Docent and the Leftist Evangelical Swamp

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:12

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. We're going to do a deep dive today into the

00:18

Docent Research Group. Some of you have been following this. Essentially, there's been a scandal, for lack of a better term, over the last few weeks with Ed Litton, the president of the

00:27

Southern Baptist Convention, and some sermons that he plagiarized from J .D. Greer and one, at least, from Tim Keller that we know about.

00:34

We don't know about the ones we don't know about, right? But some have thought, and I'm being among those, that there's probably something deeper here.

00:41

From the 40 ,000 -foot view, knowing what we've known about evangelicalism over the last 3 years, 4 years, 5 years, 10 years, there seems to be a huge push for social justice, large portions of evangelicalism taken over by it, subversion.

00:56

It happens in a dishonest way most of the time. I wondered, and I know a number of others wondered, whether there's something else going on.

01:04

Maybe there's some talking points. Maybe there's some things that pastors who preach are supposed to be saying, if they're hooked into that, that social justice mindset, and they're in those circles, are ideas being passed around for how to, let's say, massage some texts, perhaps, like Romans 1, or get around some things, or promote this ideology in their preaching.

01:31

And that has led some, including myself, to do some research on this. There was an article that came out today, very fresh, you can go look it up on protestia .com,

01:43

on this whole issue, on Docent Research Group, and the connections that exist with Docent Research Group.

01:51

What Docent Research Group has been doing, and who's been doing it, more importantly. I want to show you some of that.

01:59

Along with a number of others, I was named at the bottom as helping out with some of this research, and I have helped out.

02:05

Some of the research I'm about to share with you is not in that article. There's some research in that article that's not in what I'm about to share with you.

02:11

I'm highlighting what I think is important. But I've spent hours over the last, well, here and there, over this morning, and yesterday, and then before that, a little bit last week, just doing some research on some of the people we know work for Docent.

02:32

And I could probably do a lot more. There's a lot of other stuff out there that I haven't covered. But I think

02:38

I've got what is needed. I think this is what's necessary for you to understand what's going on.

02:43

And that's the big question. What is going on? And many of you feel that way. What in the world?

02:49

I can't trust any institution. That's probably how so many of you feel. I can't trust the government. I can't trust my job with all the implicit bias training they're doing.

02:58

I can't trust the sports teams I used to follow. I can't even watch ESPN anymore. You go down the list.

03:04

You feel like you can't trust hardly anyone. And now you're thinking, depending on what church you're in or what sermons you listen to from maybe celebrity pastors, man, can

03:13

I even trust that the pastors that are preaching sermons I listen to aren't ripping those ideas from someone else?

03:19

Are these even authentic sermons from their own minds, their own creations? Or is it just a political talking point that I'm getting in every single avenue of my life?

03:30

And I relate to that. And I wish I could tell you that, no, look over here.

03:36

There's this institution over here. There's this organization that you can really trust.

03:42

And yeah, there's some organizations that I like. There's some things out there. But you know what? In general, looking at the broad spectrum of organizations, civic organizations, religious organizations, et cetera,

03:54

I don't know what to tell you guys. We have to exercise a lot of discernment today.

03:59

It is very difficult to exist in this world and not run into lies somewhere, not run into propaganda that's meant to make us do something that we don't want to do.

04:10

Well, this is no exception to that, guys and gals. And I want to show you.

04:17

I want to show you. So we're going to go through this. And I'm going to give you all the research that I know about that I think is significant.

04:27

And I'm going to let you draw some of the conclusions yourself. Two verses, just actually just portions of verses

04:34

I was thinking about last night, Jude 1 and Galatians 2. Jude 1 verse 4 says,

04:40

For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, Galatians 2, 4, but it was because of the false brethren secretly brought in.

04:46

Both talking about false teachers. And I just want you to notice there's only one element. I'm not giving you the context.

04:52

This isn't a Bible study. All I want to do is just highlight one thing. Oftentimes, false teachers, false teaching comes in under the radar.

05:02

It coasts in. You don't notice it until it's too late. That's often what happens.

05:08

This isn't new. 2 ,000 years ago, people coming in unnoticed, false teachers, false brethren secretly brought in.

05:15

So this isn't a new thing. I know for many of us, this feels like it's so fast, and technology has helped spread some of these ideas.

05:23

But this isn't an old thing. This is like Ecclesiastes says, there's nothing new under the sun.

05:30

So let's talk about docent. How it started. Well, we just briefly mentioned Ed Litton's church had copied some sermons from J .D.

05:38

Greer, 15 of them that we know about, and one from Tim Keller. They copied Dallas Bay Church's doctrinal statement without attribution.

05:45

And this was, you know, thought of as maybe this is such an anomaly. This is so out of the ordinary.

05:52

This doesn't happen normally. And now some people are wondering, does it? The ERLC. This has been shown now.

