News Roundup: SBC Progressive Play, Same Sex Temptation, the Aliens, & More!

That Matter podcast, I'm your host, John Harris. It's been a morning, I know I announced online I would start earlier at 10 a .m. Eastern time. And I intended to do that, but had some technical difficulties that hopefully will be rectified tomorrow.

So I'm not exactly thankful for modern technology right at the moment. You know what happens is your computer doesn't even ask you and you restart it and it does updates and then all of a sudden your drivers are all not working.

And so that's a problem I had. A driver was not working with the hardware I have and now I need new hardware, but I figured out a workaround and we're still going. We are go on the podcast. I wonder sometimes what those shows that have multiple people working in the studio, what they do when that happens.

They must, I don't know, maybe I'm just not the most technical or something. I don't know, but we figured it out and hopefully no problems during the podcast because there's a lot to talk about today.

Maybe the aliens can help us out with the tech problems. They are far more advanced than us, right? I mean, that's what everyone thinks. We're gonna talk about the aliens a little bit. For those who don't know, there's some pastors out there saying that they were asked to come or told to come.

I'm not exactly sure. We'll play the video and then I'll give you some articles on it into a secret meeting with the government to talk about the disclosure of UFO information that has not been disclosed and it will cause people's faith to explode and wreak havoc.

And we just don't know what to do as Christians if there's aliens out there and the government's been perhaps hiding it from us. So we'll talk about that a little bit. This is the Conversations That Matter podcast though.

So we're not just gonna talk about stuff like aliens. We are gonna talk about some actual real, I think important stuff. Not that aliens aren't. I mean, our theology is important so we should probably talk about it, mention it in passing.

But there are important things out there that are, I think, more pressing, okay? So the SBC, we're gonna talk about some SBC stuff. I think the progressives are showing us their hand now but what the play that they're gonna try to make.

And it sounds like it's gonna be the abuse play. We'll see. But it sounds like they're gonna try to use that as their issue this year. You never quite know. But for the last, I don't know, four years, it seems like that's been the main thing they talk about.

Before that, it was CRT-related stuff. But it changes a little every year so we'll go into detail about that. We'll also talk a little bit about Sam Albury and some confusion over, what about temptation, John?

Temptation, attraction, orientation, are these all different things? What's going on here? There's a little bit of a confusion over this that I think is easily cleared up and we will hopefully clear that up.

And we'll also talk about what's happening in other denominations. The Reformed Church in America is closing, selling. It's Michigan office, they're downsizing. Why are they downsizing? What might've happened to the Reformed Church in America?

That's the question. And the answer is pretty obvious. So we'll get into that. We'll get into a good article from American Reformer on the pro-life movement and maybe areas that they could have been better and improving those areas.

We'll talk about a Supreme Court case that is a blow against pro-abortion lawfare, which I think is a really good development. We'll do some Middle Eastern foreign policy. We'll do coverage of the election and the Pope, and there's your preview for the podcast.

So let's jump into it first. Let's talk about the first issue at hand. And I think what we'll do is we'll go from political matters to more religious matters. So although I have, man, okay, nevermind.

The opposite of what I said. I say my workaround is a monitor issue. So I have a hard time without, I have dual screens that are telling me the same thing instead of a flow between them. So I might have a few hiccups and pauses, and if so, that's why.

So reverse what I said before, we're gonna go from church-related stuff to political-related stuff. So let's start out with this. This is an article from Jared Moore. And Jared Moore, of course, has done a really great job on the issue of same-sex attraction, but just concupiscence in general, desires that God doesn't want us to have, that are evil, that are sinful, wicked, wrong.

And what do you do about them? How do you handle them? That's kind of his wheelhouse. And we've had him on the program before to talk about it. Well, he wrote an article for TruthScript, which I thought was pretty good.

And the title of it is Sam Albury, How His Theology Killed His Ministry. And if you like this content, please consider supporting TruthScript, share this article around. This is the kind of content that we need out there.

