eve.

43:24

And he goes, what do you mean by that? And I go, look, the liberals aren't going to hire you.

43:30

But what you'll do is you'll go to conservative schools and you will lie to them to get your job.

43:36

And that's exactly what he did. That's exactly what he did. And he's not the only one. So you think it's malicious?

43:43

Oh, they know what they're doing. I'll give you another one. At Southern, we were going to interview this guy for Old Testament, position at Old Testament.

43:51

And I read his dissertation. And in his dissertation, he talks about Isaiah saw this coming king.

43:59

And when it didn't happen, in other words, Isaiah blew it. He missed it. They just made it some messianic figure hundreds and hundreds of years later.

44:08

Okay. And so I remember at Southern saying, hey, please don't invite this guy. I don't want to have to just go against him because it's very clear what he's teaching here.

44:16

And for once, they did what I asked. They invited him. Well, another, it was Golden Gate.

44:21

I forgot what it was. Gateway, I think is what it's called now. Get a call.

44:27

And, oh, we got this great, we got this great Old Testament professor. And I said, who'd you get?

44:34

And they told me, I went, have you read his dissertation? And so apparently they asked him, and here's what he says.

44:42

Well, when I did my dissertation, he goes, it was so conservative over in England.

44:48

They wouldn't accept it. So I had to write it this way to get my degree. To which I said, is he lying then or is he lying now?

44:56

Which one is it? But see, this goes on all the time. And again, one of the things that got me in trouble at Southern was we hired a guy who believed the

45:06

Bible teaches mythology. And it's very clear in his dissertation. And you can go online and see his dissertation,

45:15

Dominic Hernandez. And it was very clear. And not only does Job teach it, but Isaiah teaches it.

45:21

I mean, in other words, the Bible's full of mythology. Well, mythology by definition is error.

45:28

And it's very clear. The apostles say that in the New Testament as well. And I had made it very clear to the administration, this guy is outside the bounds.

45:41

But everybody in the Old Testament voted for him knowing this.

45:49

And it was very clear. There was no doubt about it. But they still all voted for him.

45:56

And again, I think they did. Most of them did it out of fear. Because I asked almost every one of them, you know, I asked one of them, did

46:03

I misread him? No. But we liked his answers in the meeting.

46:09

Well, his answers in the meeting were even worse. When I asked him, is death a real person, not a personification, a real person?

46:15

I wouldn't have any problem with that. I mean, you can't vote anybody in like that. But again, they were all, some were afraid.

46:23

Some were looking to move up the ladder. And so they all voted for him. This goes on all the time.

46:30

By the way, just to finish the story very quickly. One of the guys that works in Al Mohler's office, his main research guy,

46:37

I see him one day and go, we're about to hire another liberal. No, I said, yeah. And he goes, do you have the facts?

46:46

And I said, sure, I'll send them to you. So I sent him like a three, I don't know how many pages it was, showing this was true.

46:55

And I said, if I'm wrong, you call me and tell me. Well, he calls me back and he goes, you hit it. Of course the guy teaches this.

47:02

So Mohler interviews him. And of course, Mohler, he didn't read the dissertation, but he was, the guy working in his office prepped him for the interview.

47:10

Say, you've got to ask him about mythology. You've got to ask him all these questions. And yeah, because he had my notes to prep

47:16

Mohler. And so after the interview, he goes up to Mohler and goes, did you hire him?

47:23

Mohler goes, yeah. And he goes, how could you hire this guy? And Mohler's response was, look,

47:28

I know his doctrine of inspiration is all messed up, but he says he can sign our statement and that's all that matters.

47:35

Wow. Folks, that's where we are. Wow. And even Al Mohler himself. If you think about Al Mohler for a second.

47:42

He had me fooled too. But look, he was a thoroughgoing liberal all of his years at Southern Seminary.

47:50

And even, you know, he was the right -hand man of Roy Honeycutt, the president before him, who was, again, very liberal in his positions.

47:57

Mohler was big for women preachers. That was what he was most famous for. And it wasn't at the last moment, basically, when he realized that conservatives were going to win, that he flip -flopped.

48:08

Now, he had me fooled because he got rid of Molly Marshall and the other liberals on the faculty. But, you know, it took me a while to figure out what was going on.

48:16

And the fact was they despised him because they knew he was one of them, but he just flip -flopped to get the job.

