Desiring God's "Discernment Blogging" of the Dead

Hi, my name is Adam Robles, and today I wanted to respond to this article that was printed on DesiringDodd .com yesterday. When I saw this article, the title, I was very interested immediately. It says it's going to expose a reformed white supremacist, and so, you know, it kind of makes it seem like we're going to find out about this reformed leader that is secretly a white supremacist, and he's hiding this fact and things like that, and it's going to be interesting, and, you know, it's just not the case at all.

This article is about a guy from the 1800s, a theologian, a great theologian, a reformed theologian, who had some awful views about race and slavery and things like that, so, you know, immediately kind of see this is a clickbaity title, which is okay, I mean, you want someone to click on your article, so that's fine, but it's also just very propaganda.

It's propagandist. This is a propaganda article, and you can see that instantly by the picture they post. I mean, this is the deep south, Louisiana, so it's supposed to sort of, you know, reinforce this idea that the south is just full of racists, and, you know, even Christians are racist in the south and stuff like that.

This is just pure propaganda, and I was thinking about criticizing the article in that way just to talk about how the language is supposed to, you know, gear you towards getting a certain viewpoint without proving it and stuff like that, but, you know, I decided not to do that.

I mean, I think that's, it's not very subtle, the propaganda in this article, so I figured you could probably figure that out on your own, but what I did want to do is talk about the main point of the article, so the whole point of this article is that the author thinks that it's hypocritical for people to be, like, pro-Martin Luther King, but still, like, like Dabney's books and his influence on theology, and here's the point right here.

It said, Robert Dabney's influence has not disappeared in Reformed circles. His books are still being repackaged, reprinted, and sold. He is still quoted in our books without caveat or qualification, and so that's the point of the article.

The author is lamenting the fact that we would still sell and buy his books, that we would still assign them in seminaries and things like that, that we would still quote him, you know, without saying that he's a rampant racist first, before kind of putting a disclaimer in the beginning, and honestly, it seems like this guy wants, what he wishes would happen is that people would disavow Dabney, right?

They would say, well, you know, we're not going to sell his books anymore, we're not going to quote him anymore, because he's a racist, you know, and so we want to throw shade his way because of all that, and I think that that's ridiculous, absolutely flat-out ridiculous.

The Gospel of Grace and Why Bad Theology Does Not Erase Useful Ministry

Now, let me just be clear here. I think Dabney's views on race and slavery and white supremacy were ridiculous. I think that they're un-Christian, unacceptable for a Christian to hold, and so there's no excuse for that, but I will never disavow Dabney, okay?

So that's what, I'm going to say that right now. I will flat-out never disavow Dabney. I won't do it. And there's a couple reasons why I won't do it. One, you know, social justice warrior types that want you to disavow every racist that ever existed, they'll never be satisfied.

So you can disavow Dabney today if you wanted to, and say I completely reject everything he's ever said in his life, and I say he's a non-believer, un-Christian, you could say that and they'll never be satisfied, they'll never accept it.

There's a great video of Donald Trump being asked to disavow David Duke, and every time he's asked to disavow David Duke, he says, I disavow him completely. David Duke is a sort of racist guy who supported Trump.

And so Trump will again and again disavow David Duke, and then every time he does it, there's somebody else that say, oh, he's never done it before, he's never disavowed David Duke. So you see, this is just a game for them.

They will never be satisfied. But more importantly, this kind of purity testing, this is not in accordance with the gospel of Jesus Christ. It just isn't. If everyone who had bad theology in some areas, or who had sin in their lives in some areas, if every one of those people's ministries was disqualified and unuseful, then everyone's ministry would be disqualified and unuseful.

If we had to have a caveat or a disclaimer before we quoted any theologian about their sin, their personal sin in their lives, every single quote would have a disclaimer about their sin and their personal sin in their lives.

There's been some tremendous men who I've gotten a lot of quality theology from, Mark Driscoll, Tullian Tevigian, John Piper, these kinds of people. John Piper, this is his blog. These guys are great.

I've gotten so much benefit from reading them, from watching their videos. I've just grown so much in my understanding of God through these men. But all of these men have areas in their theology where I would say that they're just flat out wrong.

I look at what they say and I read the scriptures and it just doesn't line up. Does that mean that their ministry is worthless? If I see a few areas in their theology that doesn't match up with how I understand the Bible, does that mean that I have to throw shade their way and say, you know what, disavow.

