PCA Segregation, Samford U's DEI, SBC Abuse Nothing Burger, MacArthur's Last Lap

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I want to say grace to you, all of you who are at the

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Shepherds Conference. For me, it's the highlight of the year, so you have to know my disappointment in coming to you through video.

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It really came down to being the only option because I haven't had such a speedy recovery as I hoped to have.

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I feel great. I just lost a lot of strength by being seven weeks in the hospital.

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I mean, it's the hospital that can kill you. You can survive the illness if you can survive the hospital, then you've won on every level.

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It took a toll on me physically, so I'm seeing physical therapists and trainers and trying to get back as soon as possible.

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I had the message on my heart, and I didn't want to lose the opportunity to give it to you.

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So we printed it up in a booklet. The good news is you don't have to listen to me, and you don't have to take notes because you're going to get the sermon in a booklet form.

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I just know how much I miss being at Shepherds Conference. I love the fellowship.

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I love the preaching. I especially love the singing, every aspect of it, and the camaraderie and fellowship of meeting people is always a highlight.

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So thank you for your prayers. Thank you for your faithfulness and being a part of Shepherds Conference.

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I'll be praying for you and asking the Lord to bless in an unusual way and sharpen all of us for whatever the

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Lord has for us in the future. I realize I'm on the last lap.

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That takes on a new meaning when you know you're on the short end of the candle.

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But I am all thanks and praise to God for everything

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He's allowed me to be a part of and everything He's accomplished by His Word in these years of ministry.

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Grace and peace to you from God, our Father, and the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And with that, we start the conversations.

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That's a message from Dr. John MacArthur, Pastor John MacArthur, at the

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Shepherds Conference from last week. My dad was actually there. I grew up going to the Shepherds Conference quite a bit because my dad is a

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Master's Seminary graduate, and I don't think when he started going to Master's Seminary—I know MacArthur had a name, but I don't think he thought of it, maybe expected it to blossom quite the way that it has, where MacArthur has such an international ministry.

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But John MacArthur, from when I was a little kid, was always just the pastor of the church where my parents met and where my dad went to seminary and was a deacon, and my uncle's a member there.

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He was kind of like the pastor of the church back in California, back home. And so this probably has an impact on me in ways it doesn't with everyone having a little bit of a closer attachment than someone who's just listened to him.

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But look, if you're someone who's listened to a lot of John MacArthur, which I know many of you have, this hits you.

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This makes you reflect and pause and consider to see this stalwart of the faith, this

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Bible teacher who has been so influential over the course of over five decades, look very frail.

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And I know he was in the hospital for about seven weeks. He had a heart condition, a heart surgery last summer.

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And I mean, he says he's on his last lap. He's not long for this world, no matter what.

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I mean, the best case scenario, he doesn't have a lot of time left. And, you know, there's so many thoughts that were coming to my head.

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I'll probably have more and share more at whatever point he passes if the Lord hasn't taken me first.

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But there's a few things I did want to say. I do think that there's a leadership vacuum that's already emerging.

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And when John MacArthur does finally pass away, I think that's going to be felt much more.

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We're going to get to the Steve Lawson apology in a minute, but Steve Lawson likely would have been the interim pastor if it had not been discovered that he was involved in that extramarital affair that he was involved in.

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I'm not trying to say that he's like everything was riding on him.

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For that institution or Evangelical Christianity, Reformed Evangelical Christianity as a whole, he's a little younger.

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He's still a little bit. He's an older guy. But with that moral failure and now

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John MacArthur's kind of aging, there are guys, obviously, but guys who can fill those shoes, guys of that stature, guys who are going to be the

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Bible teachers that hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people turn to and listen to.

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I'm not seeing others come up behind them. Now, God's going to build his church.

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I think God's going to do things, and I know many solid good Bible teachers on local levels. I guess all

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I'm trying to say is that there's a fading of an era, an era where I think technology of radio played a very prominent role in disseminating the

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Bible. I think that's still going to play a role, but it did boost these certain churches. MacArthur was one of those churches.

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Then the conference circuit, of course, being another big booster, and I think the conference circuit is starting to take a hit as well.

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There's still conferences, but they're not the same. People who attend know. They can sense it. It's like, eh, it just doesn't seem the same, a lot of them.

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Of course, R .C. Sproul died in, I think it was 2017. John Piper, of course, has been somewhat marginalized by the woke stuff because he went somewhat, at least on the woke train, and he's said other things that I think have made him fall out of favor.