48:23

And he was just basically getting rid of them because they were a thorn in his side because they really despised him.

48:29

But if you'll notice, Mohler, after being at Southern about 10, 15 years, and that was the, in other words, he got rid of all the old trustees.

48:37

He had to come off the board, and he could basically put his own trustees on. After that,

48:43

Mohler starts moving back to the left. And so I really question whether Mohler was ever a true conservative.

48:49

As a matter of fact, I don't believe he is. I think he's an opportunist who, given the situation, will do whatever it takes.

48:56

So if he has to basically say adultery is, you know, is abuse, it's abuse.

49:05

He'll do whatever it takes, you know. Whatever position he needs to take at a given time, he'll do it.

49:12

And what's really concerning is I went to New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

49:18

And one of the things that I saw in my experience was you have a lot of really young guys coming in.

49:28

And honestly, I mean, there were some older guys who definitely, you know, they had been pastors for, you know, 20 years, 10 years, something like that.

49:39

They were pretty solid in what they believed. But then there were younger guys and girls who were coming in, you know, in their early 20s or something like that.

49:51

And they really don't, like, you just talk to them and you get the sense that, like, they might not understand the

49:58

Bible very well in general. And then they get in classes. And I remember

50:04

I had one class. It was, you know, a biblical counseling class, right?

50:10

And the professor, he starts teaching, you know, when you're counseling to someone, the steps that you need to take someone through is you need to teach them that they need to love themselves.

50:26

Why do they need to love themselves? Well, they need, you know, and then they start trying to justify it by saying, well, you know,

50:33

God loves them. And if God loves them, then that must mean that they're worthy of love.

50:38

So, they need to love themselves. And that's how they're going to, that's what's going to help, you know, fix whatever the issue is that they're coming in for.

50:46

And all of the older guys and me, you know, we're sitting there and we're kind of like, did he just say that?

50:55

You know, but then, you know, the younger ones, they're eating it up. And so, basically, what you've got is you've got all these younger people who are aspiring pastors.

51:08

And, you know, I don't want to say all of them don't know the Bible, you know, but a lot of them coming in that I talk to, it's like,

51:16

I don't know. Like, how much do you read the Bible on your own? How much do you study this? That was my experience at seminary myself was that, you know, most of my peers didn't get the impression that they had ever really read the

51:29

Bible themselves. And they were coming to seminary because they wanted to learn the Bible. It's time to learn the

51:34

Bible now. But then, like, the problem was that, you know, most of what they were learning was secondary sources. Like, in most of the classes, they weren't learning the

51:42

Bible themselves. I mean, I remember, you know, some of my friends just looking at me and saying, you know, I've gotten done with seminary now.

51:49

And I thought I was going to learn the Bible, but I didn't. I think what the best that happened was they got a systematic theology.

51:55

They got the systematic theology down, but they didn't know why. Yeah. They didn't know why it was true, you know.

52:01

And a lot of them will, especially if you go to the PhD programs at the Southern Baptist schools, they become mighty in scholarship.

52:08

They know all about what this scholar says, that scholar, and so forth. But they really don't have, they're not mighty in scripture.

52:14

They don't know scripture very well. Is that something that you're doing, you're online learning differently for that reason?

52:23

Yeah. Oh, yeah. But even when I taught at Southern, I did the same thing. I wanted them to know what scripture said.

52:30

And so, we would focus, because usually it was language stuff, so Greek or mostly Hebrew and Aramaic. And so, we just constantly was, what does this verse say?

52:40

And then, how does it compare to this verse over here that says something very similar, and so forth. And look at how the New Testament looks at this as well, you see.

52:46

So, let's let the Bible interpret scripture as much as we can do this. And so, to me, it was really knowing scripture.

52:53

What I used to do for PhD students to see how they kind of were, I'd walk up to them and say, well,

52:58

Paul sees it this way. And they'd go, oh. And I'd go, well, N .T. Wright says, oh, really?

53:04

And I'm like, uh -huh. You know, you've been infected. You've been infected. They become enamored with scholars and scholarship where they need to be enamored with the apostles and the prophets in Christ.

53:18

And so, the reason I bring that up is, you know, essentially, you have all these younger, really, basically, the younger generation or the next generation of pastors being trained by the

53:32

Southern Baptist seminaries who are really teaching some strange and just flat -out weird things at times.

