More on SBC's MeToo Moment, JD Hall's Situation, & Rosaria Butterfield on Conversion Therapy

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The Conversation, Does That Matter Podcast.

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I'm your host, John Harris. Just have a few things I wanted to discuss pertaining to evangelicalism specifically today.

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One of them actually is encouraging, and if I have an opportunity to share something encouraging with you, I definitely wanna do it.

00:26

It encouraged me, and I'm looking forward to sharing. In fact, I'll make that the end.

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I'll make that the thing we land the plane on so that you have a good taste in your mouth when you go about your daily life after listening to this.

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And so anyway, I'm looking forward to getting to that. But there's just a few things that I've wanted to address.

00:46

I've been doing some traveling. I've also just haven't had the time to devote.

00:52

There's a lot of different things I'm trying to devote my time to, and it's hard to sometimes figure out what the best use of that time is.

00:59

But I wanted to, one of the things

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I'm gonna talk about today, I wanted to let some time pass and give myself the opportunity to look into it a little more.

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And that's the situation with J .D. Hall. And so I'm gonna talk about that a little bit as well. For those who don't know,

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I'll explain a little more. I'll give you a little bit about what's going on there. And then

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I also wanna just follow up on this whole issue of the

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SBC's Me Too moment, this article that Megan Basham wrote, but now it's an article that is,

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I mean, it's become so much more than an article by Megan Basham in the

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Daily Wire. It is now, the whole debate over this has gone into things like whether or not

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David raped Bathsheba. And there's so many moving parts.

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There's some audio from Jennifer Lyle that's been revealed, and that audio seems to not be quite perhaps consistent with other things

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Jennifer Lyle has said, or at least there's inconsistencies that people are noticing. And so there's just a whole lot of stuff going on.

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And now I find out that there's a documentary being made, apparently, with Rachel Denhollander, Al Mohler, I think

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Jennifer Lyle was in it as well. And so this is just awkward for them to have this debate happening right in front of them as to whether or not there was corroboration.

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Really, that's what the debate's about, was there corroboration in the Guidepost report that the

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Southern Baptist Convention's executive committee hired, they hired Guidepost to do this report.

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And this is what they've essentially accepted. The convention's accepted this report, which has led then to some recommendations.

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And those recommendations we've talked about before seem to be recommendations that have the potential to change the very character of the

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Southern Baptist Convention and in some somewhat alarming ways. And the

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Guidepost report though, what some, one of the big stories in it was this

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Jennifer Lyle case. And it turns out there's a documentary which is involving this, which is supposed to, presuming from the trailer, it's supposed to be against abuse.

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And it's showing Rachel Denhollander, Al Mohler and Jennifer Lyle in this favorable light as if they're supporting

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Jennifer Lyle as a victim, the other two, and that they're, and then her story's legitimate and corroborated and they're sure of this.

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That's the impression I get at least from looking at the trailer. But now that is all up in the air.

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That's being called into question. And so Megan Basham kind of threw a wrench in their gear system.

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And the reactions have been interesting. And so I've covered some of this, but I just wanted to do a little bit of a follow -up just because I knew some things would be rising to the surface and even probably still are.

03:57

I think this is still developing. This conversation's gonna continue to some extent. But I wanted to just show you some things.

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Number one, I do have a resource out there from October 8th of 2019, if you can believe it, on this whole issue of whether or not

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David raped Bathsheba because actually that's the first time this was a big kerfuffle. That's the first time this became an issue when

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Rachel Denhollander corrected someone on Twitter, I forget who it was, and said that David raped

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Bathsheba and it created this whole uproar. And I did a full treatment of that and demonstrated or showed that if you go to 2

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Samuel 13, you actually have, there's a word used, a Hebrew word, that would be more consistent with what we would think of today as a rape.

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And you don't find that word, and this is just one of the pieces of evidence that I cite, but we don't find that word in the account of David and Bathsheba.

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And it's the same word used in Deuteronomy 22 when it's actually translated in the

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New American Standard Bible as forces. So you get the sense in which there's a rape, there's not a willful choice on the part of the woman in this situation, it is forced.

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And it's the same word, but in the same account, chapters before, you don't see in 2

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Samuel that word being used and attributed to David's relationship with Bathsheba. And so anyways,

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I make the case that at the very least, you can't be sure that this is a rape.

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And if anything, the evidence seems to point in the other direction. But you can go watch that if you want. It's called King David, a

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Rapist? And Confirmed Crew Endorses Social Gospel. So I used to have these bigger podcasts.

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Some of my podcasts are this long, well over an hour, and I would take on multiple issues. And I've shortened the time actually a little bit.

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For those who think that I'm going long, I actually have shortened it. But you can go see a fuller treatment there if you want.

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Now, this isn't necessarily directly related, but in this whole situation of the debates in the

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Southern Baptist Convention over abuse or alleged abuse, we have Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, where I went, coming out with a statement about their mandatory sexual abuse prevention and response course.

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And so this is a mandatory course. It looks like all students are gonna be required to take this, which is interesting to me.

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And I don't know the motivation 100%. I can guess at it. I have a suspicion that there's a lot of emphasis on this particular topic and wanting to show that we really care, we really are taking this seriously, and this is the compassionate place to go to school, that it seems like that would be consistent with everything else we're seeing.

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There could be legal things though, liability thing. There could be a whole host of things. I don't know, maybe their insurance company is gonna give some kind of a discount too or something.

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I don't know, but they're launching this. And so I was reading through this statement and I was thinking through, a lot of churches are doing this too.

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A lot of places are doing this, and I don't think it's wrong, and I'm not attacking Southeastern for offering a course like this.

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Making it mandatory seems odd to me, but having a course like this, even that is, for someone going to get a pastoral degree, you'd think you'd cover this in counseling.