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T4G doesn't have their conferences anymore. You have the Nine Marks guys, but they've also fallen out of favor because of the compromise on wokeness and the

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COVID. I mean, 2020 really did expose a lot of guys. John MacArthur has been able to weather all these storms, in a way.

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He's been astonishingly consistent and just has his priorities, it seems like, in the right place.

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He's not a perfect man. I'm not saying that. There are guys who seem to think that. He's not a perfect man, and he would tell you he's not a perfect man.

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No one is, except Jesus Christ. He hasn't been consistent on every single issue.

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I understand he's a man. You're talking about over five decades of ministry. I think one of the things, at least,

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I do like about him is when situations arose, like the COVID situation, but situations that maybe did not necessarily fit the way that he was doing things before, he adjusted.

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He led the church through some very hard matters. I'm just very grateful for him.

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I just think that I would love to see other guys kind of rise up and not, as pastors, not just be guys who weigh in on cultural things.

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I want people to weigh in on cultural things. I've said that before, the expository teaching alone, where you don't actually make application, that can be very blinding because you need to apply it into a context.

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It's also easy to have an imbalance where you're so focused on things happening around you that you forget to actually teach the

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Bible and put in the study necessary to do so. That's one of the things about John MacArthur. He labored to understand what the

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Bible says and then to explain it for people in the pews.

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I think he also did application. My brother said not long ago that,

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I thought it was funny, he goes, something like the best version of John MacArthur is the kind of ticked off, get off my lawn boomer

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John MacArthur, when he's unscripted and he just takes an aside in a sermon that he wasn't planning. I happen to agree.

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I think his instincts are so good. Sometimes even when he has a particular theology on, for example,

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I'm thinking of Romans 13 or something and how it applies, and then a situation arises, his instincts kick in and it's gold.

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It's sometimes, I think, better than even some of the things he's preached previous to actually reacting to a situation.

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That's just some praise, I suppose, for John MacArthur, but some sadness and some fondness for the situation he's in.

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Obviously, he's not dead yet, so he still has a little ways to go at least, but he's looking frail and weak from that video.

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He didn't even preach. He, I guess, wrote a sermon out and then they published it. I have not seen that.

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I don't think it's available beyond those who attended the Shepherd's Conference. Yeah, all that to say, we are entering,

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I think, a new era, and it's a generational thing too. I mean, he's a boomer, and I think the boomer era is coming to a close, even though we have a boomer president, but even with institutions like the church, the conference circuit in Christianity, the

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Christian industry publishing, there's a new generation that's going to be taking the bull by the horns, and it remains to be seen what that's going to look like.

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I find it interesting that Shepherd's Conference, T4G, I would say even

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G3 have overall have not seemed to really raise up a lot of younger guys.

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I'm not saying they haven't tried to do that, but it hasn't really taken off. It hasn't caught, and I don't know exactly why that is.

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I have some theories about why that might be, but we are going to need

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Bible teachers, and something I've been thinking about for my own life too, and my own goals and direction is, is this something that I foresee myself focusing on a lot more, and maybe less on some of the cultural matters out there, because I think there is just this great need.

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I want to focus on cultural matters. I'm not saying that I wouldn't, but obviously, my work has been this, against the ways

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Christian order in a liberal age. It just came out. I think it's super important that you get it, but it's hard when you see multiple needs out there.

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The Lord's going to figure it out though. That's the thing. The Lord's going to figure all of this out. We just got to be faithful to him, figure out how to invest the gifts and talents he's given us in the best way possible.

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All right. Cooke, I guess that's your name, Cooke Patrol. Okay. Well, the

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Master's Seminary has raised up a lot of young men. I know that. I totally realize that. There's a lot of young men out there who are pastoring, but my point is you don't have the guys with the stature and the leadership and recognition and all of that of someone like a

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John MacArthur. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it's better to have a lot of local pastors who are able to do this kind of thing.

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That actually might be a healthier thing in a way, but it's situational. We're in a world right now where people very much look to the center still.

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There still seems to be celebrity pastor types who fill this gap, but are they going to be of the caliber of John MacArthur?

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That's what I'm trying to say. That's my whole point. That's okay. There's no good celebrity pastors, says

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Cooke Patrol. Well, it certainly sounds like a pejorative. I don't think maybe

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I could use a better word than celebrity, famous pastors, pastors that have wide acclaim and wide reach.