05:59

You can go to the Protestia article. It talks about it. Heather Rice Minas. Heather Rice Minas is the

06:05

Vice President of Government Affairs and Church Mobilization for Prison Fellowship, the nation's largest Christian nonprofit serving prisoners, former prisoners, and their families.

06:12

She's written a number of articles for the ERLC. One of them is called A Call to Pray for Those in Prison During the

06:19

Pandemic. Another one is called What the Bible Says About Second Chances. One is called One Way to Fix America's Broken Drug Laws.

06:25

Except, did she actually write them? Grayson Pope, who also, and I'm going to go into him a little later, works for Docent, actually has on his resume the articles that he's written.

06:40

And all three that I just mentioned, written supposedly by Heather Rice Minas, were actually written according to Grayson Pope by him.

06:47

And he says on his resume, I'm not listed as the author of these articles. What is going on?

06:56

And have we found the tip of an iceberg of something that is much deeper? This is what

07:02

Docent Research Group claims. So for those who are listening and can't see, there's a church, it grows, and the pastors, it becomes many pastors, they have to hire pastors, and it was too busy.

07:31

The pastors wore too many hats, they felt pulled in too many directions. And so the leaders chose to partner with Docent for sermon research to build powerful messages for best practices, insights, and book summaries.

07:48

For demographic research and position papers.

07:54

For information to make wise decisions.

08:01

For curriculum crafted with the church's DNA. As a trusted partner, focused on executing the church's mission, theologically in tune, operationally in sync, and their effectiveness was multiplied like loaves and fishes.

08:14

I'm going to stop it. Are you catching what's happening? Docent knows your church DNA. It knows things more than you.

08:20

It's going to give you wisdom. That's what it's going to give you. Make you wise with the research that they have.

08:28

You're too busy as it is. Outsource some of that wisdom to us. We know your congregation.

08:34

We can figure this stuff out for you. It's going to be like loaves and fishes. What's the hook here?

08:39

You're going to be successful. It's going to multiply your ministry if you just use Docent. With Docent, pastors can concentrate on the mission, on the gospel, on creating healthy disciples, and on creating new churches.

08:55

All right. Enough of that. This is what

09:01

Docent is claiming to do. They're going to make you successful. They're going to make you look good. That kind of thing. Lest you think

09:07

I'm taking this too far, let's hear what some pastors have to say about it. In a moment.

09:13

I forgot. I'm going to go over this first too. Here's specifically what the website says they do. Demographics, position papers, church surveys, book summaries.

09:20

You can go look at their website if you want to know more. Here's the pricing. Now, this is not publicly available, but it's on the

09:26

Protestia article. They somehow found it. It says,

09:32

Docent's church surveys are priced based on the number of questions in your survey, not on the size of your church. Our survey pricing follows a simple curve, such as the more questions, the lower the price per question.

09:42

A sample of prices are displayed in the table below. This is, I guess, for a survey. This is, I guess, one aspect of what they do,

09:49

I'm guessing. Number of questions, if it's 20, it's $180 per question. Total price, $3 ,600.

09:55

It goes up from there. This is how they make their money. I guess this is one of the things they do, surveys.

10:02

They're making a lot of money off of this. Here's some endorsements for you. Mark Driscoll, founding and preaching pastor at Mars Hill Church, back when he was pastor there in Seattle.

10:15

Docent has been invaluable to me. I think I have had them to do nearly everything but cut my grass.

10:23

That's encouraging. They have saved me hundreds of hours of work and multiplied my effectiveness. I recommended them to lots of friends because any ministry that serves leaders who serve

10:33

God's people is a great gift. Huh. Everything but cut my grass.

10:38

J .D. Greer, it's been a humongous help to me, saving me literally hours each week and improving the quality of my preaching dramatically.

10:45

These guys are the real deal. I give them assignments and questions on everything from the interpretation to cultural analysis to illustration, and they get me through answers always on time.

10:54

They are outstanding scholars and really get my job as a communicator. I often have people remark to me, how many hours did you spend on that sermon?

11:01

Where do you get time to do all that research? Ha, thanks guys. Thanks for making me look so good.

11:06

This is on their website, guys. This was up until recently. This is disturbing.

11:14

This is, it feels astroturf. It feels like you've been duped if you're in these churches. You thought these sermons were coming from your pastor.

11:21

How much of them are actually coming from some organization that's writing the sermons your pastor is giving? I remember when

11:27

I was reading years ago J .D. Greer's sermon, When the Fall Affects Us All, right? I looked at the manuscript, and I thought, this is an odd manuscript.

11:35

It's just odd. The way it was cited, it was interesting. I just didn't think, and I don't know if I want to go into all the details of why

11:43

I thought that right now, because it doesn't make J .D. Greer look too good, why I thought this. I didn't think

11:53

J .D. Greer wrote it. I'm just telling you. I didn't think J .D. Greer formatted at least the citations and everything that he had in his manuscript.