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So that's the only little, I guess, critique I'd have is like, why isn't this covered in a counseling class of some kind?

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If the Bible is a final authority, if that's what you're training people to do, if it's pastoral counseling, this isn't psychology, why have a separate course that's, what's in the course?

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That would be my question, is what's in the course that would make it different from, let's say, a biblical counseling class in which you would approach these issues?

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So, that question's out there and I don't know what the answer is because there's just not a lot of information here. But I was reading through it, knowing that a lot of places are taking these precautions, cameras are being installed, churches or security teams are forming.

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You have, for a child, I know it's the church I go to, if you wanna work with children, there's a course you need to take.

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And it's wise in the litigious society that we live in. And let's face it, also the society we live in that has a lot of predators, depending on where you live.

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And if you live close to a metropolitan area, especially, it doesn't have to be, it could be way out in the country too, but especially if you live in certain areas where there's a lot of crime and stuff and you can look on the sexual predator list online and see how many houses around you have people who have been convicted, you might wanna implement that.

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And it makes sense, it's wise for staff workers. This is a little different, this is for students, this is mandatory, but I can understand the uptick in interest in taking some preventative measures.

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Now, as I was reading this though, so I was looking through it and there's a lot of talk about this is part of the

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Great Commission somehow, this is about, we can't almost, the implication seems to be we're not really loving our neighbors and practicing the

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Great Commission if we don't do this. So, okay, I'm kind of like, yeah, all right, well, you know, whatever.

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That's, I mean, there's, you could really make a case that so many different things would fit into that mold.

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The question in my mind is curriculum for specifically pastors, when you have a limited amount of time to get them through the three years of seminary, to train them, what is it that you want them to know and focus on?

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And I know when I was there, the curriculum changed to the point that they had dropped a theology course, they had dropped hermeneutics as a requirement.

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They were inserting what I would call, at the time I did call them fluff courses, just courses that were like leadership development, pastoral leadership type stuff.

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You know, how do you make your church? I mean, discussions would be like, how do we make our church more diverse? How do we, we should pray, praying's good.

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And it's like, well, yeah, it is, but I'm paying a lot of money to come here for seminary. Like I knew praying was good when

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I was in youth group at my church, but why am I here? Why, I wanna learn the languages, right?

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I wanna learn theology, I wanna learn church history. And so much of that stuff is being dumbed down.

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It just is since even I started in 2014 or even before that, when

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I was at masters in 2011, it's just the curriculums have been changing. I've seen it at Liberty University in their seminary.

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It's just, I mean, it's weird to me that you can get an MDiv without even languages. So here's the thing that I'm thinking though, like this is so important.

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We can't really be people of the great commission without implementing this curriculum, but yet we're taking out hermeneutics as a requirement.

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Like that's the weird thing to me. It just, it shows to me where the emphasis lies. And I'm not, again, not castigating them or against having a course like this or taking some, implementing some training, but this is a lot of training to have a course.

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And I don't know how many credits it is. Maybe it's a one credit course or maybe it's a weekend thing. I doubt it, but maybe that's all it is.

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But so as I was reading this, these are the questions that are popping in my head and I'm seeing emphasis shifting.

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And that's really what intrigues me about this is what courses are gonna be taken out and what is the, what's the menu now?

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What's the curriculum? What kinds of things are, can you expect a pastor coming out of Southeastern to have, to know?

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And of course they're gonna have some theology. Of course they're gonna have some, well, I don't know if they'll have hermeneutics unless they want it, but of course they'll have some good core things, but it's the, there seems to be in my mind, a reduction of what we would consider the core curriculum for pastors and inserting these other things that are now so important to, and it's the, not just social justice minded people, depending on what they put in their curriculum, it could be that, but it's just the emphasis of our modern day.

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The, what kinds of things are popular today, are important today or seen as priorities today, not just in the church, but in the world as a whole and in the culture, in the world.

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Those are the things that perhaps are getting more influence. And I know they implemented,

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I think right after I left, if I'm not mistaken for their undergrad, basically a social justice degree. And it was taking courses in environmentalism, essentially in race relations and all that kind of thing.

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So it's a shift. So it's not condemning all this as these particular courses are all evil or bad.

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Some of them, the material in them maybe, I'm not saying that it's not, but the big thing to me is what's the shift?

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What's the emphasis? And the emphasis is shifting. It's like when I read David Wells' book and he's talking about Christianity Today, the magazine, the book is

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No Place for Truth. And he talks about the emphasis shifting from a lot of very biblically driven articles to the percentage just keeps going down every year from the time it started to now we're talking about pop culture.

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Is that wrong to talk about pop culture? Is it wrong for Christians to analyze it? No, of course not. But what does that say about the readership and the leadership at Christianity Today?

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And that's the same question I'm asking here. What does it say? Where's the emphasis? So one of the things I did note, so you're gonna have some lawyers,

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I guess, involved in this process as well as, it's interesting to me, contributors from Danny Akin and Keith Whitfield.

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Keith Whitfield, his involvement in that whole Tom and Jennifer Buck situation with that draft of Jennifer Buck and which, anyway, not to get into all that detail, but we've talked about it a little bit before.

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It's just interesting. These are the people that are designing the course. These who have this issue, it's just weird.

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Why them? Keith Whitfield wouldn't be the first person in my mind to design a curriculum on survivors and sexual abuse and all that, given his role in that situation.

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But you have others that are not, well, you have a professor of biblical counseling and then they have a

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Samantha Kilpatrick attorney in the Kilpatrick Law Group, an instructor at Meredith College of Paralegal Programs.

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They have some people from outside, I'm assuming Christians, of course, coming in. And one of the things Kilpatrick said, this stood out to me right away.