So it starts off talking about his connections, that he serves at this church in Nashville called Emanuel Church, where Gavin Ortland, Russell Moore, Ray Ortland, and Barnabas Piper, and others who are high-profile serve.

And it goes through scripture, and I love the fact that Jared Moore started with scripture here. He quotes Romans 7, 8, but sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness, for apart from the law, sin lies dead.

Romans 7, 9, sin came alive and I died. Romans 7, 11, for sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it, killed me. Verse 13 of the same chapter, it was sin producing death in me, through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment, might become sinful beyond measure.

And he keeps going on in Romans, Romans 7, a number of verses there. And he wants to refresh our minds, rejuvenate our minds with biblical language. How does the apostle Paul refer to the sin of the flesh?

He talks about it in very contrasting terms. There's the sin of the flesh, there's walking by the flesh, there's the way of the flesh, and then there's the spirit, and the way of God. Here's a few more verses, Romans 7, 13, or I think I might've read that, Romans 7, 17, now it is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells within me.

Romans 7, 18, the next verse, for I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh. And so he wants to keep making this point, that sin is in the flesh, that these things, these desires that arise from the flesh, that these are sinful desires.

Paul called his flesh sin, but Albery calls it his flesh, a capacity to be tempted. That is temptation, but not sin. And this is perfect, because this is, I think, the dividing point. Albery used to use language that was a little bit more open to attack, orientation type language.

And he changed,.

I don't know what year he changed, but I know that he changed as I was covering his trajectory at some point, maybe 2019 or so. And he starts talking about it in terms of temptation more, that's his emphasis.

And this has created, I think, some confusion online. Can I just show you one post that seems to show this?

Wes Huff.

Wes Huff posted a whole thing on this. And one of the things he said, and I think most of it was good, but this is one of the things he said that I thought, well, this needs to be addressed by someone like a Jared Moore.

He said, Albery is labeled as side B, meaning that there's an orientation that's non-sinful that you can have as long as you don't act on it, then you can be a Christian in good standing. And he said, he's labeled that way, but this is genuinely confusing.

To quote Sam in his own words, same-sex attraction is not a good thing. It is a consequence of the fall, and this kind of attraction is not something God designed for us, and it contradicts his design.

That sounds pretty good, right? He says that in the book, he's God anti-gay. Sam has expressed in multiple places throughout his written work and public talks that he holds to a biblical position of marriage.

Homosexual relationships are sinful. Identifying as a gay Christian is incompatible with scripture. To be clear, I don't agree with Sam on all the nuances of how he discusses the issue, but I can conclude that this attempt to make him into an LGBT advocate is through ignorance.

And so he wants to just say, look, just be nice to Sam. Stop trying to misrepresent him. But I don't think Jared Moore here is misrepresenting Sam Albury at all. I think Jared Moore is nailing the problem with Sam Albury, because Albury is still operating in the realm of flesh.

Where does this sin arise from? Where does this desire for sin arise from? Well, it comes from the flesh. That's the origination of it. And throughout Romans, you keep seeing over and over, the flesh is a negative.

The flesh is bad. So to apply his rhetoric to the spirit within him, this is what Jared Moore says, Albury would not call him the Holy Spirit, but rather the capacity to be holy. If you describe the root of sin in your heart as a capacity, you must describe the root of righteousness in your heart as a capacity.

That's actually very shrewd. I hadn't thought of that. Second, because Albury refused to call his flesh sin and his motion sin, he refused to repent of his indwelling sin. He believed and taught that he is a sin manager rather than a sin killer, as the Bible says.

So the Bible says, again, let's read these two passages from Paul. Romans 8, 13, for if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Colossians 3, 5, put to death therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, which is idolatry. So Albury refused to agree with God's word and call his evil desire sin.

And this is the problem, I think, that he wants to frame it as there's this capacity, there's something that's, it's the result of the fall, but it's not sin. Well, what does that mean? What is the result of the fall?