12:00

The way he delivered it, too. I had a gut feeling at the time. I was like, this seems just slightly impersonal.

12:07

Now I'm figuring out why it felt that way. Let's keep going, though, because this just gets more and more.

12:15

Matt Chandler and Tim Keller also endorsed Docent. Let's watch these. Hi, my name is

12:20

Matt Chandler. I'm the lead pastor, teaching pastor here at the Village Church in Dallas, Texas. I've been using

12:25

Docent Research for about four years now. When I was first approached by Docent, I was a bit hesitant.

12:32

I thought it was a bit concerning that someone would... I ultimately thought, so you do sermon work for me?

12:39

And that just bothered me. It felt like cheating. It felt like I was being lazy. But in reality, the team that works for me, they don't write my sermons for me.

12:47

They actually help me be much more effective in regards to preparation, because I can do the exegetical work, and I can do my outline, and they can bolster things that I'm just not strong at.

12:57

And so they can come alongside me and help me with sociological information. They can come help me with certain cultural pieces that I just wouldn't have any idea how to research.

13:07

And then in regards to cost, you're simply not going to be able to have your own research assistant that's on staff with you at your church that you'd pay him a lot more, her a lot more, than you would

13:19

Docent for doing the work for you. And so I couldn't recommend Docent Research more highly.

13:25

So Matt Chandler, at least he's saying he does the exegetical work, but he's saying that they're helping him with the sociological stuff, the cultural stuff.

13:31

And that is, I think, where the Trojan horse lies. Here's Tim Keller and what he says. Hi, this is

13:38

Tim Keller, talking to you from New York City. When I started in ministry 45 years ago, the world was a lot simpler.

13:46

The culture was considerably simpler. Today, that's not the case anymore. So people in ministry, preachers, ministry leaders, they need to understand their local culture.

13:58

They need to understand the various cultural groups inside their church, their worldviews, their concerns, their aspirations.

14:08

We need to, in ministry, we need to understand the trends in the culture across the country.

14:14

And therefore, we actually need more savvy, savviness when it comes to culture and sociological topics.

14:23

Brad Vermeulen of the Docent Research Group can give you that. He can write reports to you.

14:29

He can do research for you. He can come and teach you and your leaders about culture and sociological topics.

14:36

He's done it here. He's great. And I'd like to recommend him and the work of the

14:41

Docent Research Group to you. So that's Tim Keller on Docent. And again, getting sociological information, et cetera, from these outside groups.

14:51

They're going to come and they're going to tell you about your local church. And I hope you're not missing this over and over.

14:57

You got to know your local church. And this outside group that's never met them, they're going to help you with that.

15:02

They're going to know your local church. So we're going to outsource some stuff. And this is so necessary.

15:07

And this is the elevation of cultural, political, to some extent, and sociological concerns over theology, in my opinion.

15:17

This has been going on as a trend for a long time. But this is a manifestation in my mind about it.

15:22

That's just my analysis. But here you hear these big guys that you've heard preach before, many of you. And now you're wondering, okay, what have they been telling me?

15:30

And what part of that is from them? What part of that is from Docent? How much? I mean,

15:36

Mark Driscoll is saying they do everything but cut my grass. J .D. Greer is saying they make me look good.

15:42

What's going on? Some other connections that are interesting. The Witness said in 2014,

15:49

Docent Research Group is looking for part -time sermon researchers, advertising this. The Witness, of course, very left wing, supposedly evangelical.

16:00

But it's just very much on the social justice bandwagon.

16:06

And so when you see something like this, you wonder, okay, there's a relationship there, isn't there? This would appeal to those who are very social justice minded to work for Docent.

16:16

Who's working for Docent? Is that who's writing these sermons, helping write these sermons for these pastors, giving them this information?

16:22

Is Docent neutral on that stuff, the political stuff? Or is Docent coming with an angle here?

16:28

Is Docent coming at this whole thing of sermon preparation and whatever else they do with a social justice bent?

16:36

And I think the answer you already know. But we're going to show it for you firsthand. So let's go through some of the people we know that work for Docent.

16:45

And there aren't any conservatives that we can identify. At least that's obvious. Here's the team on the website.

16:51

Glenn, I guess that's Luck, James Gordon, Joy Harris, Amber Bowen. We'll start with Glenn Luck.

16:58

Glenn Luck has his tweets blocked. So we don't really know exactly, according to his Twitter, what he believes about social justice and all that.

17:05

But he did write or edit a book for the world, Essays in Honor of Richard L.

17:11

Pratt, Jr. Well, Richard L. Pratt, Jr. is the founder of Third Millennium Ministries. In fact, that's what it says, the first thing, the first sentence there for the book.