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That's all I'm talking about. I'm not saying it in the negative sense necessarily. All right, well, there are some other comments.

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What about Votie? Yeah, Votie's great. I have nothing negative to say about Votie Bauckham. I love

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Votie. He has been a great friend too, an encourager to me, and so has John MacArthur, by the way.

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I have somewhere on my shelf some of the things that he's written to me, and I cherish those things.

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Let's see. How about Moeller? No. No. We want people who are principled, not people who are weather vanes, and Moeller's a bit of a weather vane.

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He has some good things he says on the briefing, but if you go watch any of my videos, I have a whole playlist,

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I think, on Al Moeller on my YouTube channel. Start going through that, and you'll see Moeller's in the midst right now of trying to, it seems like, contradict things that he pushed 10 years ago.

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Oh, yeah, we're going to talk about the PCA in a minute, Meg's asking. Yeah, we're going to get there, but I wanted to just think about this for a moment and just realize that we're turning a page here, and I think that it's a significant moment in a way, and maybe this will cause you, if you're looking at going into the ministry, maybe

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John MacArthur's the kind of guy that can really inspire you to, because I really think he was, and is,

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I'm saying was, I shouldn't say that, because he is still around. He still is a good teacher of the

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Bible, a good expositor of Scripture. I think his heart, so often, I think is in the right place, and I understand for those closer to the big institutions, which he does run big institutions, or he's been in charge of big institutions, you can get kind of black billed.

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There's all these internal politics, it gets frustrating. There's people who are riding coattails, and all of that, yes, that exists in big institutions, but I think

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MacArthur was in it for the right reasons, and if anything, he gave the benefit of the doubt to people to assume that they were in it for the right reasons, too, with the people around him.

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So, all right, yes, people are asking about Steve Lawson. We're going to get into some more topics, so thank you for letting me kind of relish that point.

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Maybe we'll just do that next. Is that, I wasn't going to do it next, but let's just do it next. So, Steve Lawson just put out this afternoon a,

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I don't know if you could even call it apology, but I'll read it to you. It's an expression of repentance, and this is what it says.

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It says, it is with a shattered heart that I write this letter. I have sinned grievously against the

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Lord, against my wife, my family, and against countless numbers of you by having a sinful relationship with a woman, not my wife.

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I am deeply broken that I have betrayed and deceived my wife, devastated my children, brought shame to the name of Christ, reproach upon his church, and harm to many ministries.

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You may wonder why I have been silent and largely invisible since the news of my sin became known.

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I have needed the time to search my own soul to determine that my repentance is real. I alone am responsible for my sin.

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I have confessed my sin to the Lord, to my wife, and to my family, and I've repented of it. I have spent the past month searching my heart to discover the roots of my sin and mortifying them by the grace of God.

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I hate my sin, weep over my sin, and have turned from it. My sin carries enormous consequences, and I will be living with those for the rest of my life.

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Over the years, many have looked to me for spiritual guidance, and I have failed you. I beg for your forgiveness.

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I have been undergoing extensive counseling for the last five months to face the hard questions

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I need to address. I have dealt with sin issues that have been painfully exposed to my heart. I have submitted myself in weekly accountability to two pastors and two elders of a local congregation who have shepherded my soul.

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I have also, under the oversight of an accountability team who monitor my progress and give me wise counsel in the decisions

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I have to make. I am growing engraced, reading and absorbing the Word of God, putting it into practice, praying, and meeting with other believers.

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I am involved in the life of the Church, attending and participating in prayer meetings, Sunday school, the worship service, and taking communion weekly.

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I am being fed the Word in the midweek Bible study. Please pray for my spiritual growth into Christ -likeness as I follow

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Him moment by moment during this recovery season. I am grateful for the unmerited grace of God in the

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Gospel to extend His full forgiveness to me. Again, I ask for your forgiveness as well.

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While I continue to do the hard work of soul -searching repentance, I do not intend to make further public comments for the foreseeable future.

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Please pray for the Lord's mercy and grace as I seek to make right the deeply wrong sins

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I have committed against my wife and family, and that in His time and way He will bring about redemption and restoration in our marriage for His glory,

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Steve Lawson." Of course, I liked it and retweeted it. I don't want to say much about this.

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I really more just want to give you the news. You can pick apart different things and say, why wasn't it this way or that way?