So it would be like, I don't know, a handicap you might have, like it's the consequences of sin, but it's not sin. I think that's what Albury is trying to say about this. The problem is this is arising from a desire in the flesh.

So if it's in the flesh, then it's not of the spirit, and it would be in the category of sin itself. Sexual immorality or any sexual activity outside of marriage, impurity, or any lawless sexual impulse, passion, or any lawless sexual desire, evil lust, or any lust, covetousness, or any emotion of the flesh would all be included in this.

And he goes through James 4, which talks about this internal temptation that we have to do sinful things. And he goes on and gives a conclusion. I think this is a great article. It's in a nutshell. If you don't want to read all of Jared's works, he's got a few books on this.

He's got a devotional to find a path of escape from temptation and from the things that he's talking about, the sins of the flesh, to try to mortify those things, which is a really, really great thing, then you can go check those out.

But if you want a really short version, I would say check this article out because I think it really does justice to the main point that Jared Moore is trying to make. And this is the main point that I think Sam Albury misses.

Now, that said, I want to say, look, Sam Albury deceived people. He led people astray. He needs to, I think, come out, and no pun intended, and say he was wrong on those things, especially since he's now been erased from the Gospel Coalition website.

He's outside of the Keller Center. He's left that. He's resigned from his church leadership position.

At Emmanuel.

Now is the time to consider these things. And when the time is appropriate to make a statement about it and say, look, I was wrong about these things. This is why I was wrong. And we can't actually just live at peace with the flesh in this way.

And it is the flesh. It's not just a capacity. It's not just some neutral thing that lies within us. It's actually playing for the wrong team, and we need to make war on that. And I think with something like this, it is, as Romans would call it, it is not a natural desire.

It is unnatural. And because it is unnatural, there is no way that you can think of, no situation, scenario, environment where it's actually good in any way. It's always evil to have attraction for something that God forbids.

So, and this is different than the feelings, the natural feelings that God gives men that help them move towards finding a wife or women that help them move towards finding a husband. There's a recognition of a type of beauty that I think is holy and good and just.

And when exercised in a righteous manner, it leads towards, if you want to talk about capacities, it leads towards a capacity to glorify God through marriage and family. What Sam Albury is talking about is not that.

Sam Albury is talking about emotion of the flesh that arises from a disordered or an unnatural desire. It is already in sin from outside, out of the gate. There's no redemptive quality there, right? It's not just a morally neutral recognition of the male form and you're a male and saying, well, that guy, we know that guy looks nice because his body is symmetrical or something like that.

That's not what's going on here. It's a desire to do the kind of thing that a man should be doing with a woman in the pursuit of marriage and family with another man. Totally twisted, totally wrong. So I think Jared Moore does a great job here.

And that's the issue, Wes Hough. This is maybe better than just outright saying homosexual orientation is good and righteous or neutral. And it's fine for a Christian to have it as long as they don't do the particular sin.

He's one step removed from that. And it's a better step because he's at least saying, well, it does arise from the effect of sin or the fall, but he's still putting it in this temptation category where it doesn't belong.

And it's not a temptation in the sense of a temptation like Jesus would have for water when he's thirsty. It's a temptation for something that God explicitly forbids in all times and places. So hopefully that helps.

Hopefully that brings some understanding if there are people who are confused about it. I wanted to just mention it somewhat in passing, but we have a lot more to talk about on the podcast today. And of course, if there are questions about any of this, I would love to see if I can help answer any of them.

And if not, then hopefully point you towards someone who can. I want to get into the SBC now. The Southern Baptist Convention is coming up in June. And boy, I'll tell you, you can pray for me. I got a lot going on, but next week I'm going to be traveling and I'm going to be traveling down South to do a number of interviews to hopefully really press this female pastor issue before the convention.