53:40

Now, I think I lucked out a little bit because I went to an extension center here in Birmingham, and it just didn't feel quite as connected to the main campus a lot of the time.

53:53

And so, for a long time, I didn't even really know about anything going on at the main campus.

53:59

I just knew what was happening at our extension center. And a lot of those guys were just local guys, your standard kind of small church pastor who just wants to teach about whatever his field of expertise is.

54:16

But then the problem is, so you have these universities that are training up the next generation of pastors, and they're training them up to think things like, you know, hey, when you're counseling someone, you need to teach them that they need to love themselves, right?

54:32

Which is obviously not what the Bible teaches.

54:39

The Bible doesn't teach that anywhere. You can't find that. You have to do three different backflips in your mind just to make that happen.

54:47

But all that to say, they're training up the next generation of pastors, and at the same time, there's a battle going on in the

54:55

SBC for control. And it seems like the left and the

55:01

SBC is winning, right? And they have control over everything. I mean, everything at the annual meeting this year that the conservatives presented failed.

55:11

Maybe something was passed, but I don't know what it was. And so everything's failed.

55:18

You haven't won an election in two or three years now, maybe longer than that.

55:24

It goes back further than that. We haven't had a really conservative Southern Baptist president probably since the 1990s, probably.

55:35

It's been a long time since we've had a real conservative in position. Right, and so you're losing elections.

55:42

You're not passing anything at the meetings. And on top of all of that, they are training up people with weird theology.

55:51

And it's not just the colleges. I think when you were on with John Harris, you might have mentioned, too, that NAM is doing strange things in their missionary training and whatnot.

56:02

So you look at all these things, and then you see the conservatives in the SBC. They're saying, hey, we need to stay and fight.

56:09

We need to stay and fight. We need to change the direction. We need to change the direction. If we could just get all of the pastors in the

56:17

SBC to come out to the annual meeting and vote the way that we know they'll vote, then we can right the ship.

56:25

But then you look at everything, and nothing is going in their favor.

56:31

And so you have to start asking the question, at what point do you say, all right, it's probably time to get out?

56:42

There's no point in fighting anymore. Yes, I understand there's a lot of resources that you're leaving behind that will be used for awful things.

56:52

But at some point, you just have to say, I can't be involved with this anymore. There'd be a lot less if you stopped giving them yours.

56:58

Right, right, right. So the question is, in your mind, is it time to just basically stick a fork in the

57:08

SBC and call it done? Yeah, to quote the old prophets,

57:14

Ephraim is joined to idols. Let him alone. I mean, there comes a point when you have to say the apostasy is so deep, it's over.

57:26

Or Jesus says about the Pharisees, leave them alone. The blind are guiding the blind, you know.

57:33

And even in some ways, let's get it away from Southern Baptists for just a second.

57:40

Suppose you're in the PCA or something, the Presbyterian Church in America. It's a little more difficult to get out of that, but at least as a pastor you can say, hey, let's try to get out of here, okay?

57:52

Or you're in a mainline denomination. When do you draw the line? Well, apparently it should have been a long time ago.

57:58

But even just in staying in some of these organizations, even though, let's suppose your church doesn't give one dime to the

58:04

Southern Baptist Convention, your presence in the Southern Baptist Convention still gives certain credibility, still gives certain,

58:11

I'm on the same team in some way. So we do have to keep that in mind. I'm getting to the point where I really don't think it can be salvaged, okay?

58:21

Now, again, people, I can't draw you a straight line and just say, okay, when they cross this line, it's time.

58:27

Everyone must get out at that point. I think this is a decision everyone has to make for themselves.

58:32

When do you draw the line? I'm telling you this. I don't think we can, it would take,

58:39

I mean, a true miracle of God, I think, to turn the Southern Baptist around right now. I think the system is,

58:45

I'll say it, virtually rigged. In the 80s, they didn't have the information they have now to win these elections.

58:56

When you register to go to the Southern Baptist Convention, you do it online, so they know who's coming, first of all.

59:02

They know every year how many convention employees are going to come.

59:07

Well, they're certainly going to vote for the establishment because they're not going to hurt their paycheck. They're going to vote their paycheck 100%.

59:15

I mean, you may get an occasional brave person to show up and vote against his paycheck, but you're looking 95 % of them are going to vote the establishment way.