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Studies show that one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused by their 18th birthday. And Sherry Kilpatrick, who serves as an active member, this person's an active member of Providence Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina.

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Churches and ministries are not immune, but often can be more at risk due to lack of awareness and inconsistent prevention policy and practice.

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Unless we understand the prevalence and dynamics of sexual abuse, we are not well -equipped to implement prevention policy, nor are we able to respond well in Christ -honoring and trauma -informed manner, a trauma -informed manner.

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To me, that word stands out. What does that mean, a trauma -informed manner? Is this standpoint theory, where are we going?

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Is this like the caring well stuff where pastors are gonna be dictated to by quote -unquote survivors when we have a book that has given us a direction on what to do concerning abuse?

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It's not that you shouldn't listen to survivors. It's just that where do they have, where's the final authority in all this?

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Is it people who have understanding of the word of God?

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Is that where wisdom resides? Because the final authority is the word of God and people who have applied that over the course of years in counseling situations are gonna be the best equipped to handle it, or is it gonna be sort of quote -unquote people who have had an experience of being victimized and they're the ones that are gonna dictate more what policy should be?

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That's the question I have, and I don't know. And little things like that stand out to me. The other thing that stood out to me, though, is the impression that's given by the statistic that's quoted here, and this is on Southeastern's website, one in four girls.

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So I looked that up, and I only spent a few minutes because I just went, I'm like, where is this coming from? There's no citation here, and there's no footnote

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I could check. And what I kept getting was a study from Nigeria that said one in four girls in a particular city in Nigeria.

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And I'm thinking, that's the only study that's coming across when I do a search. So I looked up, and this was before the 18th birthday, so I broadened it, okay, just one in four girls.

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And then I saw there is a whole, on the Huffington Post, mind you, Huffington Post was progressive, just, in my mind, just completely like,

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I don't know, just an outlet I wouldn't trust, generally speaking, because of their super progressive slant.

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And I mean, if you read the Huffington Post, then it says something about you in my mind. It says you're not, unless you're reading it just to see what the other side thinks, you're not reading an actual news website, and you're not reading a website that's gonna give you what actually happened.

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But even the Huffington Post had a whole article debunking this idea that one in four or one in five girls are sexually abused, and basically makes the point that it depends where you are, and the studies that have been done have failed, they're actually, the whole idea behind these studies, the premise behind them is not scientific.

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It's in like online polls and things where you have like 19 % of people respond, and of those 19%, those are the people that probably could possibly be more likely to have been abused, that are reporting that they've had to be.

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So it's just very hard to come up with these numbers, but the person who's behind part of this curriculum is just very sure that that's what studies show, and very sure that churches,

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I mean, it's panic, it's alarm button. Churches and ministries are more at risk.

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You know, here's this statistic, and then churches are even, it's even worse. It's, yes, does abuse happen?

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Do our predators in churches? Sure they are, they're everywhere. Is it to this extent?

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And that's the whole vibe we're getting from the SBC, that it's red alert, emergency, all of a sudden out of the blue, this is abnormal, this shouldn't happen.

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This is, we've never seen anything like it. It is, it just characterizes, and it's definitional of the whole denomination, and therefore we gotta change our whole

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MDiv program around to have a course on this. And you know, if we gotta take out something else, who knows what they took out to put this in?

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But generally that's what has to happen. You insert a course, you're gonna take out another course. And so we gotta do it though.

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I mean, that's part of, if we don't do it, do we really care about victims, right? Let's cite some stats that are questionable, and then make it just surmise that it's even worse in the church to just ring that alarm bell even more.

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That's what I see happening. It is a knee -jerk reaction. It's just, it's, don't stop and think about this.

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Let's not actually crunch numbers, and like what Megan Basham did in her article, showing that, you know what, there's really not, if anything, the

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Southern Baptist Convention is better than a lot of organizations of similar size, as far as the percentage of predators that inhabit the staff of that organization, from what we know.

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No one's doing that. They're not stopping to crunch numbers and think through things. It's just react. And what

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I'm seeing in the Twitter arguments is if you don't react, if you don't believe victims, or women, or survivors, you don't care.

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If you have any questions, you don't care. If you want clarification, you don't care. You're on the side of the oppressors.

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And that is, this is just another, in my mind, example of how social justice is making its way into the convention.

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Now, interestingly, I didn't notice this at first. Someone pointed it out, though. Eric Geiger, who used to be

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Jennifer Lyle's boss at Lifeway, or supervisor,

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I had mentioned this when I was going over Megan Basham's article, and the attack on it.

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And Eric Geiger basically said Megan, it implied

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Megan wasn't being accurate. Megan didn't even quote from his statement, but he posts his statement, or posts what he believes.

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Here's the important thing. He posts his impression of Jennifer Lyle's accusations, and he says, this is the interesting part, he went to David Sill's wife, and David Sill's wife reinforced all that Jennifer Lyle had shared with me, including text messages with a threatening tone and indications she had known of the sexual encounters, et cetera.

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Now, there's some now question about this. Did David Sill's wife, was

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David Sill's wife just aware of these encounters? Well, this is just put out there. Megan Basham doesn't put this out there.

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It's just put out there. And now that this is put out there, here's the even more interesting part to me.

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The president of the Southern Baptist Convention does this. Bart Barber retweets, so Jennifer Lyle, who's since then now deleted her

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Twitter account, she points to this, and if there's any new information, it's that, hey, look,

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David Sill's wife, David Sill's being the one that Jennifer Lyle's accusing of abusing her, his wife knew about that relationship, and it's all confirmed, and Bart Barber, the president of the

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Southern Baptist Convention retweets this. Well, if David Sill's wife doesn't believe this or agree with this, then it's kind of, it's an accusation against her.

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She was somehow, I mean, she would be complicit, wouldn't she, if she knew about this and she didn't do anything?

