Trouble in the PCA

The Ministry of Reconciliation and the Gospel of Grace

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris. We're gonna pick up where we left off yesterday. Yesterday, we talked about Bobby Scott, who I had never heard of until I saw a critical race theory panel at T4G last week, and we went over it.

And Bobby Scott had said something interesting. He said that the ministry of reconciliation given to Christians could be pursued by Christians, but that reconciliation could also be pursued by those in the world, which I thought, well, that's interesting, because the ministry of reconciliation in 2 Corinthians 5 is a reconciliation of man and God through the work of Jesus Christ.

It's the gospel. But the world can somehow approach this? I mean, the world can't even get off the ground. I mean, it was just weird. But then he went further and he said, well, looking by the way this room looks, he looked at the room and looked at the fact that there wasn't a lot of ethnic diversity.

He said we could be doing better at the ministry of reconciliation, which is really curious because the gospel itself is the ministry of reconciliation, that message that people can be made right with God through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross and his death and his burial and his resurrection.

And so the whole idea of using a 2 Corinthians 5 terminology, the ministry of reconciliation, and applying that to diversifying some kind of a organization is not certainly an orthodox reading of that passage.

And it's actually, it's law. It's works. It's not grace. And the ministry of reconciliation is the message of grace. And so I just pointed out that this was a conflation. And then someone sent me all this stuff about Bobby Scott that I was like surprised at.

He's went to Master Seminary. He's been, he's affiliated with T4G, but also the Sola Network and the Front Porch, the Just Gospel Conferences that B .D. Annabuile puts on, which that's kind of radical in my mind.

He also is, what was the other thing? I forget. He did a panel or he was, he did an interview where he talked about how the gospel can bring about reconciliation between people. But he kind of like, he says, you know, between slave and master, but he's very quick to say, but not chattel slavery.

And it was really strange. But he had these articles also for the Sola Network that seemed to be influenced by critical race theory assumptions. And so I just made the point, I'm like, look, this is a guy that I think like 10 years ago, even five years ago, many of us would have thought like, well, you know, he's T4G, he's from Master Seminary, he's probably like Orthodox in his theology.

And now you have to kind of like question some of those things. You can't just like have an open, you can't just like leave the door open. You have to have like a grid that's checking out like the Bereans did with Paul, the people that you let pass through that grid.

And so that was my only point. And so I wanted to stop though, because this is so interesting to me, what's happening today. I'm recording this on Monday. So I'm going on a trip this week. I record a bunch of podcasts in a row.

And on this day, I think it was yesterday, maybe actually, someone sent me this, maybe it was this morning. Someone sent me a video of Bobby Scott. And they said, hey, look, he's participating on this panel.

And it was from actually, it was a video of a guy, it was a podcast called Dear Woke Christian. That was the name of the podcast, Dear Woke Christian. And the guy who runs that podcast, his name is Jason Whitaker, went over some parts of this panel that Bobby Scott was sitting on.

Well, it really wasn't Bobby Scott, who was the main person talking, at least in the clips that Jason Whitaker was examining, it was someone else. And I wanna talk about that person. It's a guy named Scott Salls.

Scott Sauls and the False Gospel of Love Your Neighbor

And Scott Salls is a pastor in Nashville, Pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church. And he said something on this panel that was just, I just thought, oh my goodness, hold on, no one stopped him? I just thought, wow, I don't know.

I just would have immediately, I think, been like, wait, hold on, hold on, let's clarify this. Because this is serious stuff. So I wanna show you some parts of this panel. I don't wanna go through the whole panel.

I just wanna show you some parts of it. And then, this is the interesting timing in my mind. I got this clip, and I was thinking about Bobby Scott. I got this clip of Bobby Scott on this panel with Scott Salls, who's Presbyterian.

And then, this whole thing erupted on Facebook that I thought, and it was directly related. Well, it was indirectly related to what I was watching. And I thought, the timing of this. I couldn't believe the timing of, I'm not familiar with Scott Salls.