I don't want them in our bookstores. I don't want to quote them unless you're going to say how they're a heretic in this other area. No, that's, that's ridiculous. That's absolutely ridiculous. There are a few things that we should have some purity testing on, but they're very few.

John Piper's bad theology in some areas, Mark Driscoll's bad theology in some areas, Tullian Tevigian's bad theology in some areas does not disqualify the immense benefit that you can get from reading their books.

Also some of these men also have open sins in their life that, um, that would just potentially disqualify them for ministry. I mean, I don't want to, you know, go too much into it, but Tullian Tevigian, Mark Driscoll have been accused and it's been proven essentially of, and they've admitted it, open sins, tremendous sins that they've done that, uh, in some cases have disqualified them from ministry.

Again, does that mean that everything they've ever said is now suspect? Does that mean that we got to throw shade their way and now say, okay, never read a Tullian Tevigian book again? No, absolutely not.

Absolutely not. This is contrary to the gospel. And so we don't need to have a disclaimer every time someone quotes Tullian and say, oh yeah, yeah, but you know, he's an adulterer, you know, we don't have to do that.

We don't have to, we don't have to, uh, you know, throw shade Mark Driscoll's way. Anytime someone quotes Mark Driscoll, oh yeah, yeah, but he's a kind of egomaniac angry person. We don't have to do it.

It's just, it's contrary to the gospel. That's not how it works at all. And so we don't have to do it with dead guys either. That's why I call it sort of discernment blogging dead guys, because this is what discernment bloggers do.

There's a, there's a controversy right now about Dr. James White being friends with, um, Michael Brown, a charismatic guy. And you know, I disagree with Michael Brown on all of his teaching regarding charismatic gifts.

That's just the reality. But being friends with him and saying you can get benefit from reading him and, and, and in grobe listening to him speak like that discernment bloggers say that's wrong. That like you should just completely ignore Michael Brown's ministry.

It's all, it's all a suspect now. Um, we, we see how ridiculous that is in, in modern times. Why should we do that to dead people? I just don't understand. This is not the way a Christian should behave.

You know, I can, here's, here's the thing. I mean, everyone has areas of their theology that's not in line with the Bible and everyone has areas in their theology that probably in 50, a hundred years we're going to be embarrassed of.

Um, I can. So, so here's the thing. John Piper is a great example because there's lots of people that would throw out any benefit from John Piper because of his views on biblical manhood and biblical womanhood.

There are people out there, discernment bloggers, phony theologists, uh, theologians rather that would say, John Piper stuff is worthless because of these views on, on biblical manhood and womanhood. Now, I agree with John Piper on his views there, but let's say I didn't.

Would it be appropriate for me to then say he has nothing to offer the church that we should ban his books from the, from the bookstore? We shouldn't quote him unless we talk about how he's, um, you know, a sexist misogynist pig.

Obviously not, you know, so again, there's no reason to miss out on, uh, the immense contributions Dabney has made, um, just because he also had some, you know, repugnant views that were unbiblical. In fact, I think it's probably good to know that, uh, our theologians of the past, our leaders are, you know, theology heroes were fallible men, you know, and so the point of this article, I just don't, I don't understand lamenting this.

The other thing about this is, is this is not a secret, right? He's, he's asking for people to, to, to throw disclaimers or caveats and, and, and ban the books and stuff like that. Well, he doesn't say that, but that's kind of what he hints at.

He's lamenting the fact that we still sell his books. I asked my brother, he goes to one of these evil bigoted seminaries that, um, or he went to one of these seminaries, these, these evil, you know, bigots who assigned Dabney books as required reading.

Um, and I asked him, I said, Hey, how'd you find out that he was a racist and a pro-slavery guy? And he said, let me find out. This is open. This is common knowledge. Everybody knew this. Um, so this idea that this is some sort of expose exposing, um, this is secret.

It's just not the case. I mean, you know, everybody who cares to know about Dabney knows about Dabney and those who don't care to know about Dabney just don't. And it's not a secret. It's not something that, um, Christians should be ashamed of.

It's, it's unbiblical. I mean, that's just the bottom line. So, um, I don't understand why this article had to be written. Um, it doesn't make much sense and it just hasn't, it's just contrary to the gospel.

There's no reason to discernment blog people from the past. It just doesn't make any sense. Hope you this, I hope this video was helpful and, uh, God bless.