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This is now bringing it into a whole new realm in which it wasn't before, and the president of the Southern Baptist Convention irresponsibly retweets this, and I simply cannot understand why there are prominent conservatives in the

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Southern Baptist Convention who think that Bart Barber is a step in the right direction or should have run, and it's not terrible that he's in the position he's in, and I don't get it.

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I mean, I don't even think, I don't even think the previous presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention would do this.

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I don't think Ed Litton would do this, but this is just, this is shooting from the hip.

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This is unpredictable behavior, and why even enter that fray, but we have the president of the

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Southern Baptist Convention entering that, and this opens them up to things, possibly.

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I'm not saying there's something going on, I don't know, but this could open them up to things when you have statements being supported by the president of the

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Southern Baptist Convention against the wife of an accused abuser that she somehow knew about this.

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Dangerous stuff. So that is something I just wanted to point out, and here's probably the most significant thing that's happened in the last few days.

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July 14th, I Don't Know What to Believe Anymore by Ron Hensel. Ron Hensel was one of the individuals on a call, an interview kind of, of a call though with Jennifer Lyle, and this call was from 2021, last year, where Jennifer Lyle essentially, it's like two and a half hours.

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I listened to it, and I just, at the end, I just saw a lot of, there's a lot of yellow and red flags in my mind about her story, but Ron Hensel says in this interview that I believed her,

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I believed her, and it came out that Jennifer, this audio came out, and Ron Hensel is saying, he basically says that, look,

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Jennifer Lyle was messaging Tom Buck, and she has screenshots here, private messages, totally misrepresenting that particular call, and accusing

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Tom Askell of using Ron Hensel and this

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Midwest Christian outreach, and just, he says there's five lies, and offering to Tom Buck that she could back up her assertions against Tom Askell and against them by, with the recording, with this recording, willing, she's willing to share this recording to back up her assertions.

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Well, this has provoked Ron Hensel from Midwest Outreach to basically say, look, I said I believed her, and she was the only witness.

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There weren't two or three witnesses, and he goes, I don't know what to believe now. He says, he believes that she's a sister in Christ.

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He believes that God in his providence has brought all these things that have scribed to pass, not for her condemnation.

25:37

I believe I cannot say that just because I've concluded that Jennifer Lyle has misrepresented me, Don Vinot, who is another individual on that particular phone call and interview, and Tom Askell, it necessarily means she misrepresented what took place between her and David Sills.

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Nevertheless, he says, I believe that the events I described have exposed my own need for reproof and correction from God's word, as well as public confession and repentance.

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And to this, I'm just grateful in a way, even though I don't know him, I just think there needs to be more of this.

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When we make an error, and I've made errors before on this podcast, none of us are beyond making a mistake, we confess it.

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We publicly do so if it's a public offense, and since this recording has made its way into the public and people kind of know about it, he's just saying, look,

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I should have said something, I should have done something, or what he's actually, he doesn't really say,

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I don't know if he says I should have done something, but he says that, he says, when

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I saw Jennifer Lyle's text to Tom Buck, the Lord rebuked me. I don't know whether she made the same statements to anyone else, but if she did, and if those people believed her, they were believing her charges against me on the evidence of one witness alone, contemplating that possibility does not leave me with a pleasant feeling.

26:50

So he's just realizing what he, he believed Jennifer Lyle on one witness, and he says, well, if someone were to believe what she said about me on one witness, then that would, he would be upset, and he realized the hypocrisy, and that's so good on him for just coming forward and just saying, look,

27:07

I goofed on this, and it's just very telling to me, and this is not, for this whole case, that Guidepost is reporting on, that Jennifer Lyle is an example of abuse in the

27:22

Southern Baptist Convention. David Sills is an abuser, not alleged, an abuser, that it was corroborated, the whole thing's coming apart.

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There wasn't corroboration that can be demonstrated. And now, there's other things that Jennifer Lyle is being caught in.

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I mean, this is, not only is it the recording now that raises a lot of questions, but it's now a number of other things.

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It's how she represented that particular recording to someone else. So, I wanted to let you know about that.

27:56

That's going on, and I just thank God that the truth is coming out. I think that's excellent. So, I think we need to pray for Jennifer Lyle in this situation.

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It sounds to me, from what I listened to on that two -and -a -half -hour recording, that she's got some issues. She's kind of all over the place, and there seems to be some, at least, emotional issues, and it sounds like, and it's very possible that she has had some abuse, whether that was

28:20

David Sills or the abuse she talks about before that. I think she needs to repent, though.

28:27

She needs to repent of misrepresenting these guys who were on the call with her, that as if they were doing a hit piece against her, and Tom Askell was the one behind it somehow, and none of that is true when you actually listen to.

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None of her descriptions of the phone call seem to be accurate when you actually listen to it, or the Zoom call, whatever it was.

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And so, there's certainly a problem here with the truth, and Jennifer Lyle needs to repent of that.

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And the SBC elites who have platformed

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Jennifer Lyle and said that David Sills is an abuser, not just an alleged abuser, but is an abuser on the basis of one witness without corroboration, those

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Southern Baptists who have done this need to repent as well. And so, anyway, that's kind of, but I do have compassion.

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I do, even though I can see all the damage that's been done here, I still see Jennifer Lyle as someone who does need some help, and I pray that that help comes and the

29:31

Lord directs that. I wanna get to something at the end here that's gonna be encouraging, but before I do,

29:38

I wanna talk about this J .D. Hall situation for those who don't know about it and those who do.

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It's been now, I guess, I don't know, almost, well, it's about, I think, two months since J .D.

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Hall was arrested. And it was, at first, it looked like it was a DUI.