I wasn't familiar with Bobby Scott. I'm becoming more familiar now. And then, this all comes around the same time that, I'll show you, this thing happens on Facebook. So it's amazing to me how these things have all come together.

But let me just play for you the clip that I wanna play for you. And we'll go from there. So we'll start here at the beginning. This is, Woke Preacher Clips is the one that posted this. It's actually from 2021.

And it's actually hosted, actually, let's go to the original source video here, if we can here. This is Race, Gospel, and the Local Church. And of course, it's the SOLA Conference. It's that organization, the SOLA Network, which Bobby Scott had written those articles for that I went over some aspects of in the last particular podcast.

So, Woke Preacher Clips found this, and they ended up doing this whole, they took a clip from it. And this is the clip I wanna play for you.

Listen to this. Injustice, the sin of racism, is that even though it's not a actual, like, doctrinal gospel issue, is that something that flows from it as a gospel implication? So if we think about the gospel primarily as the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, being saved by grace through faith, then they can say, just talk about that.

Don't talk about race, politics, justice, social issues. But why is gospel-centered people? And I think Bobby started to talk about that. Why is there a need for us to talk about these issues in the church, as the church?

Okay, before anything else, let's just stop it right there. Did he rightly give you, in a nutshell, a definition of the gospel? Let's just put on the side this whole idea of gospel implications. Let's just, did he, right in that moment, say what the gospel was?

And he did. Salvation by faith, grace through faith, the life, death, burial, resurrection of Jesus, right? That's the gospel. Check out what this guy, and here's Bobby Scott sitting right here, and we've talked about the whole merging of law with grace, and it's just, at the best, sloppiness.

At worst, it's just false teaching is what it is, but maybe there's sloppiness resulting in that. I don't know, but he's made comments that are confusing at best. Listen to this guy on the far right side of this panel as you're looking at the stage, Scott Sahls.

Last I checked, love your neighbor is part of the gospel. It is doctrinal. To love your neighbor as yourself is based on a doctrine that we must love our neighbor as ourself, and there is no, there is no integrity in our preached gospel if there is a lack of a social dynamic that emphasizes the dignity of every person from every background, from every nation, every tribe, tongue, people, group.

Great commission, the phrase Jesus used was, we have it translated all nations. The Greek reads ta ethne, all ethnic groups. Go into all the world to every ethnic group and preach the gospel. So you cannot separate the gospel from leveling the ground for ta ethne, for all ethnic groups, for all people groups.

The second command is just like the first one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. Love your neighbor as yourself, and when I hear just preach the gospel, when it's used as an occasion to dismiss, particularly the cries that are coming from injured people groups, people groups that feel marginalized because they have been.

Let's stop it right there. Did you catch it?

That's more than a stretch. That's just false teaching. It is the same false teaching I would expect from a liberation theologian. Walter Strickland said something, basically the same thing that Scott Sauls is saying here.

A few years ago, 2018, he said that the gospel is loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving your neighbor as yourself. That's not even part of the gospel, that's the gospel.

And you hear Scott Sauls doing the same thing, that's making the same move here. Love your neighbor, well, that's part of the gospel. And what is loving your neighbor though? That's in the category of law.

That's what actually condemns us, because we can't do it, and that's why we need Jesus. And then once we're saved, we love our neighbor out of a love for Christ, and the law becomes a guide for us. But love your neighbor is not part of the good news.

That's actually part of what condemns us. He is taking that, and then as you'll see, and there's more I could play. There's actually another clip, what preacher's clips put up here about critical race theory and Scott Sauls, but he takes this, and he takes that love your neighbor concept, and then infuses into that assumptions about an egalitarian society, and making that possible in some way, shape, or form, some kind of a society that is like that.

And that pursuing this is somehow part of the gospel. I'm gonna keep playing it for you, but I just want you to recognize that there's more errors in this than just one, but that's the big error.

Feeling, it's actually an existential reality that there are certain skin colors, certain ethnicities, certain Eurocentric origins that have had the advantage economically, as PJ was saying, socially, in terms of who has access to leadership and power and decision-making and culture-shaping for organizations, businesses, communities, cities, municipalities, the whole nation.