59:24

I mean, look at Nashville last year. Al Mohler was one of the four candidates. He had probably 100 % name recognition in the room.

59:33

Ed Litton, probably very few people knew who Ed Litton was, but yet Litton wins.

59:40

How can that happen? How can a guy as obscure as Ed Litton win?

59:49

Well, he was the NAM candidate. And not only did they, first of all, again, they know how many convention employees are coming, but there's a

59:57

SIN conference put on by NAM before the Southern Baptist Convention. There, they will bring in maybe 1 ,000 people or more, put them up in a nice hotel, feed them well, and they have sports stars come in and the real cool people come in and lecture to them.

01:00:14

And then they're told, oh, and by the way, the convention's coming up and you ought to vote for Ed Litton. I mean, it's things like that.

01:00:21

And so even the Washington Post wrote back last year's convention in Nashville that NAM was buying votes.

01:00:31

Even they admitted it. Even they could see what was going on. One of the things that's most frustrating about that is just that you have individuals like Tom Askell, and I'll just name him, but you have individuals like that who is supposed to be –

01:00:46

I mean, if there's anyone less popular with the establishment, I can't think of very many people except maybe you.

01:00:54

But then the thing is, it's just like I don't understand for those conservatives who are going to stay and say, hey, it's time to fight, or we still need to fight, or everything else.

01:01:07

I don't understand the kind of philosophy where guys like Tom Askell will over and over again, they'll say that there is this dangerous drift where they're bringing in the doctrines of demons into the convention, but then he'll give

01:01:20

Dwight McKissack a hug at the thing and call him a beloved brother, and I just – it's like I don't – the epistles of John tell us that if you greet the false teacher, you're taking a part in their evil deeds, and it's like it doesn't do any good to say that there's all this horrible drift and these destructive doctrines and these damnable doctrines and everything else, and then hug the very guys who are doing it.

01:01:45

And so how do you motivate people? Suppose that there is this massive group of faithful pastors out there who are just not voting.

01:01:53

How are you going to motivate them if you're buddy, buddy, buddy, buddy with all the guys who are doing all the damage and you insist on calling them brothers?

01:02:02

I don't get it. But then my perspective, and I'd like to hear your perspective on this, but my perspective on the

01:02:10

SBC is I feel like the vast majority of little

01:02:16

SBC churches are just pragmatists just like the big churches and want to be just like them.

01:02:21

And they're doing the same things. They're program -driven. They're doing the same things that all the big churches are doing.

01:02:28

They basically have their church governed with all the stuff the big churches are doing.

01:02:35

They're just doing it more poorly. So I'm not persuaded that there's just massive faithful SBC churches out there to begin with.

01:02:45

But what do you think? Yeah, that's what I think, too. I don't think, again, when you said the

01:02:51

Ed Lutton thing is what really said to me, I don't think this thing can be saved. If pastors can't stand up and say, hey, look, plagiarism is over the line.

01:03:04

Ed, you need to resign right now as president of the Southern Baptist Convention. There was very little said.

01:03:12

I think there was one association down in Tennessee that bravely said something, and then there was people here and there.

01:03:19

But you're touching on something that I think is very important that no one ever talks about, and that is even within the conservatives of the

01:03:28

Southern Baptist Convention, there is a split and a difference of opinion, and you hit it exactly.

01:03:36

You know, Tom Askew came out with a—he called it a synodoc, his documentary about critical race theory in the

01:03:44

Southern Baptist Convention. It was excellent, if you've seen it. If you haven't seen it, you ought to go on the Family Day website, and you'll see it.

01:03:50

That is, in my opinion, it was excellent until the very end of it, because he clearly showed that in our

01:03:58

Southern Baptist agencies, especially the seminaries, critical race theory, cultural

01:04:03

Marxism, was being accepted, promoted, you know, not just taught and then criticized.

01:04:10

No, no, no, no, no. It is actively taught, okay? There's no question about it.

01:04:15

But when you get to the end of his synodoc, he clearly proves his point. But then he goes, him and Tom Nettles and others, they say, but these are good brothers.

01:04:27

And I'm like, wait a minute. Do good brothers bring cultural Marxism into our churches?

01:04:33

Those are good brothers? I say they're bad brothers at best, meaning they should be under church discipline, or they're not brothers at all.