That's been my goal. That's why I have weekly or biweekly, sometimes twice a week releases of here's another church in the Southern Baptist Convention that is outside the boundaries of the orthodoxy. The Southern Baptist Convention says they abide by.

They have female pastors. They're functioning as pastors. They're called pastors or ministers or shepherds. This is outside of the orthodoxy. The SBC claims to abide by. And even if you're someone listening and you think, well, I'm in a denomination that allows for that.

I'm in the church of the Nazarene or something like that. And I'm generally conservative, but on this issue, I have a different way of looking at it. I disagree with you, but here's what I would say. If your denomination explicitly forbids it, isn't there another character issue here?

Isn't there a problem when you're undermining the rules? Why don't you find a denomination? There's plenty of them that actually allows you to practice this. So that's the issue of female pastors in the SBC.

If you can erode that rule, why not erode other rules? Why not have Presbyterians? You don't even need to have a baptism. I mean, everyone's got their view of baptism. They call it different things. It's what's the big deal.

So you just eliminate all boundaries, unfortunately, if you can't abide by the rules of your denomination. And so I've been focusing on that. I'm gonna be traveling next week to do more work on that. We have a documentary on the Episcopal Church coming out.

We have a documentary, they're both mini docs on this female pastor issue in the SBC coming out. And if you wanna support what I do, because this stuff is difficult to do, to take the time off to do it, I'm thankful for the Church Reform Initiative because they are underwriting the costs of both of these things.

But the time is something that, it's my patrons, guys. It's you guys. So just a plug for that on Patreon or Substack. I appreciate all of you who support financially so much. And more than that, I appreciate your prayers for my wife and I and our little baby.

So I guess she's not a baby anymore. She'll be two in June, but she's always gonna be my baby. So let's talk about the SBC. Let's get into the details of this. We got the SBC Executive Committee sending out a mass email.

Join us in Orlando for an abuse prevention and response meeting. And here's the thing that I noticed about this, because I was like, well, I'm not surprised they would do this. This has been an emphasis for years.

But look at the speakers on this list. You have Jody Domingue, or I'm not sure how you pronounce her last name, Domingue, I think it's Domingue. And then you have Kevin Malone and Ashley Lucas, Olivia Littleton, Brad Eubank, Rachel Starr, and Julia Lau, or Lau.

And they're part of these various organizations. So you have the Human Trafficking Group, or a Senior Advisor on Human Trafficking to the United States. You have one more child, which I presume is a 501c3.

You got the Thiebaud Group, just the pastor of First Baptist Church in Mississippi, founder and president of Scarlet Hope, probably another 501c3, the director of Next Gen Counseling at the Summit Church.

So there's the J .D. Rear connection, I guess, if you want to find that. And that's probably the CaringWell connection and everything. But I'm looking at this and I'm like, well, I don't recognize these people, really.

I mean, I'm sure they've had various levels of participation in this conversation, but this is just an interesting thing. Where's Rachel Denhollander, right? She's not there. So I don't know what to make of this.

I think, I don't want to speculate. I have my suspicions on why they would be doing it this way and what their emphasis might be. They clearly, we can clearly take this away from it. They do want the abuse issue to still remain a important issue, a front and center issue, something Southern Baptists are met with when they come to the convention.

They want that still, okay? But it doesn't seem as in your face. It doesn't seem as explicitly churched to and with all the Me Too elements that are attached to things like suspending elements of due process or changing them in order to accommodate a new standpoint theory metric for how to adjudicate these things and find the predators.

So I'm curious of what they're going to say. Are they going to talk about the preponderance of evidence being something better than a standard that would comply with beyond a reasonable doubt? Are they going to talk about power dynamics and how if you are a seminary professor or a church leader, now it's non-consensual in some way, or are they going to sidestep those things and just talk about abuse more vaguely, more generally?

I don't know, but they still want it to be an issue. This still seems to be the thing that they can get some traction off of, I suspect. I don't see the racial stuff as much, and I'm wondering if there's going to be any resolutions on that.