17:20

And it's promoting him. You look at the comments, it's promoting him. And if you go to Third Millennium Ministries, this is what they say about social justice.

17:27

It's very important that mission programs promote social justice. Historically, missions that came to us from other countries did not participate in social justice.

17:34

Injustice causes. They were afraid of being thrown out of the country. They did not know how they would be received.

17:39

And so they did not teach the church in a natural way that Christians need to participate in acts of justice, etc. It goes on.

17:45

And if you look into Richard Pratt more, it seems obvious that he's on that social justice bent.

17:52

Glenn Luck has done a book, helped put together a book in his honor. Now, if you just type in Glenn Luck on Twitter, he's had endorsements from Al Mohler and from just all kinds of people.

18:07

Who's who of Big Eva, if you would. Reformed kind of ish evangelicalism.

18:13

They all kind of seem to know Glenn Luck. Here's James Gordon. Things start to get more obvious as we get into this.

18:22

James Gordon has also deleted his Twitter, but there's some tweets that have been captured. Philosophy professor at Wheaton.

18:30

And here's what he says. Well, first of all, he says, according to his definition, black people can't be racist.

18:37

So that's interesting. Black people can't be racist, I guess. You know, that's only for the white people. So the only objective I have, let's see.

18:43

This is in a thread. So let's see. Is racial equality. If that means chaos, then let's see.

18:50

Here's the point. He makes a tweet. He says, the only objective I have is racial equality.

18:55

If that means chaos, then let's burn it to the ground. I'll light the first match. He's saying this is August 20th, 2019.

19:04

I mean, talk about prophetic. I mean, this is before, right before, you know, less than a year before there would be riots, literally burning things to the ground.

19:12

And he's saying, yeah, that's the only objective. I have racial equality. As long as we have that, we'll just burn everything else to the ground.

19:18

That's great. And this is totally ideological. Totally. Conform everything to this abstraction.

19:25

And as long as people have the same status, it doesn't really matter what the conditions of things are. It's not loving people.

19:31

It's loving ideas. And this is James Gordon's Twitter account. He also said to someone who was kind of basically giving him some pushback, he says, enjoy your vacation.

19:41

Do yourself a favor and find a copy of Sunday's New York Times Magazine with the 1619 Project in it to read on the plane.

19:48

Endorsing the 1619 Project. Here's Joy Harris. Joy Harris, not a lot online about her, but here's what's interesting.

19:56

And this may be one of the biggest things I'm going to share. It may be. And there's just not a lot of details on it yet.

20:02

But for those who want to do more research, if they can, this is interesting. Joy Harris is

20:10

Operations Administrator at the Docent Content Group. She's also the Executive Assistant at Public Square Strategies.

20:15

Well, what is Public Square Strategies? Glad you asked. Michael Ware is the one who has basically created

20:21

Public Square Strategies. And Michael Ware is the one, if you know anything about Michael Ware, we've talked about him on the podcast, who helped start the

20:27

AND Campaign. He was one of Obama's faith advisors, helping get evangelicals to vote for Obama.

20:34

That's Michael Ware. He's a political operative trying to influence evangelicals. No two ways about that.

20:43

And Joy Harris, this is just a curious thing, she's Operations Manager or Administrator at Docent, but also

20:49

Executive Assistant at the Public Square Strategies. Now, maybe she's got two full -time or two part -time jobs.

20:54

I mean, I don't know. I don't know the specifics of all this. If there's a connection there, which there very well may be, you are looking at a direct line into political progressivism, a direct line from political progressivism into the church, into the very sermons that are being written, if true.

21:15

And so this is, I don't have much more on this connection. I'm just telling you, there's something may, or I should say,

21:22

I don't have much more on this potential connection. But there really may be a connection there. I don't know. But certainly, working for someone who is a political operative, this is not, again, we're not finding conservatives, political conservatives at all in any of this.

21:37

Amber Bowen. Now, I have some familiarity. I was the one actually, when I saw Amber Bowen, I immediately was like, oh, I know who that is. She writes for Intersect Project, or she has at Southeastern.

21:46

She's a Southeastern grad. In fact, a lot of the people I'm going to talk about are Southeastern grads, same school I went to. And it does not surprise me in the least, the people graduating from there are progressive -minded, social justice -minded, and they're also helping steer the church in a social justice direction.

22:02

Amber Bowen wrote for Intersect Project, which I should also mention, Intersect, funded by the Oeconomia Network, which is part of,

22:10

I guess, or was funded, I think it still is, by the Kern Family Foundation. And years ago,

22:15

I remember we talked about this, with the Kern Family Foundation money going into all these different schools, seminaries, and like these kind of work economic,

22:24

Oeconomia, it was the organization, but these programs starting, or these classes starting that kind of had a social justice bent.