01:04:42

And so there is a split, I think, within the conservatives. And by the way, what

01:04:51

I like to say also is we have a lot of chiefs in the conservative movement, but we don't have any

01:04:57

Indians. We don't have the troops. We have an army of generals, you know, who they're all saying,

01:05:05

I know how to lead us to the promised land in New Orleans, but where's your privates?

01:05:10

Where's the corporals and the sergeants, the guys who really win the war? Where are those guys?

01:05:16

I don't think we have them. But again, there is a split. And I'm of the type to say, listen, these are false teachers.

01:05:27

We need to say it like it is. And they're also heretics. And again, I use those terms almost interchangeably.

01:05:33

And you can't call them a heretic. If they're teaching heresy, I will call them heretics.

01:05:39

I will call them false teachers. It's amazing that Jesus tells us after his departure, there will be savage wolves, and they won't stop.

01:05:46

Absolutely. And over and over again. I mean, Paul does in Acts 20. That's exactly right. But then there's no – the issue, though, is that it doesn't do good to believe in the hypothetical possibility that there are wolves out there if you can't identify any.

01:06:02

That's right. And this is another problem with my conservative brethren, I feel.

01:06:07

And that is they'll condemn things in the abstract. They'll condemn the critical race theory in the abstract, but they won't name the names.

01:06:17

And so to me, that's a real problem. So when that happens – let me just tell you – like, for instance, at Southern Seminary, there's some professors who come out real strong against critical race theory.

01:06:27

And I'll tell you who they are. Like a Jim Hamilton or a Denny Burke. You know, they come out.

01:06:33

They write these articles just blasting critical race theory. But at the same time, who do they vote to be on the faculty of Southern Seminary?

01:06:44

People like Matthew Hall, who clearly taught critical race theory there. Jarvis Williams.

01:06:51

They voted for Jarvis Williams. So what do you make of that? I mean – What do you make of that?

01:06:57

Because they know how to argue against critical race theory. Oh, of course. And what they're doing is they're protecting their fellow faculty who are –

01:07:06

Because if you come out and say, look, I'm against critical race theory, and you're a faculty member at Southern Seminary, it looks like you're saying, well, there's obviously no critical race theory at Southern Seminary.

01:07:15

Look at these guys right now. They're all doing that right now. Oh, sure. With the Roe vs. Wade thing.

01:07:21

It's amazing to watch all these individuals who are on paper pro -life who are now not rejoicing at this moment.

01:07:31

We're supposed to be rejoicing at this moment. This is something that I've been told my whole life,

01:07:36

Dr. Poehler, that one day we're going to overturn Roe. If we can get the right people in the right office or whatever else.

01:07:46

It was this thing that I really didn't believe would happen. Yeah, I agree.

01:07:52

But it's one of those things that God in his providence decided to do, and who knows what the end result of this will be.

01:07:58

This is this day that supposedly all these people have been longing for for years and years and years and years, and talking about for years and years and years.

01:08:09

When the moment comes, they're lecturing us on not rejoicing too much because the pagans might be saddened by it.

01:08:17

You might harm your witness. Yeah, we might harm our witness by rejoicing. Then we're being told at the same time, socialism, essentially, all right, well, now that we got our way, we need to make sure that we're comforting those people who are confused and grieving and adopt socialism and everything else.

01:08:34

But there is a lot of people who know how to say the right thing on paper, but then their reaction shows in the moment.

01:08:42

That's right. I mean, you see this all the time. Or take Al Mohler on critical race theory.

01:08:50

He's critical race theory. I heard him. In a faculty meeting, talk about critical race theory, sees the problem of racism correctly in our society.

01:09:01

And by that, he means the white supremacy, the systemic racism, white privilege.

01:09:09

He sees all that matter. He made the statement in chapel one day that he believes that the

01:09:14

Southern Baptist Convention has a big problem right now with white supremacy and with racism.

01:09:21

So step down. Now, when you say that, think about this. You've just called the entire

01:09:27

Southern Baptist Convention racist. Why don't you name names of who you're talking about?

01:09:33

In other words, be specific as opposed to just broad brushing everybody. But then he'll turn around and say, well, every structure in America is tainted with racism, even if there's not a racist there, of course, to him.

01:09:45

Every structure is tainted with racism. Again, that is just pure critical race theory.

01:09:51

But he'll turn around and go on his podcast. And what he'll do is he'll have guys like James Lindsay comes in, who's, of course, one of the great critics of critical race theory.