I don't think so. I think that that's just, it's not the style right now. And I could be wrong, but this would further confirm my suspicion. So Rachel Denhollander did post this, and this is over an article of Robert Downen.

Robert Downen is actually front and center in the thumbnail. And I did that on purpose because I put some of these other characters there before. And Robert Downen kind of, people like him and Liam Adams, who I think writes for the Tennessean, they're more mainstream media people who tend to do pieces, sometimes hit pieces, that push the needle in a progressive direction generally.

That's my assessment in the Southern Baptist Convention. And they don't get the same level of scrutiny or press because they are the press, right? So you usually look at the people within the denomination and you focus on them.

In years past, it's been people like Russell Moore, right? Or Jarvis Williams, or Al Mohler, or fill in the blank. J .D. Greer. These guys are, they're doing something this year. This is what they're doing.

And those guys don't generally get mentioned. So I think they need a mention at times. And so I'm going to mention Robert Downen here because this is how it works. And Rachel Denhollander is about to tell you how she thinks it works.

And both sides are sort of, they're telling you what they think the other side's doing, what the strategy is, what the call is for the, we're about to go out on the field and what are we going to do? What's the play?

And Rachel Denhollander thinks she knows the play, but I'm telling you what she's doing is part of a play. Here's the play she thinks is going on. She thinks that this article by Robert Downen is part of a playbook.

And in the playbook, only the names of the victims change. And then she does this whole thread. Now I need to tell you a little bit about this article. I'll tell you a little more later, but the article is about a guy named Paul Pressler.

Some of you might know who that is. Some of you might not. He died, I want to say two years ago. He was an elderly man at the time. And he was a judge who was somewhat instrumental in the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention.

And if you don't know about the conservative resurgence, there really are only two denominations I can think of that went from liberal, and I'm talking about modernist liberal. So denying things like the historicity of Christ, the authority of scripture, undermining these things, and doing so on the seminary level, and that way making pastors who are going into churches compromised.

And this was a problem that got addressed by people like Adrian Rogers and Paige Patterson, and a little farther down the line, people like Al Mohler to some extent. Although Al Mohler, as many of you know, if you listen to my podcast, he's been all over the map on some issues.

And I wouldn't say one of the stalwarts of the conservative resurgence, but he was towards the end, he was someone that did at least take Southern seminary in a better direction than it had been going.

People like Charles Stanley, right? Mostly a pastor-led movement. Now, Paul Pressler is not a pastor, he's a judge. So he has perhaps more of a political bent to him, and the article gets into some of that.

But this article is about Paul Pressler, and the title of it is, he remade the Southern Baptist Convention. Whoa, he remade the Southern Baptist Convention? And then it says in his image. So that's a pretty strong statement, I suppose, is that, so he's the architect.

I think this really helps people, to be quite honest with you, to see the villain for themselves. So if you, it's just not quite as marketable to tell people, people pursue their own interests. There was multiple people pursuing their own ends, but they culminated in this movement.

Or there are people with legitimately good interests. I'd say the conservative resurgence generally had a good interest. Now, there are people who, like any movement, saw the opportunity, and they were opportunists, that got on board the ship.

But the motivation, the people who showed up to Dallas, what year was that? The 1980s, it was, I'm blanking on the year, but they showed up in mass, and they voted the bums out, so to speak. I mean, this was a rank-and-file, pew-sitting, Southern Baptist movement, because people were aware that the pulpits were changing because of the education, and they wanted to change their denomination.

They wanted it to actually remain the same. It was a resistance effort against those who would change it. So this whole thing bubbles up, and you got some leaders who are strong outside the seminaries.

They're able to do a runaround, and because of the polity of the Southern Baptist Convention, they're able to take back the seminaries. And it is a wonderful movement in the eyes of a theologically conservative, Orthodox Christian.

Great, you voted the bums out, and you started making changes. Unfortunately, side-railed on the woke movement later, but you got some good pastors, some good leaders going in the interim period. And here's the thing.

