Kevin DeYoung and a Message to All Evangelical Elitists

In this video, I'm going to talk about the Gospel Coalition's latest attempt to stop the bleeding. All right, well,

I'm going to syndicate this video. It's going to be also my podcast on the Fight Laugh Feast Network for this week.

I need to save time because I've got a business that I run that is the majority of how

I make my income that needs attention today. But anyway, I wanted to talk about this article a little bit.

I'm not going to go through the entire thing. I thought about going through the entire thing, but it's just really not worth it.

But it's an article by Kevin DeYoung. Now, Kevin DeYoung is a guy that I actually like. I quite like. I think he's well positioned in his church to do good, but he is most definitely part of Biggie.

He's part of the evangelical trademarked variety machine. There's no question about it.

And this article is the latest installment in a series of articles that Gospel Coalition has been putting out to really protect the brand, protect the guild, because the reality is that Gospel Coalition and ERLC and the conference speaking mega church type folks are getting their teeth kicked in on social media.

There's just no question about it. All you have to do to try this out is go to YouTube and type in ERLC or Gospel Coalition and see what videos come up.

There's a good chance you might see some of my videos on there. Russell Moore and all these people. There's a very good chance you might see some of my videos up there.

And I always say this, but it's just bears repeating. I have no budget. I have absolutely no budget from this.

I bought a $50 camera. I got a $50 microphone. I pay for a music service.

That's about $15 a month. And I just recently added a YouTube extension to help me out with some tagging and a variety of things like that.

That's about $9 a month. And that's essentially it. That's my budget for this YouTube channel.

The only other thing is my time, which a lot of the time I'm pretty much donating my time. I've got a business that I run, an executive search firm that pays 95 % of my bills.

It's a very small business, but it's good enough to pay my bills. And YouTube, I always say that I make about 5 % of my income on YouTube.

That's actually probably overshooting it, but five's a nice round number to just give you an idea about what

I do here. Most of my time is donated here.

There's just no question about it. And if you do support me on Patreon, thank you so much. It makes it a lot easier to put more time into this.

But in any case, I'm not part of the machine. I know the machine pretty well.

I have had personal relationships with people that are in the Big Eva machine, but I'm not part of the machine.

And so it's very troubling to people like Kevin DeYoung, elitists like Kevin DeYoung.

He most certainly is an elitist, as this article proves. They don't like the fact that I have any influence at all, and certainly not a growing influence.

When they type in things into YouTube, they don't like seeing my face pop up. And I understand why, but they need to figure out a way to win at social media.

And this is the strategy that they've chosen. What they've chosen to do is to try to set up a series of rules that they can hold

Christians accountable to, to protect the guild and to undermine any kind of influence that an idiot like me might have.

Now, you can't blame them for defending themselves, but these rules and these questions that he wants you to ask yourself when you're evaluating an online pundit, they're just very bizarre and they actually leave out the most important thing that you can ask when you're evaluating what someone says online.

I'm not going to go through all of these, but I just want to point out to a few examples. The very first one is to me, the most bizarre one.

He talks about this. He says, you know what, one way when you see someone online and you're evaluating whether or not you should listen to them, one way to do it is to decide, does this person have a healthy web of family and friends?

And he immediately sees the problem with this. This is why I know this isn't a very, this is an article that was driven by anxiety because there's actually a lot of, he contradicts himself often and he actually tells you why his argument is so weak in the paragraph itself.

Listen to this. He says, of all the questions listed here, this is the hardest to answer. Often we won't know anything about the person we're reading online.

And that's very true. You see, if you listen to my channel and you watch all my videos, you probably picked up bits and pieces about my life.

You know, I have three sons and they're all pretty young. You know, I have a wife, you know, I have a relationship with my mother and father.

You know, I love them very much. They taught me a lot. You know, I have a brother who's a minister in the PCA, you know, a lot of this kind of stuff.

I've got some friends online that I, that I talk to you and I do interviews with and do, you know, kind of dual co -hosted shows and stuff like that.

You know, I'm a part of the Fight, Laugh, Feast Network. You know a little bit about me, but not too much. I mean, you wouldn't have any idea how healthy my relationships are based on my

YouTube channel. It's just not something that I reveal. Any, any smart person would, um, would keep some things, uh, secret online, right?