01:10:04

And Lindsay will just destroy it. And Mueller's agreeing with him all the way. Well, Lindsay knew he was being used by Mueller.

01:10:12

And so a couple of weeks after that interview, he goes on his Facebook page and says, you want to know what critical race theory looks like?

01:10:19

I'll show you. And he has a clip of Matt Hall, Mueller's number two man, teaching.

01:10:27

He knew he was being used by Mueller. And so he knew how to turn the tables on that very adroitly.

01:10:35

So what is that? I mean, what is that that's happening? Is that just a group of guys who have gotten used to basically saying whatever they need to say in order to get the money that they need to get?

01:10:46

That's right. Mueller, especially on his podcast, is going to be the most conservative Mueller you've ever heard, even at the convention this year.

01:10:54

He did get up and what he said about women pastors, oh, I would agree with him.

01:11:01

In other words, what he said, I'm like, yeah, I agree with that. But when Mueller says one thing, you better watch what else is he saying?

01:11:08

Because when you're also promoting me too, like he is very big.

01:11:14

He's very big promoting that me too stuff. Remember, most of me too people are saying, well, the reason there's so much abuse is because of this view about women, you know, this complementarianism that women can't be pastors and all these other things.

01:11:30

Women are being put down in the churches and in places and so forth. And so watch,

01:11:37

Mueller will talk one way. And then Danny Akin, of course, and his program at Southeastern, women can get a degree in preaching and Akin has no problem.

01:11:47

Does Mueller lift his voice up and say, Hey, Danny Akin, you should not have a course on our whole degree for women to get on preaching.

01:11:57

You know, he keeps his mouth shut on that. So notice how the game is played. And again, it's according to who's in the room.

01:12:04

When Mueller used to call me into his office, he would try it first to say, well, Russell, you know,

01:12:09

I'm with you on this. I'm with you. And then I'd sit there and go, no. And it would infuriate him because I knew he was trying to con me.

01:12:17

He's a very good con man. And so whoever he's with, he knows what to say to them to try to, you know, to fool them.

01:12:26

So when he gets on his podcast, it's conservative Al there. But look at what's being taught at Southern Seminary.

01:12:35

Look at some of these videos of these people that he does promote. On like together for the gospel.

01:12:43

It's a completely different message than what he promotes on his. Wasn't that what he said at the

01:12:49

Shepherds conference or that conference? Oh, yeah. Like you want to know the evidence of how conservative

01:12:54

I am. Look at who I platform. And then. Yeah. Everyone in the room just thought to themselves. And I should tell you this, since we're talking a lot about me too.

01:13:03

And about if, you know, if, if there's claims of abuse, you got to believe these things and so forth. You know, there was a, another pastor.

01:13:11

And he's here in town here in Louisville named CJ Mahaney. And Mahaney was at that time when the problem happened, he was a pastor in Maryland and there was sexual abuse that occurred in his church.

01:13:24

Now he, he, he's never been accused of sexual abuse Mahaney, but the accusation against Mahaney was that he covered up.

01:13:32

That he did not know anything about it. He left it to his underlings to sort of figure out what to do.

01:13:38

He really did not know what was going on. He was covering. He acted like he didn't know he had left it to other people and they didn't get the job done.

01:13:46

Okay. Well, he had a guy named Brent Detweiler who worked for him says, Hey, that's not true.

01:13:52

And he, apparently he took, you know, massive amount of emails that showed he did know what was going on.

01:13:58

Well, Mahaney, he knew how to work his way up and to be an evangelical superstar.

01:14:05

To get on the board of the gospel coalition, to be a yearly speaker at together for the gospel.

01:14:13

He started giving, he gave Southern seminary in one year, like a hundred thousand dollars. And he wasn't even part of the Southern Baptist convention and his church, which was not part of the

01:14:22

Southern Baptist convention, gave a hundred thousand dollars in one year to Southern. Now, why, why is this going on?

01:14:29

And of course, Moeller was all, you know, he, he's okay. He's a good guy. Moeller even got up at a together for the gospel and mocked the victims.

01:14:38

And we all knew there were victims there. There's true victims that happened. Okay. He mocked the victims.

01:14:44

And then let me tell you what he does. So this Brent Detweiler takes all of his evidence to Janet Medford and says,

01:14:51

Hey, look, this is a coverup for one of the evangelical superstars.