And so, as the church... Just think about this for a minute.

The world that Jesus came into, and the world Paul was in, when they're preaching the gospel, and the Romans are just controlling everything, economics, politics, militarily, they're controlling, they're taxing everyone, it'd be very easy to be like, well, this Roman privilege is just, it's a real problem.

Roman male privilege, specifically. They had a slave system, they had colonialism of a sort, they had, I mean, you could look at the Romans and see so many things that you could even make out to, you could even portray as much worse than what happened in the Western world or in the United States of America recently.

And so, you don't find any language even close to this in the New Testament, where, well, the gospels love your neighbor, and because of that, part of the gospel is going and making sure that everyone's economically equal, and everyone, gotta take away that Roman privilege, and there's nothing like that.

But this is where Scott Sauls wants to go here.

You can't just preach the gospel while leaving your neighbor out. You're actually preaching a sub-gospel, a substandard gospel, an incomplete gospel, when you only preach, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind.

You know, C .S. Lewis said that your neighbor, next to the blessed sacrament, it's

But again, that's not the gospel. Loving your God and loving your neighbor isn't the gospel. That's the problem with this. So, like he's saying, the substandard gospel is when you just preach loving God.

That's not even the gospel, though. You know, you gotta include love neighbor in that. No, that's the law, that's the commands of God, that's the summary of the Ten Commandments and the laws God has given to humans to follow.

So, if your neighbor is the holiest object that will ever be presented to your senses, and so there's this sacredness of other human beings. And I think that it's important to remember, as well, in this conversation, that when Jesus said to preach the gospel, when he gave the Great Commission and said, go into all the world to all ethnic groups, he was doing so from the center of the earth and was talking about, in part, us who now reside at the ends of the earth, right?

And so, it's a very arrogant thing to behave as if we are the center of the Christian story and everybody else gets to be grafted in, when, in fact, we are on the periphery and we have been lovingly and graciously grafted in by our savior who hails from the Middle East and with, in all likelihood, brown skin, probably more like your skin, PJ, than mine or Bobby's, which is a wonderful conglomerate, right, of...

You show me where, in the New Testament, there's a focus on, anywhere, on the skin of Jesus and what color it was, and that being a significant factor in relationship to the salvation of people.

Of dark and light skin, you look at the Middle East and you see, in that particular ethnicity, what it might look like to put us all together as one. And so, there's just such a great symbolism there, even in the likely skin color of Christ himself, it was an inclusive color.

And so, I just, I don't know how you can preach the gospel without loving people, and loving people includes being quick to listen and slow to speak and to be teachable, to be humble, to be ready at all times to repent of our own blind spots when those blind spots are exposed, rather than getting defensive and testy about it.

So, yeah, that's the real inclusive thing about having every single author of the Bible be a male, and the particular preference that God gave to the nation of Israel, that's just an inclusive thing. This is so outside anything, this is taking, trying to stretch, to take things from what's happening currently in academia and politics and entertainment, and what's really popular, which is, it's not popular to be white now, that's a bad thing, and to try to downplay it as much as possible, but then to infuse it in the gospel is crazy to me.

So, anyway, this is just, it actually reminds me of Rob Bell a little bit, this guy, but this was my first taste of Scott Saul's teaching anywhere, and I was like, who is this guy, and why is he on a panel for the Sola Network, which I thought this would be about the Solas of the Reformation, this is totally against, and so I didn't, I'm like, who is this guy, who is this guy, right?

Elon Musk, Twitter, and the Pattern of Liberal Pietism

And then this happens, so I want you to check this out, this is weird to me, how this all kind of came together, but this is a particular post by Rod Martin, Rod, for those who don't know, he's an investor, the Martin Group is his organization, but he's also part of Conservative Baptist Network, and so he posts this, and you'll see how this relates in a minute, this is from a guy named John Payne, and he posts this tweet, and I'll read the tweet, for those listening, I'll try to describe this to you, and then I will read Rob Martin's assessment of this tweet, so the tweet is, dear Christian, if Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter ignites more hope and joy in your heart than the gospel, you either don't understand the gospel, have drifted from the gospel, or have forsaken the gospel altogether.