But this is actually true of everybody, but here's the rub. This, what this does is it tries to strengthen the guild because what you, what you notice is that when it comes to Kevin DeYoung's affiliations and other people in Big Eva, in the machine, you know a lot more about them because why?

Well, they write each other's forwards. They write each other's forwards. They recommend each other's books.

If you, if you get a typical Big Eva book, you look on the back and you'll start to see all the recommendations from other

Big Eva members and, and they promote each other. You see those stupid pictures when they'll have a cup of coffee at their desk and they'll have the newest, latest, uh,

Big Eva book, uh, endorsed by so -and -so and so -and -so, and they say something like this, I can't wait to dive into this, and they all promote each other's book.

You know, they'll, the next time they'll promote the other person's book and stuff like that, and it's a big incestuous marketing, uh, scheme, and there's nothing wrong with that.

It's okay to market each other's books and stuff like that. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. There's nothing wrong with that, but you see this question, it makes it, it appear that you know a lot more about Kevin DeYoung's family and friends, because after all,

I mean, Don Carson would, he recommends his book, and so -and -so recommends that, and Matt Chandler and Russell Moore, and you see, like, you have a much better idea about their network, and so this question, while you really don't know about the quality of Kevin DeYoung's relationships, does he have any problems with people, things like that, you don't know that much about it, but you have the appearance of knowing because of the recommendations and the marketing and the interactions that you see with the official

Big Eva channels, and so all this question does, it doesn't really answer anything, but it tries to put the advantage in Gospel Coalition's hand,

Big Eva's hand, and you don't know, really know a lot about me because I've never written a book. Nobody's endorsed one of my books because I haven't written one.

You might know a little bit about some of my friends online, but we don't, it's not the same. It's just not the same, and so this question, and here's the rub, like,

I know people in Big Eva. I have personal relationships with people in Big Eva, and I know for a fact that a lot of times the persona that is presented online is not true.

It's just simply not true, and I know that there are people in Big Eva, and look, this is not, some of this is private knowledge,

I'm not going to reveal any names, but some of it is common knowledge where people have this reputation of being a certain way, and then you find out that they're really not that way.

They're actually jerks. You know, they have a trail of bodies behind them and stuff like that, and so, again, like, he's trying to make it seem like this is a very important thing, but the reality is you don't know any of these

Big Eva people the way you think they do, the way you think you do. It's just not, and so this kind of a question here, it's set up, and all of these questions are really like this.

It's set up to protect the guild without really giving you anything of substance because whether or not you know how many friends

I have in real life, you actually really don't know that about Kevin DeYoung either, but really, it actually has nothing to do with whether or not you should listen to me online.

I mean, it's just that simple. This is a distraction, and it's a distraction that's trying to give

Big Eva an edge. You know what I mean? Here's the other thing. He talks about what people do for a living, right, and he says, well, do they have any responsibilities besides being an internet personality?

It's like, what are you talking about, man? All of us work. We all work for a living.

We all make our living somewhere else, and of course, he goes, well, there are exceptions. I mean, Tim Chalice, all he does is being a blogger on the internet, but he's got the approval of Big Eva positions.

You know what I mean, and so you see, this is really kind of stupid to ask a question like this. I mean, if I'm online, you would assume that I have a certain amount of income, a certain amount of stability, a certain amount of responsibility and stuff like that, and again, but even if I didn't and I did make my money on YouTube, exactly why should that mean you shouldn't listen to me?

Of course, he doesn't say, but again, this is advantage Big Eva because all the people in Big Eva have official sounding positions and executive boards and things like that, and it's just like, again, this doesn't tell you anything about whether or not you should listen to someone.

I don't think you should listen to Russell Moore at all. I think he's terrible at what he does. I think he's got oftentimes bad motivations in what he does, and yet he's got an executive board, a board of directors, all this stuff.

He's got the official channels and all that kind of stuff. What does the fact that he doesn't have, that his responsibilities are, it doesn't make any sense at all to ask a question like this, except to protect the guilt.