01:14:57

She sees the stuff and she goes, this looks pretty good. I think you got something here. So she calls up Mahaney and his lawyer and says, would you like to come on my program and refute what

01:15:09

Detweiler is going to say? And of course they say no. And all of a sudden a phone call comes in to Medford's bosses and they go, you know, we think it's best

01:15:19

Janet that you not have Mr. Detweiler on your program. And she goes, who called you?

01:15:27

Well, Al Moeller's office. And she goes, no, no. Al Moeller called you and he didn't deny it.

01:15:34

Moeller tried to call, he did. He called the bosses of Janet Medford to make sure that evidence against his friend did not come out.

01:15:45

Now, if you want to talk about covering up, you know, covering up for your friend so that you'd help him because he was covering up.

01:15:54

And now he's the leader of the Me Too movement. And he writes all these articles about this is the wrath of God coming down upon Al.

01:16:02

Maybe you ought to look at what you've done first and how you try to put pressure on Janet Medford to keep evidence from coming out against your buddy who gives you a hundred thousand dollars.

01:16:13

You see, in one year, by the way, nobody talks about this. Let me tell you this.

01:16:20

If that were to happen to a CEO of a fortune 500 company, a guy here in this country, he would be fired instantly.

01:16:29

But in the Southern Baptist Convention, this stuff, no problem. Don't worry.

01:16:34

The trustees are really like a bodyguard. They're a Praetorian guard and all they do is protect people.

01:16:40

But I'm telling you, there's higher levels of accountability in the secular world than there is in the

01:16:47

Southern Baptist Convention. So in summary, when it comes to thinking about the

01:16:55

SBC, are they ruled by women and children? It seems like you're saying yes to both.

01:17:01

They're being ruled by women in the sense that we're now talking about women pastors. We're talking about committee leaders, women going to get degrees and preaching.

01:17:16

Women who are just worship leaders at the Birmingham Convention.

01:17:22

And they're also on trustees boards. Sometimes they're within the boards.

01:17:30

They might be something like a curriculum committee. So they're helping to determine how a pastor should be trained.

01:17:37

These are problematic things. Right. And you also even have women who are throwing out accusations and basically just being treated as true accusations immediately.

01:17:53

Let me tell you what's going to happen real quick on that. Just think about this. You've already apologized to women by name.

01:18:03

They could just probably grab a lawyer, not even get to court. They don't have to go to court. They just go to the convention and go, we need some money about this.

01:18:10

We don't want just an apology, money now. And they'll get the money. And then women are going to start lining up left and right.

01:18:18

Some might really be abused. Some were not. But there's going to be plenty who will take advantage of this.

01:18:24

This is their opportunity. Even if they ran off with the pastor and they were all for it.

01:18:29

Like I heard of a case just recently here in, it's outside of Louisville, where a guy was having like a three -year sexual relationship with a woman.

01:18:39

And then the pastor starts preaching about the great whore in the book of Revelation.

01:18:47

The woman he's having an affair with stands up and says, that's me. I've been doing this.

01:18:54

And she repents. And of course, now if she wanted to, she could probably turn it around and go, give me the money.

01:19:02

I mean, I have to say this about her. She had the integrity to repent of her sins. But you know, does she have the, but you know, a person in that position,

01:19:12

I'm not saying what she's going to do. I hope she doesn't. But some people can make money on this now. And so they'll just line right up.

01:19:18

And the Southern Baptist Convention, a lot of your tithe money that's going to Southern Baptist Convention, are going to go to lawyers and go to people who had consensual, illicit relationships.

01:19:31

Adulterers, they're going to be getting a lot of money out of the Southern Baptist Convention. Right. And not only do you have that, but you've got essentially, it seems like what you're describing when it comes to the elites in the

01:19:43

SBC, they're essentially like the good old boys, right? They protect each other. They look out, they look over each other's shoulder for them.

01:19:51

And I think that's probably an appropriate title for them, the good old boys, because it seems like in a lot of ways they're, they're thinking and their reasoning is pretty similar to children.

01:20:02

And they're in the, in the sense of like, they're just not consistent. And, and I think in a lot of ways it's, it's because they probably don't understand the

01:20:11

Bible to begin with. I mean, you've got J .D. Greer talking about God whispering about sexual, you know, sexual sin.

01:20:17

I mean, that's just total baloney. Again, who's crying out against this saying that's terrible.