22:30

Well, Amber Bowen has written for this Intersect Project, which is funded by Oeconomia, which is under Kern, or was.

22:39

And what she's written is all kinds of crazy things, justifying postmodernism, redeeming

22:48

Martin Heidegger, redeeming Jacques Derrida. She has one on Foucault, I believe as well, and Black Lives Matter.

22:58

She's got Christians and the transgender narrative, how they're stuck on that, declassifying gender confusion, mistaking the part for the whole human value in the pro -life ethic.

23:09

She's moving left on all these things. I encourage you, go, if you don't believe me, read the articles at the Intersect Project by Amber Bowen.

23:17

And she's working for, I think, what was she, the curriculum developer? Let's go back here. Director of Curriculum, yes, for Docent.

23:25

That's significant. And let's see, here's, I guess, this is a little out of order.

23:34

I had this in the slideshow, and I don't know if I want to go over it now. I just had an article. I'll just briefly say

23:39

Glenn Luck, also the director, had an article on plagiarism at the

23:44

Gospel Coalition from 2010. And basically, it's weird that he's the head of Docent in a way.

23:52

It's just very interesting. But he also says things like, hey, don't tell someone else's firsthand person's story in the first person.

24:00

Don't rip people off in that way. So err on the side of attribution.

24:07

So basically, he's even saying give attribution. It doesn't seem like that's been going on like it should be, certainly not with Lytton.

24:15

Now, we don't know if Lytton is directly getting stuff from Docent. We know Greer is saying he has. And Lytton is preaching sermons from Greer.

24:21

I mean, these connections are all, it's like you're sniffing around and you smell something that stinks.

24:27

You don't have every single connection yet. I think, though, as people start looking into this stuff and they start seeing more and more of what even

24:34

I'm presenting here, more is going to come out. And that's part of what I think should happen.

24:40

People should be taking this and saying, all right, I'm going to go look into this. How about Drew Tucker? Drew Tucker also worked for Docent.

24:48

He says, putting on the scholarly shoes this afternoon, getting back into the swing of things, working for Docent Research Group after the summer off,

24:54

August 26, 2009. And of course, I cannot begin, he says, to understand the thought process of these officers.

25:00

The videos are devastating and incriminating. Hashtag Black Lives Matter, 2016. 2020, he says,

25:05

I don't know much. 2020 has taught me that. But I do know that hearing a black and Asian daughter of immigrants speak as vice president -elect is big for our country and massive for my friends of color.

25:16

Guy's woke. Here's Caleb Murphree, another guy who works for Docent, or worked for Docent, I should say, from 2010 to 2013.

25:25

Says, Docent Research Group, worked for them, let's see, to provide customized research meeting specific needs of church pastors and staff throughout the

25:32

United States. Research and develop customized material for five clients. Develop high -quality material for one client weekly, reaching 1 ,000 people.

25:40

That means, translation, mega church pastor. That's what that probably means. Look, I'm getting some high -quality content.

25:49

I'm helping a guy preach to 1 ,000 people every week. Here's also some of his stuff that he's written.

25:58

I was picking things from the time he was at Docent. Currently, he's saying that he is faithfully

26:05

LGBT and has a rainbow flag on his profile. But I thought, okay, well, maybe that's new. Maybe he wasn't like that when he was working for Docent.

26:13

This is a recent thing that happens. Well, here's from 2010. He's, let's see, he says,

26:23

Fascinating story from Brandon Ambrow on being gay at Liberty University. And then on his social media, this is, let's see, 2011, he posts another story about two friends standing up in the auditorium stage, coming out to everyone one by one.

26:36

They describe what it was like to grow up and attend Christian colleges, then attend this conservative seminary, even though they knew that they were gay.

26:43

Let's see, they're learning what it means to live as evangelicals and engage this topic in new ways, ways that could bring hope for a better future relationship between evangelicals and LGBT students.

26:58

So this is the kind of stuff he's posting while he's at Docent. Here's another one.

27:03

Nobody should hold a strong opinion on homosexuality until she or he has personally interacted with someone who is gay.

27:09

I call this the Nicodemus approach. It's a quote, I guess, from a book, but he posted this 2012 while he was working for Docent.

27:17

Here's Zach Nielsen. Zach Nielsen says, Woke church, powerful. Check it out.

27:23

Check it. Doing some research for Docent Group. This is 2009 when he was working for Docent.

27:30

Let's see, he posted a response in 2010, a response to Glenn Beck on social justice and Glenn Beck's lunacy on social justice, right?

27:39

Let's see. Talking about Trump, how

27:45

Trump obscures the Christian gospel, et cetera. Social justice, he says, is 2011 equals meeting the basic tangible needs of people and fighting systemic oppression that serves to keep them there.