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There's really only two things I want to say. The first is I'm really glad that Steve Lawson made this statement, and I think that I take him at his word that this is genuine repentance.

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He's glorifying God in it. He's not vying to come back. He's not making excuses. It seems very sincere, and I have no reason not to take it that way.

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The other thing I wanted to say, and this is the only caution that I want to give, and I debated whether to say this at all, but one of the reasons

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I started the podcast a little late was I was actually reading quotes from Cotton Mather's journal and some other

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Puritans, and I wanted to just check myself and just remind myself—I don't know if Steven Lawson's getting this from the

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Puritans' writings because I know he was big on them, but there is, in my opinion, a very odd strain that developed in the

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Puritans of, I suppose, of introspection, navel -gazing, examining your repentance to really make sure that it's truly sincere this time, and there's some room for this.

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I don't want to say—I don't want to take that and cast it out completely and say you should examine your fruit, but there should be an encouragement in that, right?

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As you look at your fruit, you're encouraged that I am in Christ. I don't know why repentance for sin in the life of a

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Christian, when they sin, I don't know why that repentance has to look different than the repentance that exists at the point of conversion, right?

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At the point of conversion, there's an immediate repentance. You don't wait—at least you shouldn't wait—for long periods of time to really make sure it's really genuine.

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You just do it. You just turn from your sin, turn to Christ, and even an imperfect, if you want to call it that, repentance—a repentance that doesn't recognize every little sin but knows that there's a need for Christ and that you've done wrong—is considered legitimate repentance.

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And for some reason, there is a strain in conservative

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Reform Christianity that sees repentance as a process that you have to test and figure out whether it's genuine or not, and only time can really tell.

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From an outside perspective, that may be true. I don't know. Someone could say anything, right, and there may not be any sincerity behind it at all, or the

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Spirit of God may not be working. I suppose that's true. But I think a lot of people were wondering why

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Steve Lawson, who was such a public figure, had such a big platform, why he was able to go to the elders of the church—I guess he's not at that church, but the church that he was at—and admit his failure, and resign from public life, and then take the steps to repent and so forth.

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But he couldn't make a public statement about any of this at that point. He couldn't say something similar to this, or even if it's incomplete, just say,

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I've sinned grievously. I know many look up to me for spiritual leadership, and you need to be warned that this is not something, in my example, to follow, right?

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That probably would have saved a lot of the drama and a lot of the consternation and just speculations and everything else that took place over the last few months.

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But I think the key—the reason it probably didn't happen is embedded in this, that there is this big emphasis on ensuring that the repentance is legitimate.

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And so anyways, I was looking in Cotton Mather's journal and just typed in repentance just to see what he said, and I saw a similar spirit in there.

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There's like this suspicion that it's not real, and you just really have to test it and so forth.

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And I don't know. Should I read some of those? I don't know. I don't know if I want to spend more time—I feel like I've already spent too much time on this, to be honest.

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But that's the only thing I wanted to kind of warn people about is just be careful of that example. There's nothing wrong with immediate repentance, even if it's imperfect and telling—or incomple—I don't know what you want to call it.

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Like, you don't see every facet of your sin, but you know you've done wrong, and you're going to warn people against what you've just done.

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There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. And saying you're sorry to those who have looked up to you and that kind of thing.

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So I want to encourage that kind of thing. I'm really glad, though, that Steve Lawson did—it's better late than never, right?

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I'm really glad that he made this statement, and we should be obviously praying for him. I hope as I'm even saying this and you're listening that you can pray for him right now, that there will be restoration in his marriage and that the

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Lord would do a work here. Because frankly, this is a huge—it's a huge stain.

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I hate to say it. It's going to be a—in eternity, it's going to be a trophy of grace that God forgave this, but the reputation of ministries, the church,

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Christianity in general was very much hurt by this. And so the

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Lord in his perfect providence knew this would happen, and it will,

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I think, will use it and is using it. But all right. Well, I don't know why

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I keep focusing on Kook Patrol's comments, but they're just catching my eye. Kook Patrol says, just repent, insert

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Nike logo. Yeah, that's basically what I'm saying. I guess you could have just done that in two words.

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His was probably delayed due to his widespread reach, says Justin Seeger.

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Could be. Could be. He wanted to be careful with what he said. I mean, you do want to be careful, but something like this, you want to be pretty quick on the draw, too.