If you look at all of that, the organic nature of it, the bravery of many of the men who were the initial fomentors of all of this, who were leading the charge, and then you start focusing on a bad apple here or there.

You say, well, look at that guy over there. You know, he's got skeletons in his closet. Well, he was in the room. He was friends with all the guys who were doing this, right? I mean, this is the kind of thing you can do.

Now, if you start looking at that guy and you say, well, Paul Presser, you know, he's real bad, then I'm gonna just say that this whole thing was him. This whole thing was his strategy. Now, Robert Downen tries to prove this.

He tries to show you the outsized impact that Paul Pressler had. The fact of the matter is, I think this would have happened without Paul Pressler. And Paul, well, I don't know how much I wanna get into all the allegations, because I'm gonna show you some of them.

This has not been something that has been as front and center of some of the other high profile issues in the Southern Baptist Convention. Certainly the Paige Patterson one, that was the first one. But you can't get traction out of Paige Patterson anymore.

Because these guys that, you know, David Sills, Paige Patterson, Johnny Hunt, you can't get traction out of those guys anymore because they decide to go to court and it doesn't look so good. So some of them are still in the process, but it's not good for those who made the claims against them.

So who do you go back to? Well, a guy who's dead, Paul Pressler. Now, to his dying breath, he maintained that he was innocent. He also, and this is a frustration for me, I suppose. I've been told by numerous people, multiple people, that no new Paul Pressler.

I've asked the question. I just asked someone just the other day who's pretty high profile. And they wouldn't want me to probably sharing publicly. But like, what's the deal with this guy? You know, I don't know much about him.

And I keep hearing the same things that he was framed, he was set up. Now, there does seem to be a lot of testimony, especially later on, that indicates, some of it seems far-fetched, some of it may be true, but it seems to indicate there was a problem with this guy.

But it wasn't a, and I'm trying to stay, I'm trying to keep my eye on the objective here, which isn't really the guilt or innocence of Paul Pressler. It's really, the issue here is what this is going to be used for in the Southern Baptist Convention this year.

And Paul Pressler's issue was a homosexual issue, according to the accusations. It was not the other issues that they focused on before, which have been power dynamic issues where it's a male and a female.

And it's very interesting to watch them try to use this issue the way that they're using it. So check this out, Rachel Denhollander links to the article, and then she says, on the same week this story broke, a statement was released on the moral fall of another pastor, that one fully consensual, not rape, not children.

Now, wait a minute, fully consensual? That pastor was not a pastor who was the architect of a convention and entire movement. Now, I'm not sure offhand exactly what she's talking about here, but she says this Pressler story, however, centers a man who shaped an entire denomination movement and political ideology and raped and abused many boys.

His co-leader of the movement sexualized teens from the pulpit, refused to report rapes and asked to see a rape victim so he could break her down. A third co-leader was directly responsible. So it's, notice the past, like everyone knew, no one did anything, that's the vibe.

And it's easier when you got the one guy, it sort of builds a better mythology, it was like, it was Paul Pressler, like imagine that face, and evil, dirty man, wicked, and people knew, and they just, hey, they turned a blind eye because, well, he was a big deal.

I just find it interesting she starts off with fully consensual, not rape, not children, and talking about this being an issue in the Southern Baptist Convention, that's not usually her jam. Usually, Rachel, then Hollander comes out to talk about the power abuse issue and how seminary professors and pastors that are male are preying upon females and, now make of this what you want, but it doesn't sound like, maybe there's a softening on it,.

I don't know, I don't know.

But she posts this, because remember, she's telling us the playbook here, this is the playbook. So the playbook somehow now involves consensual adultery or fornication or something, that's also part of the playbook and covering that up.

So she posts this story, now we're back to her jam, where Abigail, a sexual abuse survivor of age 30, this is from the Caring Well Initiative. Remember that this preceded the Guidepost Report, Caring Well Initiative was an attempt to help Southern Baptist churches navigate sex abuse and that issue, and this was one of the stories.