01:20:23

Right. Right. And, and so you've got that, but then you've all,

01:20:30

I think, I think the other half of it is just they, like you're, like you're saying there it's just, they're making it hard to nail the

01:20:37

Jell -O to the wall. Right. Oh yeah. They're, they're making it hard to, you know, where you can say like, all right, here is where you're absolutely wrong.

01:20:46

Right. They try to cover that up as much as possible in a lot of different ways. And, but then if you've just got eyes to see,

01:20:52

I mean, you can just watch the live stream of the convention, which by the way, I think I didn't verify this.

01:20:58

So, so take it with a grain of salt, but I heard that you actually can't go back and just watch the entire live stream of this last, this last convention.

01:21:10

You can only find edited clips. Correct. And I don't think that's how it's been in years past, which is strange.

01:21:17

That's very strange. But, but putting that aside, you know, you just, you look at the, you look at the annual meeting and it, and it just seems like a, like a circus, right.

01:21:27

Of, of, of letting, letting the guys, letting the guys like Rick Warren come up and, and talk for six minutes and talk about the 1 .1

01:21:37

million pastors that he's trained. And, you know, he, he basically, he brought Paul to salvation himself and you know, whatever else, whatever else that he can think of to basically say,

01:21:49

Hey, I'm, you know, I'm not boasting it myself, but I kind of am a big deal. Right. And so you've just got, you've got

01:21:55

SBC elite guys that are essentially, they just amount to the good old boys.

01:22:01

They do. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. If I could give you one more verse, you gave me one out of Isaiah. I give one out of Jeremiah.

01:22:08

Jeremiah says the prophets prophesy falsely. The priest, uh, governed by their own authority and my people love it.

01:22:19

So, but what are you going to do in the end? And I think that's what the Southern Baptist convention is.

01:22:25

Uh, the P the, the leaders, the prophets and the priest, they're prophesying falsely.

01:22:31

They are governing on their own authority, not the authority of the word of God, but yet the people of Southern Baptist convention seem to love it.

01:22:39

So, and so what are you going to do in the end? I think God's judgment will come upon the Southern. It's already on the

01:22:45

Southern Baptist convention. You can see it again. It's rotting away and it's heresies. It's rotting away and it's corruptions.

01:22:52

And when the facts, one day the facts will come out about what they've been doing with their money. And when that happens,

01:22:59

I wouldn't be surprised if Southern Baptist convention really did fall apart. If we could ever see the real budget of NAM, um,

01:23:06

I honestly believe the Southern Baptist convention would probably collapse under such seeing such corruption.

01:23:12

Again, this is, they will fight to the death to keep from a real close inspection of their books.

01:23:20

But I think if that ever came out, I do believe the convention would literally fall apart. Right. Well, Dr.

01:23:27

Fuller, we really want to thank you for coming on the show and talking to us about, uh, the state of the

01:23:33

SBC right now and specifically the leadership, as we close, if you could, again, just, just tell people who are listening, where can they find more of you?

01:23:42

Yeah. Again, the, probably the best place to go is my website, RussellTFuller .com.

01:23:49

If you'll go there, uh, you'll read about my theology classroom and so forth. I am on Facebook as well.

01:23:55

So you can look me up on Facebook and then you could message me that way too. On my website, if you'll, you'll have to click a few times, but you can find even an email address for me on there.

01:24:05

But again, you have to go through a few little clicks here, but again, you can contact me.

01:24:11

And, um, again, if anyone would like to have some, um, teaching about, again, the core of the

01:24:18

Bible, theology, Greek and Hebrew, things like maybe even Aramaic down in the future, we hope, and things like evangelism and stuff like that, then, uh, you know, give us, we're very inexpensive.

01:24:31

Um, and, uh, again, we're, uh, just trying to, um, uh, help as many folks as we can in this.

01:24:40

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you again for coming on the show. Uh, we want to thank everyone out there listening, uh, for supporting us and listening to us.

01:24:48

And hopefully this has been something that has, um, equipped you. Maybe it's opened your eyes. If you're someone in an

01:24:55

SBC church right now, it's giving you some things to really think through and wrestle with when it comes to the state of, uh, the

01:25:02

SBC in general right now. And so again, we want to thank you guys for listening and we look forward to having you on the next one.

01:25:43

We'll see you next time.