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You want, I think, people to be warned. I mean, that's what

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Scripture says, right? When someone of this caliber, when someone who's a pastor fails, the other, the people who are under that authority need to be warned so that they don't jeopardize themselves as well.

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Is Johnny, I don't know. Is Johnny Hunt real when he's going after a 600k a year salary from the

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SBC in court? I've covered this before. My understanding is yes. But I don't know if there's a recent development in this.

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Someone else was saying something about Johnny Hunt, and I'm not sure. Yeah, I guess it was Smog Wolf.

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Yeah, I understand that's accurate. Josh says, I think the frustration is that he taught on this particular sin for years while he was doing it.

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Yeah, that's for me, too. Not much reflection needed. Yeah, that is a huge, huge. It's a warning to us.

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We should take that very seriously, but it is a huge disappointment. Um, the people around him were parsing whether or not he had a real moral failure.

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I know that was going on for weeks. It took a while to get to the bottom of it. Uh, no, that's true, though.

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People were parsing it, trying to say, like, well, maybe he can return because no one was clear on what the sin was, and it created a lot of problems.

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If he had just come out immediately, probably said, admitted what he had admitted to the elders initially, but framed it for a larger audience.

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It would have been probably much better. So whether whether or not, you know, if he's sincere or not like that, that would have been good for those under his authority to at least know that.

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But but praise God that it does sound like he is sincere. All right. Well, let's get off of this. There's a few other items that I wanted to talk about.

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So someone asked me about this. This is a post from Juan Sanchez, who he's he's a

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TGC guy. I would not I do not think of him as like an SBC conservative, but he was he's for the law of men.

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He actually thinks like men should be pastors. So on that issue, you can say,

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I guess he's conservative on the other woke stuff. Not so much. But he had this long post.

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This is actually now. How old is this? This is from. Oh, goodness. All right, here we go.

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May 4th. So this is a while ago, but I didn't cover it. I've been saving it and really comes down to there was a dust up with the credentials committee for the

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SBC. They determine whether a church stays or goes. I'm putting it, I guess

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I'm cutting to the chase here. I mean, that is kind of what they do. But to put it in their terms, they determine whether someone is in friendly cooperation, whether a church is in friendly cooperation with the

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Baptist faith message. And so their job is to it should be to basically kick out churches that have women pastors and so forth.

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And it turns out they're not doing their job. That's the bottom line.

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They're just not doing their job. They're still pastors in the SBC. They say they're pastors, at least who are females.

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This is an ongoing issue, and it doesn't seem like the credentials committee has a lot of interest in really going after this.

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So someone asked me, like, are they going to try to do the law amendment again? The law amendment meaning giving the credentials committee more,

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I guess, latitude to get kind of like they have with the issues of sexual abuse and quote unquote racism.

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They have a latitude to kick churches out for this. It's easier for them to do it. Now, Frank, I got to be honest with you.

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I don't really care that much. The reason I don't care that much, even though it would be a symbolic victory if you ever got something like that passed, is personnel is policy.

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And as long as conservatives keep losing the elections for the president, the committees are going to be stacked with guys who will not faithfully apply these standards.

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So that's the real issue to me. Now, it would be great if you could get someone, let's say, in the SBC who's a conservative and make sure that on the ground, the reality is you already have a mechanism that will make it easier to root out churches that have women pastors.

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So I'm for something like that. But the reality is you also have to win elections in tandem with something like that.

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But there is a Juan Sanchez is saying they want to try again.

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They want to try the law amendment kind of thing again. So that's really the long and short of this. And says, please join us in our effort.

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And of course, Nate Aitken is the first guy here. HB Charles. I don't know if I recognize any of these other guys.

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Not really. But at least those two guys have, you know, that's you have it.

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What do you have is a an alliance between what I would call more kind of moderate SBC guys and you're part of the

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Kentucky coalition. And then you got your your diehard conservatives like the William Wolf kind of guy coming together to try to support a measure like this.

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And I support it. But I don't know. I don't know what would happen.

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It may maybe they'll get it passed. They'll actually get it passed next time. But someone asked me about it.

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And there's your answer. I guess there are people interested in trying this again. Now, of course, the the latest news,

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Liam Adams here, who reports on the SBC quite a Tennessee and let's see the Tennessee.

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I knew it reports on the SBC quite a bit. And he posts this article. What he says is in the little.