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That was perhaps alcohol, and a lot of people were jumping the gun and saying it was, it doesn't appear to be at this point, it appears to be an addiction to Xanax, prescription drug addiction.

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And that's really the only thing I've been able to confirm is there's other allegations out there about J .D.

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Hall doing other things that are, some of them, pretty awful, but I can't really confirm anything past.

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That seems to be the one thing that has been consistent, at least, with the church and folks at Protestia and that the folks closer to the situation, that there was, in fact, an addiction there.

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And I don't know for how long that addiction was there. I know J .D. Hall said when he was on this podcast, last year,

30:50

I guess, that he had this issue with a vitamin D deficiency. And I have no reason to doubt that, that there are symptoms that seem to mirror alcoholism.

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So I don't know if that played a part in it. I thought that that was corrected. He seemed to indicate it was. I don't know if there was a temporary correction and then it got worse, or if this was purely

31:12

Xanax or what it was. But the bottom line for me at this point is that this situation is within the jurisdiction of the local church and they are in a church discipline process now.

31:24

And that's made me a little hesitant to want to jump in and make very clear statements.

31:30

I can make some clear statements. I can say it is wrong to be addicted to medication, whether that's alcohol or prescription medication or illegal drugs.

31:41

It's all in my mind, biblically, anything that's gonna take your mind from you, it's not for medicinal purposes, but it's anything that you become mastered by is wrong.

31:54

It's sinful. And so, I mean, I think we can all very clearly see that.

32:01

I'm hoping, and I would think, and I would assume J .D. Hall would see that as well. And so, as far as I understand, he's in a process with the church dealing with this right now.

32:12

And if there's other issues, I'm sure that that's being dealt with. The elders at the church, they've made a statement.

32:19

They seem to be able to stand up to J .D.

32:24

Hall or maybe that's not the right way to phrase it. They seem to be able to see the issues with J .D.

32:31

Hall. He's not controlling them, it seems. It seems like they're very much separate from him. I'm sure what they're doing is not in the public eye, at least to his advantage, and they're doing it anyway.

32:41

So, without knowing anyone in the church, without knowing the specifics of the situation,

32:47

I don't really have a lot more to say about the specific situation. I have read some of what the officer reported.

32:54

It seems like there was some erratic or confusing behavior that he exhibited, things like not remembering if he had a gun on him, that kind of thing.

33:05

So, clearly something is wrong there and we should be praying for J .D. Hall. And we should be praying for wisdom, obviously, for the elders that are involved at his church in this.

33:16

And then, obviously, for public repentance, depending on what the issue is, if there's been a public sin.

33:24

Knowing J .D. Hall, and this is one of the other reasons that I've waited a little bit, knowing

33:29

J .D. Hall, he tends to weigh in on things. And so, I thought maybe he would weigh in on this. But what seems to have happened is he's deleted his social media accounts and I've heard second or third hand that he's been in counseling.

33:45

And if that's what's taking place, that might be the best thing for him, to be honest with you, to be out of the public eye and to be in that process.

33:53

So, my hope and my assumption is that there is a process of repentance going on, but I don't know 100 % exactly what's going on.

34:05

I am not privy to that information. And from what I understand, J .D. Hall's phone number has changed, or at least he's not taking calls and texts like he was.

34:15

And he's kind of shut out to the outside, to the public eye right now. And that's the way that he wants it.

34:22

And I don't think it's just him. I think that's the way that the people around him want it right now, too.

34:29

So, the bigger implication here, I think what's going on in a larger context is what does this all mean?

34:35

Whether it was just the misuse of abuse of prescription drugs, or whether it was past this and it was other accusations that have been made against him, what does this mean for, quote unquote, the pejorative,

34:52

I guess now, but discernment ministries? What does this mean for Protestia? What does this mean for people who question the

35:01

SBC and evangelical elites? Are they all just J .D. Hall? And that's, I think, the conclusion that a lot of people online, who really didn't like what

35:08

J .D. Hall was doing, want you to draw. And I'm gonna share something that I haven't really shared before,

35:14

I don't believe, on this podcast concerning J .D. Hall. And I just, for me,

35:19

I want you to understand kind of how I have approached J .D. Hall, because I think, I'm not a perfect person, but I do think that this is a helpful way to approach it.

35:30

And I'll just let you in on some of the information that I have on him. When I first, the only way

35:36

I really knew about J .D. Hall was because I listened to the dividing line, like, all the time. Like, every dividing line that would come out for a while, this was going back,

35:45

I mean, I'm trying to think when James White used to talk about J .D. Hall, when he started talking about J .D. Hall, 10 years ago or more,

35:52

I don't know. But I would, for a period of years, at least, that's the only really frame of reference

35:58

I had for J .D. Hall, was I would listen to what James White said about J .D. Hall. And there were certainly some things that J .D.

36:05

Hall did that I just thought, why in the world would you do this? Why would you say this? Aren't there bigger fish to fry out there?

36:11

Why is this so important? And some of these turf wars between different ministries, and let's face it, smaller ministries, really.

36:20

I mean, we're not talking about huge and Billy Graham -sized ministries. We're talking about little discernment or apologetics, or I think

36:28

J .D. Hall likes to call what he did polemics ministries. These ministries would sometimes really go at each other.

36:36

And I can understand wanting to respond to someone who's attacking you, but sometimes it would just be, you know, I remember one time, one time it was, and this one was,

36:44

I think, James White. J .D. Hall had some, I think, turf wars with a few different ministries at various times.

36:49

And that comes with the territory to some extent if you're involved in that world of polemics. But J .D.,

36:57

there was this one time I remember J .D. Hall was, he made a video, I think it was, about James White.

37:02

And then James White went on to play J .D. Hall's video and respond to it. And as he's on playing

37:08

J .D. Hall's video and responding to it, J .D. Hall is streaming James White responding to his response of the video.