Now, this is the funny one that I think is, this is why you're losing

Kevin DeYoung. I'm an open book here. I'll give you advice. If you want to start winning, then don't do this anymore.

Number three, does this person have the commensurate education or experience that makes them worth listening to?

The best part about this is the very first sentence after he says this, he knows what this sounds like, but he can't help himself.

He just can't help himself. He says, yes, I know the talk of academic degrees can sound hopelessly elitist.

Yeah, it does. It does. It sounds hopelessly elitist. And it's so funny.

It is hopeless because you know, this sounds bad and you can't help yourself. Professor Kevin DeYoung with all the credentials and all his buddies with all the credentials and all that stuff.

You know, are you even worth listening to if you don't have a degree, you didn't go to seminary? And I know, and this is why you're losing.

This doesn't bother a guy like me at all because I know when I talk to people, my target audience,

I'll give you a little insight into what I'm trying to do. My target audience is regular people. You know,

I don't often talk about highfalutin theological ideas. I don't often talk about,

I find those things interesting. In fact, I read a lot of theology and I find sort of the nuances of theology very interesting, but I rarely talk about them on my

YouTube channel because I'm talking to regular people that have regular concerns. How do

I apply the Bible in my life when it comes to my work? How do I apply the Bible in my life when it comes to my family, my finances, my income, my investments, you know, regular stuff, right?

Regular stuff. And that's my target audience. And the thing is, there are regions of men that are out there that don't have academic credentials, that never went to seminary, maybe even, they didn't even go to college maybe.

And to hear an elitist like you, Kevin DeYoung, which you are, you can't help yourself, you are an elitist, say, well,

I mean, are you even, is your opinion even worth listening to if you don't have these credentials? It's like, we don't like that.

I know you guys think we're stupid. That's been made abundantly clear over the last few years, but we're not stupid.

We can read. You don't need to have an academic degree, Kevin DeYoung, to know that when your cronies and your buddies are putting forward, hey, we gotta, we gotta care about racial reconciliation.

You say, okay, great. How do you do it? And they say, well, what we gotta do, and then whatever follows is basically have partiality in our hiring practices, have partiality when we're deciding who our pastor is, have partiality based on skin color or income or whatever.

You don't need to have gone to seminary to be able to read the Bible. Because I know you guys think we're stupid, but we can read.

We can read. And God is in an elitist in the sense that he only puts his truth up here so that only really high credentialed academics with the

PhDs and the master's degrees can understand. No, no. He makes his word simple to understand that even a child could understand it.

So we can read the Bible where it says, you shall not have partiality for the rich or the poor.

And we can say, yeah, I know you're putting these fancy words and trademark gospel diversity and all this kind of stuff and to make it sound good, but God said this.

And so no, God said this. And so no, I know you think we're stupid, but we're not stupid.

And this is why you're losing. So if you want to stop losing as badly as you are, if you want to stop the bleeding or at least slow it down,

I think you're at the point of no return gospel coalition. But if you want to slow down the bleeding, when you think about something that makes you sound elitist, maybe don't say it because we don't like it.

We're freaking sick of it. And this is why people listen to yokels like me instead of you, because I don't talk to people like they're morons.

I talk to people like they're adults. I talk to people like, you know what? Your opinion on this is actually correct regardless of whether or not you have the degrees, regardless of whether or not you studied theology for years and decades and all that kind of stuff.

I know you can read. I'm not going to treat you like an idiot. I'm not going to treat you like a jerk when it says you shouldn't show partiality, whether it's the oppressor of the oppressed class.

That's what it means. It's not difficult to honor. You don't need to know the Greek. And so, yeah, this is why you're getting your teeth kicked in guys, because you are elitist and you can't help yourselves.

This is why I have no problem telling you how to fix this guys, because I know you can't help yourselves. You need to protect the guild.

And the guild has the credentials. The guild can tell you what's an official credential to.

This is why guys like James White get disrespected too, because he doesn't have an official accredited credential. You know what

I mean? It's just so funny to see people talk like that because every time they do, they think they're bothering us and it doesn't bother us.

Actually, it bothers me in this sense. I really hate when regular people get skewered for just believing regular things.

I hate that. It pisses me off. I don't like that at all. I've always hated this elitist attitude.