Now, this story is about as easy to nail down as mud because you don't have any specifics. Now, that might be intentional, well, I'm sure it's intentional, but it's not perhaps intended for you to go looking for who this might be.

This is more of a example of what it's like, what it's like in the Southern Baptist Convention, okay? So Abigail was a student at the Southern Baptist Higher Education, they don't even tell you what seminary, and was raped on campus by a male student.

Abigail meets with leadership, Abigail details the attack, the school leader told Abigail she had been, we'll just say raped, abused. The school leader told her that this, because this was not, I mean, how do I say this with a trying to be family-friendly here?

I'm already maybe outside of that. Because this was from the back and not the front, that this wasn't actually a rape, and he said, don't worry, this is a quote, he didn't take anything from you, your husband will still think you are a virgin.

Abigail told her pastor, and they all covered up, no one did anything, and this is just life in the SBC. And she says, this week, there's been a nonstop barrage of demands to re-examine the theology of the pastor who fell, so I guess this is the same pastor, to excoriate leaders who supported his position, to land blast his church and pastors for holding on biblical views, and yet not a word demanding a re-examination of the movement.

So let's just, let's break the whole thing down. Let's, not to pick on the, she just used that phrase in a different context, I'm saying let's understand the material she's presenting. When Rachel Denhollander says, this is the playbook, what she's saying is, Southern Baptist, you're in a denomination where you're being manipulated, controlled, lied to, and sin is being covered up, it's a dangerous place.

And it's a dangerous place because of that corruption, but it's a dangerous place also because of the specific element of sin. The element of sin is sexual sin that is primarily, I mean, I guess she's widening this, but it's primarily been driven by these power dynamics.

And so it's a bunch of men covering for other men, and preying on innocent people. Now you can imagine a situation like that, it's not hard, I mean, the Roman Catholic Church has had big problems in recent years, and other organizations have too.

I mean, the public school system, I mean, look, the Southern Baptist Convention holds no candle to the public school system on this. There are multiple organizations that have problems along these lines, and people are afraid.

There is sort of a kernel of truth to what Rachel Denhollander is saying, but it's wrapped up with all this vagueness, and I mean, I can't really tell you anything about that story. And then when they do have specific stories, so often they cry wolf.

And that's one of the things that I've tried to emphasize, and in fact, I responded to Rachel Denhollander on this. I was like, look, Johnny Hunt's defamation lawsuit against Guidepost Solutions. In that case, the federal judge largely dismissed President Johnny Hunt's high profile defamation suit against Guidepost, granting summary judgment on nearly all claims, including those related to a 2022 abuse report.

David Soll's case, I mean, that's going to trial now, it's not looking good. Preston Garner's defamation suit against the SBC, this one's wild, because Preston Garner, the abuse hotline reports him, but it doesn't go through law enforcement, it goes through the SBC's abuse hotline.

Now he's going to sue the Southern Baptist Convention, you're keeping me from getting a job, you're smearing my reputation, and it's hearsay. That's his claim. Hannah Kate Williams' lawsuit, abuse survivor and advocate Hannah Kate Williams filed a major lawsuit against the SBC, and the defamation related to her childhood abuse by her father, who was a pastor.

The suit has faced procedural hurdles, including statute of limitations issues with no final resolution. Paige Patterson has had court victories. This hasn't really gone well for them when they try to bring out their star cases.

So the easier thing to do is say, look, this guy here, who we weren't going after as hard before, he was mentioned, but he wasn't like the front and center guy. He's dead now. He doesn't fit the male on female kind of template, but he's gone, and we can use this now.

And because he settled, he outside of court, which apparently means he's guilty, but that doesn't necessarily always mean that, we can just sort of infer all this. So that's what's going on. That's the play, as far as I understand it right now, in the Southern Baptist Convention from the progression.