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I guess description of the article. He says a historic federal inquiry into abuse in the nation's largest Protestant denomination is officially over after yielding just one conviction.

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The DOJ notified the SBC it's not pursuing additional criminal charges against the convention or its entities.

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So what a big nothing burger. Here's the story from the Tennessee and what a big nothing burger.

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The SBC is basically going into jeopardizing its financial situation and going into potential bankruptcy over this issue.

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And they had a federal investigation. And Matt Queen, Southern Baptist pastor and seminary professor, pleaded guilty to lying to federal authorities.

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And that's that's it. I guess that's the only the only thing they found in the

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SBC. And I mean, this is under the Biden administration. So goodness gracious, we went through all of that for this.

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So what a big nothing burger. What a big waste of time. What a big waste of resources. And the

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SBC liberals should feel very bad, very bad about themselves, indeed, for making the convention go through all of this.

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And, of course, people like CBN or sorry, Center for Baptist Leadership, CBL put out an article about this.

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And I saw John Whitehead was weighing in on this. And so there's some guys that are analyzing this.

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But that's my basic takeaway. It's like, what a big nothing burger. Never listen to these people again, ever.

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That's my that's my takeaway. Do not like these people have shown complete imprudence. They're willing to take their denomination and sink it on an iceberg over a over scarecrows.

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And and so I mean, it was the top leadership was all for this.

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This was we have to do something now. OK, well, there you go.

32:23

All right, Sanford, Sanford University. Now, Sanford University apparently is,

32:29

I understand, a Christian university. Someone sent me this.

32:35

So let's see here. Sanford University, it is a Christian.

32:41

I don't think it's OK, so it is private. It's not with a denomination, but it was founded by Baptists. So it's a it's a

32:47

Southern Christian university. And they are doubling down on their

32:53

D .I. So D .I. statement added to club constitutions. And this is a little old, too.

33:01

This is from about a month ago. But it says the week of February 17th, an email from the student involvement office was sent to all advisors and presidents of an on campus organizations.

33:18

The email mandated all clubs and organizations to update their constitutions to include a strict stance on non -discrimination in clubs.

33:26

And so this is how they're painting it, by the way, that they're trying to frame it like, oh, it's a non -discrimination policy, not a

33:31

D .I. policy. All right. This is happening all over the place, by the way. You got to be careful of these companies even that are like, oh, we're getting rid of our

33:39

D .I. But are you really are you just relabeling it? That's the question I have. All right.

33:45

The last sentence of the statement reads, as a faith based institution, the university is exempted from certain laws and regulations concerning discrimination.

33:51

And this news change comes after President Trump threatened schools and colleges across the United States to end diversity programs or risk having federal aid pulled by administration.

34:00

Although Samford may potentially be held to uphold these changes, the constitutional modifications maintain support of inclusion.

34:09

Well, that's the I in D .I. Jamal Mathis, a coordinator of multicultural students supporting gospel choir advisor, believes this change is paving the way for diversity and continuing to support faith based mindset on campus.

34:22

I believe this change will serve as a reminder of the diverse nature of our campus. In my personal experience with campus organizations, even prior to the change,

34:28

I witnessed much diversity and inclusivity. Well, there you have two of the you have the D in the I in membership and programming of our student organizations.

34:35

And I'm excited to see how much that may continue to grow. President Trump efforts to halt initiatives have been temporarily.

34:44

OK, so basically the way this is framed is like it's Samford University versus the

34:49

Trump administration. And from what I understand, I I think it was a student or someone connected to students, at least who sent it to me.

34:55

It was like they don't quote any of the people who are actually at the university opposing this.

35:01

And so they're forcing student clubs into this policy. And the trustees of from what

35:09

I understand from the email that I received about this, some of these trustees are some,

35:15

I guess, Southern Baptist names that are somewhat well known in that region.

35:22

Now, I was looking at this list and I'm going to be honest with you. I don't know if I recognize anyone on this list of the trustee committee here.

35:32

But if you live in that region, perhaps you would recognize some of these guys as SBC guys who have some clout in the local associations and so forth.

35:42

So I figured I get emails on things all the time. But this is one of the ones that I was like, you know what? I'll I'll do a solid for the guys in that area who are wanting to fight this kind of thing and at least give some attention to it.

35:56

So there it is. And OK, the other thing I was going to let you know about is the mission to North America in the

36:03

PCA. They're doubling down. They're doubling down on apparently this.