37:15

And then I remember on the dividing line, someone informs James White, J .D. Hall is responding to your response.

37:21

And I was just like, this is, like this is so, there's so many moving parts, like I cannot keep track of exactly what's going on here.

37:30

But that's just the context in which I knew J .D. Hall. It's why I'm bringing this all up. That's, and so my impression of him wasn't all that great in the beginning.

37:40

And so there were some efforts early on to have some cooperation between people, various groups, various,

37:49

I didn't even know what a discernment ministry was or any of this. I hadn't even heard the term, but I had a podcast, or at least

37:56

I don't remember having heard the term. I had the podcast. And there was a couple of people like us that there was an individual who was trying to get us kind of all together in these group chats to kind of cooperate and share information and that kind of thing.

38:10

Like if we had information, we could all kind of share it together maybe.

38:16

And there was a few people in that group who had podcasts or outlets, like Protestia and that kind of thing,

38:24

Pulpit and Pen at the time. And this was years ago, that group doesn't exist any longer, but J .D.

38:31

Hall was in it. And I remember the interactions in that group,

38:37

J .D. Hall was very much J .D. Hall. That's who he's been. When he writes a piece for Pulpit and Pen, and when he's interacting in like a group chat or something, he's like the same person.

38:51

Like I thought maybe there would be a variation there. Well, I got it in my head that this was wrong, this was not good.

38:59

Some of the things, I mean, he's being just too harsh, too just saying things sometimes that I just didn't think that there was even, at times there wasn't a lot of proof for, or that more so the, why would you go after that person so hard when that person's not the false teacher?

39:19

Why don't you go after this person? Where's the sense of proportion, right? That was kind of my objection and it's dividing people.

39:26

So I called him up on the phone to confront him. And the response

39:32

I got shocked me at the time. I was expecting tons of pushback. I was expecting just it wasn't gonna go well.

39:40

And he listened to me and I didn't know what to do. He listened, he took it to heart. He was sane and rational with me.

39:49

He gave me some reasons for some of the things he did that I hadn't heard before. And I wouldn't say that I stopped being a hundred percent skeptical of some of the things that he would do, but I realized that there was some humility there that I hadn't seen before and that I didn't know existed.

40:06

And then I met J .D. at a conference and he struck me,

40:14

I have someone close to me who has Asperger's syndrome and J .D.

40:19

Hall reminded me in many ways of that person. And so when

40:25

I was interacting with him, I could just tell different things. Things just jumped out with me. His humor, sort of the lack of sense of proportion, just even things like eye contact.

40:38

There's probably a hundred little things that I can't even quantify, but that I sense. And I just,

40:45

I knew it at the time I said, this guy, he's got that condition. And it made sense of everything to me. It made sense of the blog and sometimes going after things that I just thought, why is that a priority?

40:57

But going after it with the same kind of intensity that he might go after something that really was a problem. And so I think that gave me, and this is what, there's a reason

41:07

I'm telling you all this. I think that gave me a sense of compassion and understanding that I didn't have before.

41:13

And that led into what happened, well, me platforming him twice on this particular podcast to talk about the

41:22

Southern Baptist Convention and why he accurately predicted some things that others had not seen.

41:29

And people, I can think of names today, people who are conservatives in the Southern Baptist Convention who just are pulling their hair out right now with what's happening.

41:38

But at the time they would mock J .D. Hall for saying, for identifying the obvious.

41:45

And J .D. didn't have a problem offending people. One of the things that I think was in short supply that I learned to appreciate in some ways was if something was true, if he had a conviction, he would just say it.

41:57

It didn't matter what kind of backlash there would come to him. He would just say it. And we lack that.

42:03

We lack spines so much in evangelicalism in the Southern Baptist Convention on the conservative side.

42:09

I'm talking about the anti -CRT side. We lack spines so much. There was a sense in which some of what

42:16

J .D. Hall did when he would expose the false teacher was a breath of fresh air, let's say. He would say this is false teaching, this is a false gospel, and you'd have others who know better just reluctant to say it, wouldn't say it.

42:32

And so I don't remember what the development was, but when there was some developments that happened in the SBC, when it was just obvious,

42:38

J .D. Hall needs some credit here because he's been beating this drum for years and he's seen some things.

42:45

Like he, Russell Moore's one of them. Like he accurately predicted kind of where Russell Moore was going when people were making fun of him for it.

42:51

Or they just, people who now see exactly who Russell Moore is. And I thought, you know, I think it's to people's benefit at least to hear how he was able to see this when others weren't.

43:02

Regardless of whatever other faults he has, I thought that's valuable. And it's rare.

43:09

And something that's rare tends to be valuable. And so that was,

43:15

I had him on twice. That was the first time. Second time was over a lawsuit against him because he used, he did not use, he refused to use preferred pronouns.

43:24

Someone sued him and I think that's still ongoing, that litigation, because he wouldn't say, he wouldn't use,

43:30

I think it was a he and he wouldn't, who was biologically a he who was pretending to be a she and he wouldn't call him a her, something like that.

43:40

But I had him on to talk about it. Well, he revealed on that particular podcast, which, and that's the real reason

43:47

I had him on more than anything else, was to talk about that. Because I think that's a big issue.

43:52

Like, do we really wanna live in a world like this where you can open yourself up to being canceled, ridiculed, a lawsuit, financially ruined, just because you are gonna stand by truth, biological truth, biblical truth, creative norms.

44:08

And for the lawsuit, as I understood it, he needed some money. And so I thought, well, this is an opportunity to help in this effort and to expose what's happening, that this kind of thing is actually happening in the

44:21

United States. Well, he revealed on that particular podcast that he, in fact, did have

44:27

Asperger's syndrome. And he also talked about the vitamin D deficiency in kind of some of his struggles that were going on.