The believer's true and lasting hope and joy is not found in any man or worldly institution, the Christian's hope and joy are found in the saving grace and sovereign rule of Christ alone, and in sola dea gloria.

So, I looked at this first, and I just saw it on my newsfeed, and I was like, yeah, that's the reason I'm not on Twitter, because I'm like, those are the kinds of things that I started to see a tendency in myself to want to just start lecturing everyone, and tweeting out all these just hot takes, really, of like, hey, and usually they're like obvious truths, like so obvious, no one's gonna come out and disagree with you on the idea that the gospel should ignite your heart more than Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, but what's happened, I think, especially in the last few, in the last year, people are getting tired of these hot takes, especially from gospel coalition articles, so it's not just Twitter, it's broader than that, but if you look at gospel coalition articles, it's like, their shorter ones are like a string of hot takes and they're made for Twitter.

Twitter has, I don't know, it's changed the way that people even blog and stuff. It's been around for a while, I know, but if you look at before Twitter was popular, I think blogs have changed. That's just totally a unfounded assumption that I have that I did not prepare to prove, but that's what I think.

So anyway, these hot takes are primarily like, okay, from like the more progressive side of, even if, I don't even know, I want to call it evangelicalism, but what you find on the more progressive side of evangelicalism, for lack of a better term for it, gospel coalition will be part of this, Christianity Today, that there's like this effort to take issues of the left and make them gospel issues or make them issues of loving your neighbor or sort of fuse them with Christianity somehow in some way.

And then on the other side, whether it's like a political conservative issue, it's idolatrous. You gotta watch out, that's idolatry, that's a problem. Like, don't love that more than Jesus, make sure that you love your country.

Oh man, Christian nationalism, you gotta make sure that you love the gospel more than you love your country. It looks like there's idolatry going on. It's always idolatry on the right. And then it's one in the same and in congruence and reconciled with the gospel when it's an issue of the political left.

It's running on the same course. And so it gets weird. It gets like what you saw like Bobby Scott say about on that panel from T4G of like, well, there's the ministry of reconciliation and there's people in the world that are doing it and where we can do it better.

It's like, well, no, there's no one in the world doing that actually. That's something only Christians can do. And so like, it's very easy to take these issues of the political left and things that a political left are doing.

You see this like woke church, Eric Mason like wants to look at, look at the denazification program in Germany. And man, that's just like, that's the kind of thing the church should be doing as gospel ministry and looking to that example and the anti-apartheid stuff in South Africa.

And it's like, yeah, but these aren't even Christians you're talking about. And so that gets incorporated into gospel category, Christian category, Christian ethics. And then the other side, the right wing stuff or the conservative stuff is not.

In this particular situation, you have Elon Musk who really honestly probably just got himself a huge headache by doing this. He's a target now. He'll probably lose tons of money, but he decided I'm gonna buy Twitter.

And he does this. And the thing that makes Christians and conservatives, but Christians happy about it is the fact that we were banned. We saw where things were going and there's a little bit of freedom left.

They're just rejoicing and like, I can say some stuff that's true. And I can say stuff that's in keeping with my biblical morals. Stealing's wrong and I can say it and lying to people's wrong. And guess what?

The idea that men can be women and women can be men and that's not hate speech. I can say it. That's the thing that they're thinking at least is gonna happen with Elon Musk being in Twitter. I don't know if that's all true.

I mean, look, who is it? Mike Lindell, like it's kind of funny, but it's not. Mike Lindell got a Twitter account back and he's like, hey, I'm back on Twitter. And a couple hours later, Twitter banned him again.

So I don't know if he'll get that back or not. But so I'm waiting to see what will happen. But the thing that the press is freaking out about like, oh, Elon Musk is gonna, he's gonna allow all this disinformation and hate.