36:09

If you remember from just a few weeks ago, the the president of the mission to North America, the director,

36:19

I guess, of the mission to North America spoke at an event that was racially segregated.

36:24

And they tried to say it wasn't. And I went through the whole thing. I'm like, it kind of was. And so mission to North America, after having to apologize last month for promoting things that told illegal aliens how to gain pathways to citizenship, although they didn't use that phrase, right, these undocumented migrants or whatever, they framed it from the left.

36:44

But now they're issuing this mission to North America has recently received media attention on several issues.

36:54

Including our national coordinators participation at an affinity ministry event hosted at a

37:00

PCA church in Oakland, California. The organizers of this event did not prohibit or turn away anyone from attending.

37:10

I have questions, but we the permanent committee of MNA. So where's the where's the inclusivity, guys?

37:17

Where's the you didn't turn any way is that if that's the new standard, could I do if I so I shouldn't probably use myself as an example.

37:26

Could someone hypothetically do an all white specific event for white people that white people are only encouraged to attend?

37:36

And then because I guess the standard now is we didn't turn away anyone else. Is that the standard?

37:42

Is that the inclusive standard now? I mean, it's good to know if that's what it is. Anyway, we the permanent committee of MNA representing the breadth of PCA churches and presbyteries have been actively working with our agency's leadership to evaluate our witness for Christ.

37:56

And they met and they talked about it and they made a statement. Christ, our peace is broken down the dividing wall of hostility and has called

38:04

Christ Church to honor the dignity of all image bearing people with a vision to reach all nations. We condemn any form of racism or segregation as sin because this promotes division and destroys the peace of the church.

38:14

So apparently what they did was, I guess, not sinful because they didn't turn anyone away.

38:20

So it wasn't technically segregation because I guess it was a segregation. You have to turn people away. Our coordinator and ministry leaders do not and will not participate in racially exclusive events unless given explicit approval to do so for the purpose of advancing the gospel at the direction of the

38:36

MNA permanent committee. An example of such an exceptional circumstance would be an event hosted by racially defined organization and presents an opportunity for our staff to engage in spiritually focused dialogue, otherwise close to Christians.

38:48

I played the clip for you guys for the announcement for this when I talked about it before. And it was very clear that this was an event restricted to one class of people.

38:58

It was for one class of people. In fact, that was part of the thing, the barrier that the announcer had to kind of overcome and explain is, you know, we we try to be inclusive, but, you know, we need to really create a space for the black people coming here to meet each other.

39:14

That's why the event was there to begin with. It was for Black History Month. We had a separate event that was for everyone, but this one was specific for black people.

39:23

But apparently that's not segregation. So I think I mean, look, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

39:32

Other groups can, I guess, employ the same thing, right? If you're I'm saying if you're going to be consistent, right, why would it be wrong for white people to do something similar?

39:42

Asians or I don't know anyone to say you got to be part of, you know, this is a group, a group for my particular demographic.

39:51

And well, I'm not going to turn anyone away if they come. But look, I'm really not going to I'm going to let you know it's not for you.

39:57

But if you happen to come, if you want to barge your way in and force yourself into our event, I guess I won't turn you away. Is that the standard?

40:05

MNA has been given the charge to lead the denomination, reflecting the diversity of Christ's kingdom, recommendations, affinity ministries, equipment, encouraged minority members who worship so many of our churches.

40:15

These ministries support shared cultural experience for the edification of the whole body. We celebrate the dynamic diversity of the

40:21

PCA, which includes brothers and sisters from backgrounds, including African -American, Korean, Hispanic, Chinese, Haitian, Brazilian, and Native American and white.

40:28

Oh, no, it doesn't say white Iran. We have heard that fellowship gathering or events that center on the shared cultural experiences of ethnic minority brothers and sisters can be a great blessing and serve to enable a strong sense of welcoming and belonging.

40:41

We affirm affinity gatherings as part of rejoicing in our unity and diversity. This is so muddled.

40:47

Segregation, bad, evil, sinful. Having ministries that focus affinity ministries for one one group or certain groups to exclusion of others.

40:59

Good. We recognize the accomplishments of the 46th moderator of General Assembly and the current

41:05

MNA coordinator, Dr. Erwin is he has implemented important changes. OK, so they just praise him.