27:58

He's got a quote from Tim Keller on social justice. So, okay, again, another guy to the left working for Docent.

28:05

I mean, they're all like this, just about every single one of the people that you can find that's like, hey, this person works for Docent or said they worked for Docent in the past.

28:14

They're all on the left. Here's another one, Heather Joy Zimmerman. Here's the feminist stuff.

28:20

Let's see, she says, there's a difference between black churches and white churches. Most white pastors do not describe abortion as a social justice issue, while many black

28:27

Christians are confused that many white evangelicals fight against abortion and against social justice initiatives. She says,

28:33

I want to say a special congrats to all the seminary, Dallas Seminary women, in the THM grads, in the midst of all the chaos in our world.

28:41

I'm so overjoyed to see God raising up women across generations who are equipped to preach the word, to teach truth and love well, praying for you.

28:49

Now, I don't, does that mean she wants to preach, you know, them preaching to men? Well, you decide. She says,

28:56

I'll read through this thread, and this is two days beforehand. For the support and investment in a

29:03

PhD program, I take a closer church, a building deeper community that gets me out of the ivory tower, especially as a single.

29:11

Let's see. Third year, I love the depth of relationships I have with my church. So she's been at her church for three years.

29:18

She loves it. And I'm getting more ministry opportunities now that I have time to seize. The struggle to find what you're looking for is real, but I'm sure to put community on that list too.

29:28

And I mean, and here's where she says it, egalitarian Baptist isn't exactly common in parts of the

29:34

South too. So she's saying basically you drive to get to a church that's an egalitarian Baptist church.

29:40

Meaning they're not complimentary and they're not patriarchal. They're, you know, women can preach, that kind of thing.

29:45

Women, they don't have the designations between men and women that, I don't know how far she takes her egalitarianism, but debates she says regarding critical race theory demonstrate a shallow understanding of biblical theology.

29:56

The concept of sin as systemic can easily be derived from biblical theology without requiring critical race theory. The paranoia is a red herring.

30:02

The sin of two individuals led to our entire ecosystem groaning. There you go. So original sin is just like critical race theory because it's systemic.

30:12

That's what she's saying. PhD student in Old Testament at Wheaton College and working for docent or has worked for docent.

30:24

So Heather Joyce Zimmerman is another one. Let's see, Ashley Gorman, another one.

30:31

And I'll just show you Southeastern grad there. She's with Missy Branch. She definitely, totally social justice advocate, right?

30:37

She is definitely. You go watch the Southeastern montages. Missy Branch pops up in those. Thank you,

30:43

Russell Moore, she says. There aren't enough amens from Russell Moore's post on the Roman road from insurrection during the

30:49

January 6th stuff. She says, what would really happen if we defund Planned Parenthood and end abortion?

30:54

This is an older blog. So I'm hoping she doesn't believe this anymore. But in that blog, she says that,

31:02

I'll just read. It seems most pro -lifers are really just pro -birthers. They simply want the baby to be born, but when it comes to involvement in the quality of life for the baby or the mom, the majority of Christians don't really care in an obvious or measurable way.

31:14

Let's say Planned Parenthood did get defunded. No, wait, let's say abortion at large gets eradicated. Hooray for the Christians.

31:19

A burden lifted off, right? Wrong. That's a burden loaded on. See, that's the big question

31:24

God had for me. How many, how many of the great and mighty thousands at the protests against Planned Parenthood and against abortion were going to be standing in line at the adoption center if Planned Parenthood ever truly got defunded or more if abortion ever became illegal?

31:39

Let me be clear. Places like Planned Parenthood exist because the average woman in crisis doesn't feel safe or comfortable approaching people in the church for help or guidance.

31:48

Well, that's a lie. Planned Parenthood, huh. There was a huge need among a massive group of women in our country, the need to process sexual questions, get advice on pregnancy and deal with the very real factors that contribute to her desire for abortion instead of meeting that need in a personal way, it was easier for the church to act like it wasn't happening.

32:06

We stayed in our white picket fences and our prayer circles and our Sunday night potlucks and we never personally befriended women in that situation.

32:13

So like any rational person, women found and advice helped them elsewhere. Listen, we never engaged the issue and that's on us.

32:19

So how should we change? So it's the church's fault. It's the church's fault that you got Planned Parenthood out there. It's totally, the church failed, so got

32:27

Planned Parenthood. You know, murdering people is the fault of the church. I mean, apply this to any other sin, any other context where there are murders happening.

32:37

You know, it's just, it's disgusting. It's absolutely disgusting. But she's, let's see, from 2018, she's part of the docent research group and she served there for the last two years in 2018, so she's been there since 2016, as the lead curriculum writer.

32:53

She also served in a variety of roles at the Summit Church in Raleigh -Durham, North Carolina. That would be

32:58

J .D. Greer's church, guys. So interesting, interesting.