I don't care. You can call me whatever you want, but when you see my friends, maybe they're a plumber, maybe they're a carpenter.

They didn't go to college. And then someone like you says, does their academic credentials mean that their opinions are worth listening to?

It's just, I don't like when you, I don't like when you insult my friends like that. I really don't like it. You know, there's a few others here.

I mean, again, every single one of these is about protecting the guild. Is this person held accountable by meaningful institutions?

Well, again, you know, we're not stupid, like I just said, and we can read. We can read.

And we know that God established one institution, the church, and all of us, to the man,

I'm sure he can find one or two exceptions, but all of us to the man have submitted to the authority of our elders.

Most of us, our elders know exactly what we're up to. And so we might not have boards of directors.

We might not have executive boards for our para -church ministries, which by the way, weren't commanded. I don't have a problem with para -church ministries, but to make it seem like, like that's a meaningful institution, it's really gross.

It's really gross. I mean, he does mention churches here, but what he's really talking about is a board because he knows that everyone online has a church, right?

Everyone online has submitted themselves to the authority of the elders for the most part. What he's talking about is a board of directors.

If you don't have a board of directors, I mean, you're not really accountable. No, I'm not accountable to a board of directors, but I don't have to be.

It's just that simple. I don't have to be. You know, Kevin DeYoung, I do want to help you out.

I do want to help you out because I actually think that you're not like a lot of these guys. I don't.

I think you do believe everything you wrote in this article and you know, you've got a guild and you've got hard earned credentials that you've gathered over time and all that kind of stuff.

And so it makes sense to you to protect the guild as much as possible. You like the gospel coalition.

I don't. And so obviously, you know, we're going to have a disagreement there, but I happen to think that you're not like the rest of these guys.

I think you believe the right things and I think you stand up for the right things as well. In fact, your speech at the

PCA General Assembly last year, I remember I did a video about it and how exciting it was.

And I always talk about, you might not know this, Kevin DeYoung, because you probably don't watch my channel, but I always talk about Ezra's and Nehemiah's and how they're both legitimate.

God used both kinds of people and God blesses their efforts. And you would be firmly in the

Ezra camp. You know, you're not a sledgehammer. You know, when you dissect an argument, you're like an exacto knife.

I'm more like a sledgehammer. I'm more like a Nehemiah. And I don't despise the Ezra's. I don't despise the

Ezra's. But let me just say this to you, Kevin DeYoung. There are a lot more people like Nehemiah out there than you think there are.

There are a lot more Nehemiah's out there than you think they are. And God uses those people. It's just that simple.

We might not have the credentials, the man -made credentials. We might not have the authority that man gives.

We might not have the respect that man gives, but we're not interested in it.

We have one person that we fear, one person that we serve, the

Lord Jesus Christ. And so this kind of thing, I know that this might work to convince like weak women, weak men, but I'm not sure why that's your target audience here.

And I'm not saying we shouldn't want to convert weak women and weak men. Of course we do, but we should want them to become strong, strong in their faith, strong against error, strong in the face of a culture that has gone into abject rebellion against God.

Here's the last one I want to talk about. Number six is this person expresses opinions and status case with a due sense of proportion.

The idea being here is that you need to be an Ezra like him. The facts should speak for themselves. You shouldn't get all uppity about it.

And the reality is Kevin De Young, I know that elitists like you think we're stupid, but we're not.

We've read the Bible. I know that elitists like you kind of have this idea that if you haven't gone to seminary, like, do you even really care that much about the

Bible? If you don't really even read every day, do you even care about God? Like everyone should be a theologian. And to some degree, yeah, you're right.

But you know, some of us are busy doing life, right? And so, you know, we go to church and we hear a sermon and we love the

Lord and we read our Bibles, but we don't really have time for Turrington. You know what I mean? We don't really have time for some of the deeper things.

I'm not talking about all of us. I happen to really enjoy that stuff. But the reality is we've read the

Bible, Kevin. We know that the way you present it, this rule of thumb will serve you well.

Don't believe the hysterics. If the matter at hand is truly grave, the facts should speak for themselves. We know that you're trying to turn us into emotionless

Vulcan robots like Data from Star Trek, where we just give you the facts and we're not getting too uppity about it.