44:34

And so that was the last time that I've had any conversation with him.

44:42

And as far as I can remember, there hasn't been anything really since then. And so then all this happens.

44:49

And so the way, so now that you have all the background for me and how I've kind of viewed

44:54

J .D. Hall with a measure of respect for being able to, for being willing to go out and say some very true things when others were not willing to, at personal risk to himself.

45:06

At the same time, seeing that there's a lack of sense of proportion there and that there's sometimes things that he has, efforts that he's made that I would see as not just fruitless, but unfair, not even things that should be priorities.

45:28

I can see those and I can have an honest conversation with him about those. And I think there's a mutual respect there.

45:37

I think he appreciated that I would come, I came and talk to him about that and wasn't just going online and blasting him for it.

45:46

And because I don't see any false teaching with him. I don't see, you know, I don't see a, what

45:53

I see as a guy though, who has Asperger's syndrome and doesn't have a sense of proportion. Well, now I'm having to factor into this.

46:00

Were there things that I was missing? Is it a combination of things? Was it the prescription medication that led to some of the behavior that he's somewhat known for in some circles?

46:12

The vitriol that he gets from others tends to be overtone. And the words that he uses, the way he makes fun of other people, that kind of thing.

46:24

Was there also prescription medication involved with this? Is he a stable person?

46:30

It sounds to me like from the recent developments that there's some real issues there that a number of people didn't see.

46:39

And maybe some did that were closer to him and didn't say anything. I don't really know. I don't have information on that.

46:44

I wasn't close to him enough to know any of that stuff. But I think the way that we can come down on this is we can still appreciate some of the true things that J .D.

46:56

Hall says or said over the years. I think we can still do that. I don't think this reflects necessarily...

47:03

Now, I don't know everyone running protest here. I don't. I've had some conversations with David Morrill there.

47:13

And he seemed, I mean, I just had him on to talk about the Southern Baptist Convention. He seems, from my estimation, the limited conversations

47:20

I've had with him to have a good head on his shoulders and to see things somewhat the way they are. And they've made the steps.

47:30

They've distanced themselves and they've put the situation into the hands of the church and they haven't gone past that.

47:38

Which is more than I can say. I mean, other organizations out there that have a problem with...

47:45

I mean, I think you've given like Al Mohler in Southern Seminary, which is infinitely more damaging when you have actual false teaching in a false gospel and heresy at your seminary.

47:55

And then you decide, well, I'm just not gonna even... We're not gonna even acknowledge that this has even happened.

48:02

This is infinitely different than that. You have a character or a moral failing and you have a protestia immediately making a statement on it.

48:13

And you have the church immediately jumping into action. And that is the way it's supposed to happen. And J .D. Hall is now out of the limelight and so if he comes back, if he wants to get back into this kind of thing, and then

48:26

I think, yeah, there's gonna have to be some kind of an explanation or a repentance, an admission.

48:33

All that stuff is gonna have to take place. And I don't know exactly what that looks like. And that's gonna be really between him and the church.

48:39

And then if there is an open door there, I don't sense that there is a protestia that's gonna be between them.

48:45

But as far as I can tell right now, J .D. Hall is not in public life anymore. He is, at this point, he is in private life.

48:53

He is kind of stepped away from this. And I don't think it's fair to then say anyone who ever has a problem with SBC or evangelical elites is just the same as J .D.

49:05

Hall or anyone who ever had an association with J .D. Hall is somehow guilty of J .D. Hall's sins here, or they promoted someone who had these issues.

49:13

And that's one of the reasons I went through my story here, just because I have him on the podcast twice. What was my understanding?

49:19

I've given it to you. That was my full understanding of J .D. No knowledge of any of the things that are coming out right now.

49:29

And I still don't know to what extent and for how long the prescription medication thing was going on,

49:35

I don't know. But if it was, I wasn't aware of it. And I don't think most people were.

49:42

And the people in his local proximity at his church, his good friends, the people who see him in person, they would be the ones, if it was an ongoing obvious thing, that would know.

49:55

So I wanna at least acknowledge that I do understand. I have had some people messaging me like,

50:01

John, are you gonna talk about this? And I do understand them to some extent wanting me to say something, or at least acknowledge that this has taken place.

50:11

I think there may be a sense behind it of, John, try to warn people to stay away from Protestia or to stay away from J .D.

50:20

Hall. And the thing is though, and that's why I'm saying, J .D. Hall's not in the public limelight. If he was still writing articles and there was no repentance, there's no acknowledgement in this stuff, yeah,

50:29

I would be saying, yeah, stay away from this guy. There's nothing for me to say, stay away from them.

50:35

He's not doing anything publicly that I can tell. And I've already told you what would need to happen.

50:40

I think if he was gonna try to come back and start writing, at the very least, at the very least, not knowing even the full extent of what's taken place.

50:50

And I don't wanna go beyond what I can confirm. So that's what I can confirm and that's what I know. But I certainly don't think that anyone who's ever had any interaction with J .D.

51:01

Hall now is guilty in some sense, or harbored or supported this kind of behavior that we're just finding out about now, or something like that.

51:13

So that's my take on it. And I just encourage you all to pray for this situation as the local church handles it, that it would just be a godly process.

51:23

So the last thing I wanted to share with you, and if anyone has questions, write them in the comment section about any of that.

51:32

And if I have a chance, I'll try to go back and read what people have written. And if there's more that I need to say about any of this, or something that I missed, then feel free to inform me.

51:42

The last thing here, though, is something that I find to be very encouraging. And it is, let's see if I can pull it up here.

51:52

We have the technology, yes. It is a statement by Rosaria Butterfield.