33:04

I think those who are high up at J .D. Greer's church probably know more about docent and what's really going on.

33:11

And it just takes someone with bravery to come forward and talk about what's going on. Grayson Pope, here's another person.

33:19

Senior writer -editor for the Prison Fellowship. Let's see, writer -editor for the docent group. And what does he say?

33:27

Well, he, police are still killing black people, why isn't it news anymore? 2018, posts an article,

33:32

I don't remember what mainstream publication that was from. David Platt quotes him, we cannot be comfortable as the people of God with a clear white -black divide in our country and we can't be content with deepening that divide in the church, 2018.

33:45

We got, let's see, June 8th, 2020, Russell Moore's newsletter is incredibly good and impressive. And then we have

33:52

March 23rd, 2020, a life focused intensely on the things that really matter, even if it's riddled in ups and downs,

33:58

Trump's a comfortable life. Let's see here. That's really not about Trump.

34:03

I don't know how that wound up in there. Let's read the ones about Trump here. There's one clear way the world can help the

34:08

Syrian people. The Trump administration is doing the opposite, 2018. A vote for black is a vote for blank.

34:16

A vote for blank is a vote for blank. I keep hearing from Trump supporters that I vote for, and then he has a link. I'm not sure what the link is, but it's in opposition to voting for Trump.

34:24

Now, look, I opposed voting for Trump in 2016. I look back and I realize some of the thinking

34:31

I had, I don't know if it was all quite correct, but Grace and Pope Clear, there's a lot more than just this principled stand against Trump's moral indiscretions, et cetera.

34:41

It's against Trump's policies. It's against bringing people, the whole issue with the refugees, remember that years ago.

34:49

It's the police killing black people. It's David Platt. It's Russell Moore. This is who

34:55

Grace and Pope is. Again, another guy from the left. Do you think this guy's come from the conservative side? He's coming from the left, and this is just universal.

35:03

Here, Jared Wilson, another one. Jared Wilson says twice, 2013, 2015, on the

35:09

Gospel Coalition blog. He says this, as a writer who worked for the docent research group, I know that citation of sources were diligently provided, and I've seen the original research brief provided to Pastor Mark Driscoll for the first and second

35:21

Peter study guide. The footnotes were there. So this is interesting too, because this reminds me of J .D. Greer's sermon, When the

35:26

Fall Affects Us All. When I looked at it, it was the footnotes that made me think, this is not written by Greer.

35:32

This is someone's doing research for him. This is written. There's an academic flavor to this a little bit, and I just don't think

35:39

Greer's, and most pastors aren't doing that. They're not doing these academic Travian footnotes in their sermon notes.

35:46

I've seen manuscripts. I mean, I've been through preaching class and stuff, and it's not encouraged. So to see that in his preaching notes is just interesting.

35:55

And here you have Jerry Wilson kind of verifying that, yeah, when we do something, we put the attribution there.

36:01

He says, in my time at Docent Research Group, working as a pastoral research assistant, I remember the high premium put on killer illustrations.

36:06

One client I worked for only wanted sermon illustrations, pages and pages of them, no exegesis, no reference excerpts, which means that Docent is doing some exegesis.

36:17

If this pastor was saying, we don't want that. So Docent's doing more than just giving illustrations.

36:24

Jerrod Wilson also, as many of you know, he's the one that wrote that article, was George Whitefield a

36:29

Christian, right? Because George Whitefield had slaves. So he was even a Christian. Jerrod Wilson, Dear Anti -Social

36:36

Justice Warrior, 2018, It's hard for me to believe you're so concerned about the gospel when you spend all day every day critiquing and mocking brothers and sisters and rarely if ever sharing anything approximating the, you know, gospel.

36:47

So this is, and of course the hypocrisy of even posting a tweet like that is, you know, he's not sharing the gospel in this and Jerrod Wilson, anyway, what does he expend his energy on, on Twitter?

36:59

But here's another thing, the gospel driven church, gospel centered for the cause of gospel wakefulness.

37:05

And this is his blog. And in 2010, in October, he posted this, why social justice is necessary.

37:13

And some of the things he says in it, in the miracles of Christ, we see signs of God's in breaking kingdom, which is to say, not just that they signify

37:20

God's power in Christ Lordship, but that they signify that God's kingdom is restoring righteous order to the world. Acts of social justice in much the same way are these signs, the gospel changes the world.

37:29

So how's the gospel change of the world? Well, it's through social justice and you can go on. I'm not gonna read the rest of it, but that's, he keeps connecting social justice in the gospel throughout this whole piece.

37:39

So what's the point of all this? Why share all this? The reason I share this is, is to show something, is to illustrate something.

37:49

What you're hearing from your pastor, in some cases, but from quote unquote, big

37:55

Eva, what you're hearing in politics and sports, in every avenue that you can think of, just about, it seems very coordinated, very, it's the same message.