And we see how that's very different than the prophets of old.

That's very different than how Paul and Peter acted. That's very different than our

Lord and how he acted. You know, in the Bible where it says that Christ cried out in a loud voice, that was like those street preachers that you like to go, ew, they don't know how much you care.

They don't know how much, they don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Like, why would you talk? No, Christ was a street preacher and he raised his voice and he had emotion in things that required emotion.

The reality is, Kevin, that YouTube channels like mine wouldn't exist if we saw people like you, the elitists, express even a modicum of emotion regarding the atrocities that we see in our culture every single day.

We've got thousands of babies being killed, thousands monthly.

And I know you have the right opinion that that's bad, but that seems to be something to express a little emotion about.

I've got three kids, man. I remember my life changed. I was always against abortion, right? But when

I saw my little son and he was new, he came out, he's just so small.

My life changed when it came about abortion, when it came to abortion. Because to think that kids of that age, maybe a little younger, are being torn apart it makes me angry.

And if we saw even a little bit of emotion from you, there'd be no need for a

Nehemiah to come up and start beating people over the head like a sledgehammer about the dangers that the church faces.

And so the reality is, this is why you're losing. Because you think that all that's required are a bunch of Ezras.

And God has seen fit to use Ezras, of course. But Nehemiah's are legitimate and necessary in the face of this atrocity.

And there are other atrocities as well. I mean, abortion is not the only one, but it's the most visceral. And so I understand,

Kevin, that you're trying to protect your guild and I get it, but we're not stupid.

I know you think that we're stupid, but we're not. And the big question that you missed when you're evaluating an online pundit is what this person's saying actually true?

Does it comport with reality? Does it comport with God's reality or not?

That's the question that matters. Because whether or not you like my personality,

Kevin, that's a matter of opinion. Whether or not you like how I say things, that's a matter of opinion, an opinion that you're losing, by the way.

And so you can try to change the rules, but the thing is, you think we're stupid. We're not. We're not stupid. The people that listen to me and are listening to me with increased frequency and the people that are listening to gospel coalition with decreased frequency, we're not stupid.

We know that the credentials and the official channels in the guild counts for nothing when your teeth are getting kicked in constantly by the culture.

And so you think we're stupid. We're not stupid. I mean, that's the reality. That's the reality.

I don't despise your Ezra style. It's fine, but let's not pretend like that's the only style that's necessary, that we need to have the official, you know, credentialed guild membership only because it hasn't worked.

It's not biblical that we have to do it that way. Can discern because people aren't stupid.

This is the thing. God gave all of us brains. He gave all of us brains. We can, we can discern whether someone's telling us the truth or not.

We can discern whether what I say is the case is more true or what you say is the case is more true.

We can discern that and we can both be true and say it in different ways. We can both be true and you can use highfalutin language and I can talk like a commoner and we can both be right at the same time.

I can say it with a little bit more emotion. You can say it a little more robotically and we can both be fine. But that's the big question you missed,

Kevin. That's the only question that really matters. And all of this, a lot of this stuff is just self -serving elitist matters of opinion, stuff like that.

This is all garbage. It's irrelevant. What matters is, is this person telling the truth?

Does what this person say comport with reality? God's reality, God's revelation.

That's the question that matters. And yet that's the question that you missed. You're busy asking how many friends does this guy have?

Does he have a board of directors? Does he have the proper education, the credentials? Can't you see?

Can't you see? I don't mind you taking this route because I think it's a losing play.

And I think it's a desperate play. And this article has encouraged me all the more to improve my content, to increase the frequency of my content and all of this, because this really strikes me as a, as a death rattle for Gospel Coalition.

The fact that a bunch of these articles have come out over the last few weeks strikes me as a death rattle for Gospel Coalition.

And good. Because while there is some good stuff at the Gospel Coalition, personally,

I think it's a net negative at this point. And so to see that this is, you guys aren't done yet.

I think you're past the point of no return. Keep trying this strategy. Keep trying this strategy because every time you do, more and more people wake up to your game.

You think we're stupid, but we're not stupid. And we don't play by your rules.