And Christians are like, he's gonna allow freedom. He's gonna allow us to say things that we couldn't say before. So that's a cause for rejoicing. And then when that parade's going down the street, you have a guy like John Payne coming out and be like, don't forget, if that ignites more hope and joy in your heart than the gospel, you don't understand the gospel.

You're drifted from the gospel. You're a blah. These are really heavy accusations. If you really think about what he's saying, these are heavy charges, right? And so like, it's scary of like, oh my goodness, I can't rejoice too much in this.

I have my pastor or this conservative leader, and I'll introduce you to John Payne in a minute, but this conservative leader in the PCA telling me, like, I better not, I gotta watch that. I better not have more joy than I have in the gospel.

I don't even know quite how, I mean, what he's saying is like true. It's an obvious truth. But it's like, I'm like, where is that happening? And then secondly, it's like, how do you quantify that? That's very hard, like in the moment, like if your sports team wins and you jump up and down, or if it's Father's Day and you're like, hey, you're the best dad, or if there's a million things we do in life where we're rejoicing in the moment and it's a special occasion and there's a time for it, and it's like, are you gonna just like get your heart out and like start evaluating and be like, man, I really need to make sure that like my rejoicing isn't more than my, like this, I don't know.

I used to live a little bit like this where I would just, everything's gotta be evaluated all the time, or I'm not worshiping, or I'm not, and it's just, I don't, it's a horrible way to live. And this would plague my conscience, this kind of a thing.

And I'm, thankfully I'm set free from that stuff now, but, so it doesn't bother me. But when I, like my conscience at least, but when I see something like this, I ask the question like, okay, what's actually, what is someone actually trying to say when they say this?

What's the point of this? Are they really legitimately concerned that Christians are, like Elon Musk is going to somehow divert Christians' hearts from rejoicing over the gospel? Or is this like a political move?

Is this kind of like, hey, I'm not, I'm kind of like not with that parade that's rejoicing over Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter. I'm, I see something potentially nefarious and negative with this. Or I, like that's the question that I have, because it seems like a odd take, like an obvious take, kind of a silly take to, in the beginning.

But then there's also the idea that I'm like, well, maybe this guy has friends that I'm just not aware of. Like he's got some friends that are like, literally being like, you know what? I think this is better than the gospel or something.

I don't know. Maybe there's some weird people he's friends with. So, anyway, I just thought, man, that's weird. And that was pretty much it. That's weird. I'm glad I'm not on Twitter. I read Rod Martin's take on it.

He goes, liberal pietism 101, make Christians feel guilty and worldly if they're happy about positive developments, otherwise known as blessings. Also like Tim Keller this weekend on abortion, it says another story, make Christians feel indifferent to curses and feel guilty and worldly for standing against them.

I detect a pattern, he says. And he's spot on about this, by the way, that pattern does exist. It's like, hey, you're gonna oppose evil, then you must be like, you must be making politics your religion or something.

You're wrong for doing that. You better go love the gospel and pray for a few more hours. When was the last time you evangelized? But if you're rejoicing with a victory that's good for political conservatives, it's like, it's the same kind of treatment, like whether you stand against that kind of evil from the left or you rejoice in a victory for the right.

So I see the same pattern Rod Martin's seeing. And then he says, the purpose is to prevent any positive action by believers outside the four walls of the church. Like Satan tempting Jesus, it uses the word against itself.

It is Gnostic, its author is not God. And I'm not exactly sure, maybe I'm just dim right now, but I'm not sure what the Gnostic reference is exactly. But its purpose is to prevent any positive action by believers outside the four walls of the church.

That is the effect it ultimately has. I think he's right about that. That is the effect it has. It's like, you're afraid to get involved in political things and it's a big problem because you really need Christians involved, but you're afraid because, I mean, I don't wanna like subvert my love for the gospel somehow or replace it with that.

So a lot of people like this and there's a lot of comments on it. And so this is the point though, where the video I showed you at the beginning starts, you'll start to see why I'm saying there's a connection here that I didn't realize at first glance.