38:05

And some of that just, people like to follow the leader and they're gonna go down that track if they think it'll benefit them or if they think it'll hurt them not to, they'll do it.

38:13

But there is something more going on. And I think we've all felt it. We've sensed it. There is a coordination of some kind in the evangelical church.

38:23

And is it, to what extent is there coordination? Are pastors just sharing notes with each other?

38:29

Well, some are. Some are sharing sermons with each other, apparently. But behind it is that there is a driving force of social justice, well -crafted social justice, subversive techniques into twisting scripture.

38:46

That's happening. And I don't know that independent pastors are the only ones just coming up with this stuff. This has a centralized feel to it.

38:55

Very common talking points. And this may be one of the clues into why we feel that way. This isn't an organization, guys.

39:02

Docents is not an organization that is providing just what they say they're providing. Well, they're just gonna give you some information that's gonna help you in your sermon prep.

39:11

They're giving specific kind of information. If it's coming from the understanding of reality that people working for them have.

39:18

The people working for them, they're woke, guys. Primarily woke. And it's, haven't found anyone that's concerned.

39:26

If you know someone, point them to me. This guy's on the right. This is someone who's working for Docent. And they've also, their work, they're affiliated with some conservative organization.

39:37

And whether that's theologically conservative, fight, I don't know. Like they work for founders or something like that.

39:47

Or they're from like a political organization. Like they used to do work for Breitbart or something like that.

39:55

I mean, you're not gonna find it. You're only finding left -wing connections. And that may be why things feel so left -wing.

40:03

And it may be why some of the books and some of the sermons and just all the material being produced seems it just twists scripture to conform to the equity, diversity, inclusion agenda.

40:15

So I wanted to share that with you. Not really saying much more than that because we've already gone on for a little over, well, yeah.

40:23

We've gone on for a while now. Over 40 minutes. One last thing

40:28

I wanted to share. Do you still have Social Justice Goes to Church? And they're downstairs, so I didn't grab one.

40:34

But I have A .D. Roble's book, Social Justice Pharisees. I am planning and I'm hoping it'll work out to finish my next book, writing it at least, at the end of this week or beginning of next week.

40:44

So prayers that I will be disciplined will be appreciated. It's called Christianity and Social Justice, Religions and Conflict.

40:50

That's our working title. And so we're going through that. I got the publisher editing stuff. We're going back and forth.

40:57

And things are going well. And we actually, I had Russell Fuller. I haven't read it yet.

41:03

He sent it to me though. And I'm gonna look at that. He's writing the foreword. So things are going well in that category.

41:10

And we got some big things coming up for the fall and the spring. And I'll be announcing those. But one of them is the book. One of the many big things coming up.

41:18

And I think you'll just get a lot more out of it. I think it's gonna be really helpful for a lot of you. That's why I'm writing it. I'm even gonna put a workbook together for small groups.

41:26

But you'll get a lot more out of it, I think, if you have this one and you have A .D. Roble's book. Those are the three that I would say these are good books to have to really understand the issue thoroughly.

41:36

So anyways, links in the info section. If you still want those. I'm still offering, if you're a patron, five bucks a month, as little as five bucks a month.

41:44

You get A .D. Roble's book, Social Justice Pharisees Free. Links are in the info section if you want any of that.

41:50

Or if you just wanna order yourself, you can order it. It's 15 bucks plus $5 for shipping. And then

41:55

Social Justice Goes to Church is autographed. So I figured I'd mention that. I appreciate all your prayers and support.

42:01

We need to be praying for the church in the United States. We need to be praying that real people with spines who love the

42:08

Lord are gonna come forward and talk about what they know about this corruption that is just plaguing the evangelical church.

42:14

This is an affront to the God that we know. This is an affront to Jesus Christ. We should be defensive about this.

42:20

We should be, we should really truly, I mean, the other side talks about lamenting all the time. Things that happened so many years ago or systemic racism that they say is around today and the privilege that we have, et cetera.

42:31

If you're white or I don't know, some other quality that makes you supposedly privileged.

42:38

What we should be lamenting though, right now in this moment, is what this says about the supposed church.

42:47

How many of these people, how many of the church is even the church? But they claim to be.

42:53

And that's a problem, guys. That should grieve us. So pray that this, that some strong leaders come about.

43:01

That some, I pray for strong pastors to rise up who aren't affected by what other people say about them or what they think or what status they're going to have, but really care about the people that they serve and most of all the

43:15

Lord Jesus Christ. And they're not going to be trying to look good for who? For the approval of man and be tempted by something like docent research.

43:24

So that's my two cents. Hope that was helpful for you all in some way and educational.

43:30

Other link I should mention, last but not least, if you want any of the information I just presented in the slideshow, it's in the info section.