52:02

And I downloaded it to try to figure out when this was published. And the property said

52:07

July 3rd, 2022. July 3rd, 2022, in the morning. This made its way online.

52:14

So this is at rosariabutterfield .com, I guess. Someone just sent me the direct link. And this is what it says.

52:20

I'm gonna read this for you. Now, Rosaria Butterfield is, in the past, well, she's gonna tell you some of this, but she talks about using, like in her book,

52:29

Gospel Comes with a House Key, kind of like identifying who the, in a lesbian or a homosexual relationship, who the husband and wife are, and using preferred pronouns.

52:42

And she's been someone in the past that I've said, like, this is a third -way person, be careful here.

52:47

I would stay away. There's gotta be other better resources on hospitality. And part of it is due to this, due to the sort of same -sex attracted

52:59

Christianity that she seemed to have endorsed at one time, that you could kind of have these desires or this identity in some form, but still be a

53:11

Christian and then extend to others who are living in these ungodly relationships.

53:17

You can grant some of their premises. And this is such a breath of fresh air.

53:23

I can't even tell you. This is, I mean, this is what I think so many of us has wanted to see and hear from so many of the quote -unquote

53:30

Big Eva leaders. And either it's denial that they've ever taken these positions, or it's just, it's double down, or it's just dismissed.

53:40

They're like, we're just not gonna talk about it, you know, as if it never happened. Well, here, Rosaria Butterfield takes responsibility, and she has gained so much respect in my mind through doing this.

53:48

Here's what she says. In 2014, I wrote in the article published by the Gospel Coalition, Repair to Therapy, a heresy, is a modern version of the prosperity gospel, name it, claim it, pray the gay away.

53:59

This ranks among the most misguided words I have written as a Christian. Wow. I falsely believe that Repair to Therapy and Conversion Therapy were the same things and that they harmed people by making undeliverable promises and blaming parents for their children's problems.

54:16

I falsely believed that the darkest days of mental health, think electroshock therapy, fell under the umbrella term conversion therapy.

54:22

When I dismissed Repair to Therapy as harmful, I was running roughshod over overgeneralizations and failing to distinguish hurt from harm.

54:29

The game changer for me was reading the work of Dr. Andre Van Mol, a California family physician.

54:35

His article in the Christian Medical and Dental Association online journal, even failed therapy for undesired same -sex sexuality results in no harm, eased my concerns.

54:44

Highlighting data that the sexual orientation change efforts incurs no harm, even when the patient does not meet intended goals, this current study follows up on a 2021 study showing sexual orientation change efforts reduce suicidality.

55:01

This article put my concerns to rest. Anti -conversion therapy is back in the secular news and for weighty reasons.

55:08

Outlawing conversion therapy is Canada's bully club wielded against the proclamation of the gospel by denying as harmful the biblical witness that homosexuality and transgenderism are sins and that in Jesus Christ there is forgiveness, hope and transformation.

55:22

Defying Canada's bill, C4, comes with the potential of six years in prison. The stakes are high and anti -conversion therapy, the moniker for anti -biblical

55:32

Christianity is coming to the US and she, by the way, I just got to stop and say, she's accurately depicting this. That's exactly what it is.

55:39

The whole push from the beginning with anti -conversion therapy was, how do we get these pastors and these

55:44

Christian counselors and how do we get them to stop? And this was their way in. Especially troubling is the way the children are the targets when health professionals recommend gender affirming surgeries and irrevocable hormone blockers to treat gender dysphoria in children.

55:57

Even the American Psychological Association knows that gender dysphoria in children does not persist through adolescents in most cases.

56:03

That is, unless hormone blockers interfere with the body's normal functioning. In addition, the number of adults who regret transgender surgeries and are detransitioning is growing with no one, perhaps except the church, to hear their cries.

56:16

So what do I believe? And here it goes. I believe homosexuality and transgenderism are sins, which means their root cause is sin.

56:23

God's remedy, the atoning blood of Christ, is applied to those who repent and believe in Christ alone for salvation.

56:29

The gospel compels us to love God and to live in the power of our new nature in Christ. Our new nature in Christ empowers us to die to sin and fight remaining sin.

56:37

Pastoral teaching is crucial for the Christian, but Christian medical care comes to our aid when our bodies groan with illness and Christian counseling when our minds ail with trauma and abuse.

56:49

Christians may work together to help a struggler be victorious in Christ over homosexuality and gender dysphoria.

56:55

God does not leave his people defeated by sin and discouraged by facing trauma and illness alone.

57:00

Seeking Christian care for mind, body, and soul is a good and godly approach. What do I support? I support freedom in healthcare, including biblical counseling and change -allowing therapy for undesired same -sex attraction and gender anxiety.

57:13

Living in the light of God's natural order is good and right for believers and unbelievers alike and should not be despised or mistrusted.

57:19

For those interested, and she makes some recommendations here about the politics behind the

57:25

American Psychological Association's rejecting these therapies.

57:31

And she gives some recommendations. She quotes a number of Bible verses at the end, and she says, please know that through the power of Christ and his gospel, anyone can experience victory over his or her sin.

57:43

Now this, to me, is incredible, just because we don't see it much.

57:49

We just don't see it all that much to see someone who at one time made this statement, now retract it and go the opposite direction.

57:57

And I'm just really happy to see it. It does happen. People have asked me at churches, have you ever seen anyone go the opposite direction on social justice?

58:04

Like they affirmed it in some sense. And I usually say, I mean, I don't know. I do, but not on like a high level.

58:13

Now I can say that I do know someone who at least adopted one element of this and has retracted it.

58:20

And so good for Rosaria Butterfield. And maybe she's someone who'd be willing to come on my podcast eventually and talk about this.

58:26

I'd love that. Anyway, hey, God bless. I hope this was helpful for all out there.