John Payne, the PCA, and the Case for Denominational Clarity

So then I found this comment that tipped me off. This is the one that I, it made me all of a sudden, a bunch of things came together for me. This is Josh Bice, who is the director of the G3 Ministries.

And he pushed back at this. And he said, I completely disagree with your approach to quote booking and quote tweeting John's statement and running down a path that both judges his motives and falsely accuses him of a devious liberal agenda.

So he's saying this to Rod Martin, that I disagree with you on this. I have been friends with John for years and we have our own disagreements, but I think we lose credibility in the social justice fight in the public sphere when we lose sight of the real dragons and use the sword against those who are actual brothers.

Take a shot at Keller if you'd like, but I will respectfully challenge your approach here with pain. Go hard and strong after real enemies, there is much at stake. I hope you win, but the pathway to victory isn't at the expense of good men's character.

Payne's observations taken at face value is an honest observation that many gospel preachers have raised over the last week. So that was the pushback. And I don't think I agree with this necessarily. And part of it is, I guess, I haven't seen maybe what he's seeing.

And maybe you can put in a link in the info section if someone, or the comments, if someone knows about a bunch of people who are saying that this is better than the gospel. Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter.

I haven't seen that, but hey, maybe there's weird stuff out there I don't know about. But if that's true, then maybe that was something Payne needed to do. Maybe like, I just have my doubts a little bit about that.

The thing is that there is a cause to sometimes go after Christians when they're not being clear about the gospel especially. And that was specifically, and this is where I'm gonna get to the video that I showed you in a minute, specifically when they are associating closely with false teachers.

That's an issue because it just creates confusion. Because you're like, you trust this guy, right? You trust Peter. Why is he with the Judaizers, right? That kind of dynamic. That's, you confront that person to their face when they do that kind of thing, right?

And so I just think there is a precedent for critiquing, at times, believers. I'm not saying that you should make a habit of it. I'm publicly doing this, but it's a public forum. John Payne put it in a public forum.

It's being critiqued in a public forum. It's, you know, and I'm not saying I even stand by everything Rod Martin said. I was, at first I was even skeptical. Like, I'm like, he's a liberal agenda. But then I was like, you know what?

The effect of his words, I can totally see what Rod Martin's saying here. The thing though that stood out, this is more important than all of this. The thing that stood out to me was, I was like, why is Josh Bice the one defending this?

I'm like, who is John Payne that Josh Bice is defending him? And then it all clicked for me. I was sent a video a few weeks ago about John Payne. And I then immediately, I was like, when I was sent that, I was like, oh, wow.

I remembered I watched this video of John Payne. And so I'll find it, let's see, and we'll watch it. So I posted it. I said, Rod Martin, about the 26 minute mark, I think you'll find John's approach to progressives in the PCA interesting.

Now, what am I talking about? I'm gonna come back to this thread. Let me show you what I'm talking about. Here's John Payne, and he's speaking with the gospel, or he's speaking on PresbyCast, which is a PCA, I guess, I think it's a PCA focused podcast.

And he's talking about the, well, the GRN Conference, the, what would that be? Gospel Reformation Network Conference, okay. That's what he's talking about. And this is, just so people know, this is who John Payne is, it all came together.

Serves at Christ Church Presbyterian in South Carolina. He is the executive coordinator of Gospel Reformation Network, trustee at Westminster Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and a trustee at the Banner of Truth.

So I was like, oh, wow, okay, so he's got some credibility here. He's, as far as like, he's got some institutional clout in the PCA, didn't realize that. That's why it made sense for some reason, me seeing Josh Bice talk about it, I was like, oh, wow, okay, this was an important guy, I guess.

So then I remember this video, and I'll play the video, and then I want to read for you more from this thread and make some comments.

We seem to be experts on all sorts of things, or at least they've read a book about it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. You know, it's always interesting to have dialogue with friends from different perspectives around the PCA. I've appreciated my different conversations that I've been able to have with Scott Sauls, with Mike Kanjian, with David Cassidy.

Recently, David and I had a very long email exchange, and I really appreciated that. And, you know, he responded when I had shared some things with him of concerns that I have and that folks in our so-called camp have, and he responded very graciously and said, you know, I've never really, I forget exactly the way he said it, but it was illuminating to him, and he shared that.

And, you know, I think some of that came out in his article that he wrote, where I didn't agree with everything in his article, but I appreciated his desire to say, hey, you know, we haven't said enough about the things we're concerned about as it concerns side B gay Christianity in the denomination.

We haven't been, I don't know if he's expressly said anything about social justice issues, but that's one of the concerns we have, is if some of these more radical expressions that are happening in the PCA are indeed as concerning to some of our more progressive or moderate leaning brothers, then why aren't they speaking out publicly or writing publicly on them?

And so I think that would be helpful in terms of the unity of the PCA for there to be more expression from both sides about what we see as outside the bounds.

I mean, let me stop there for a minute and just kind of review what he's talking about, because if you don't understand side B Christianity, this idea that you can be same-sex attracted, have like a homosexual orientation and still a faithful Christian.

And so these are issues that, social justice issues, but that's one of the issues plaguing the PCA. And so he talks about this, but listen to some of the words he uses. They're brothers. Scott Sauls is part of that group.

And I don't really know about the others, but I just thought it was ironic that I'm getting this video, and it's related to Bobby Scott, but Scott Sauls is the one speaking. And then I watched this again.

Once I saw Josh Bice's comment, I'm like, well, let me go revisit that thing, that John Payne video that I was sent. And I heard Scott Sauls and I was like, oh my goodness, wait a minute. He's calling, he's saying Scott Sauls is a brother.

He's wanting unity, he uses that word. He's appreciating the conversations he's having with those guys. I just thought what an interesting posture to have towards Scott Sauls and some of these others that he says are progressives, and yet the tweet against people who rejoice about Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter.

I thought that's really strange. Now, let me, I really wanna play this to the 38-minute mark. Let me just play it a little more if we can get to that 38-minute mark. I encourage you to go watch the whole thing.

Go watch this, John Payne on the 2022 GRN Conference and current issues in the PCA. You can check it out on YouTube. Let me see if I can just play a little more, and then I'll show you some more of that thread.

I mean, Brad, if there was some crazy TR, rabid, fanged guy, uncharitably going after people and being ridiculous, we would say something. We would talk to them. We would tell them to stand down. And we have done.

We have done in the past those kinds of things. Please don't go to the mic at GA. We do not want you to go to the mic.

I want you to know, I didn't hold it against you when you rebuked me in that way.

But we do that from time to time because we do love the PCA and we don't want unnecessary contention. And the fact is there are guys on the so-called extreme left and on the so-called extreme right that really do love controversy.

And they live and feed off of it. And that's just not the GRN. I don't think that's the best of our brothers in the national partnership. But I do think that while we do contend for what we believe is right for the PCA and the future of the PCA, we need to be honest.

That's why I really appreciate when confessional guys and more progressive guys are just honest about what their commitments are. Because then we can have a conversation on whether or not it's gonna be possible for us to all stay in the denomination.

I guess I'm just not wired this way. I don't know if it's my 20 years of soccer or my competitiveness. I'm just not wired to just look at a problem and to see such division and say, well, let's just all go ahead and stay together.

It's gonna be okay. Let's just not worry about these things. No, these things really matter. These are very serious issues that are facing the PCA right now.

I want you to listen to this because there's a switch in my mind. So the first part of this is that we want unity. They're brothers. We've had good conversations. And then it switches and he starts saying these are serious issues in the PCA.

This is important, the issues that divide us. And so at the beginning, it's like we're having these good conversations and they just need to write more. They need to clarify more. There's kind of like this sense in which he's saying it's unclear kind of where all the disagreements are and we're trying to figure it out.

We're still in this process of just trying to figure it out and we gotta write more. And then he kind of does this transition where, well, it's the radicals on both the right and the left that are feeding off the controversy and almost like there's unity in the middle.