41:11

All right. That's it. That's it. I just wanted to say, like, this is this got crazy in my mind. Like, they just be honest about what happened.

41:18

If you if you think I don't know, I don't really know. I don't have any advice to give them. I just it's a muddled mess.

41:24

That's all it is. But this is happening in your PCA. That is the mission of North America. And I don't know what else to tell you there.

41:30

They got some some guys running it who are have some inconsistencies.

41:35

It seems like to say the least. All right. Well, I think that was it. Right. Yeah. I'm looking at my list of stuff, and that was it for now.

41:45

And how about that? We're only a little over 40 minutes in. I'll take any questions. Matt says,

41:51

I wash my hands of the PCA, two trips to the PCA standing judicial commission only to have it kicked back to the presbytery who did nothing.

41:59

I was OK, so I don't know what that issue was, but I'm sorry, Matt. I became a

42:04

Christian in the early 70s, says Greg, and went to. MacArthur's church don't agree with some of his theology, but his focus on the scripture was key to my walk.

42:14

I think there's so many people who say that that even deviate from his theology that just appreciate his

42:19

Bible teaching so much. I went to Sanford, pretty sure it is affiliated with the

42:24

Southern Baptist of Alabama. Maybe it is affiliated with a local group, but I don't think the actual denomination.

42:32

So SBC has the NAAF and no one says a thing. The SBC apologizes for slavery every other year, but nobody questions the racially exclusive NAAF, which is the

42:41

National African American Fellowship. I don't know. Does the SBC apologize for slavery every other year in the classroom?

42:48

You're probably right. But yeah, I you know, to be honest with you, I'm not even that like familiar.

42:55

Yeah, they do have a website national. Here, I'll show people if they want to see. Here it is.

43:08

Oh, that's not it. Why isn't it showing? All right, hold on. I'll pull it up here. There it is.

43:18

NAAF SBC. So yeah, OK. The National African American Fellowship, a network of 4000 predominantly

43:26

African American pastors and churches affiliated with Southern Baptist Convention, Kingdom Focus, ministry driven, promote fellowship among pastors, strengthen black and multi -ethnic churches by connecting.

43:36

Obviously, you couldn't say this for other groups. Majority groups, but address issues impacting black and multi -ethnic churches, advocate for the inclusion of African Americans.

43:45

Why haven't I? I'm trying to think I must have heard of this, but why? I feel like I haven't, though. This really doesn't get a lot of attention, which is interesting.

43:54

And sure enough, you know, you're right. This is SBC. It literally says that on it. I don't know what to tell you.

44:02

I really don't know what to tell you. Who are the past NAAF presidents? Do I recognize any of these guys?

44:10

Not really. Nothing.

44:16

No one's standing out to me. Resources, you know,

44:24

I know the ERLC does their like racial reconciliation Sunday every year and stuff like I know.

44:31

I mean, the woke stuff is there and it like even if they kind of scale down, like how loud they are at the universities, at the seminaries, like I know it's still in the water, but I didn't know about this.

44:45

And I but I don't know like to what extent it's woke or it's not woke. I mean, it's certainly the existence of an organization like this where it when you know that they could not do this with white people or descendants of Europeans, whatever stripe

45:01

Anglo people, whatever, like definitely clues you into something. So, yeah,

45:10

I mean, their core values are they focus on equality? Some other light or he created God created people equal there as if I guess that's a problem.

45:19

People with people not wanting this. I mean, it's always framed that way, right? Like you must not think we're baiting God's image because you don't like this.

45:27

You don't you want everyone together or something. The objectives to maintain a spirit of fellowship and cooperation among African -American churches to help us about this obtain a better understanding of African -American churches to encourage

45:40

African -American churches to participate in support programs and ministries of the SBC and to advise the SBC as they seek to start, strengthen, involve

45:47

African -American churches and missions to promote the appointment of at least one African -American to the board of trustees and each of the

45:53

SBC entities. So there you have a quota. People can't see this, unfortunately, because this is what

45:59

I just downloaded. So hold on. Let me see if I can share the screen and show you this.

46:05

Here it is. This is what I'm looking at. So, yeah, there's there's the quota thing to promote the appointment of at least one

46:12

African -American to the board of trustees and each of the SBC entities, including but not limited to the NAM, IMB, LifeWay and Guidestone.

46:22

Interesting, I feel like this is the first time I'm hearing about this, like, how could I have missed this?

46:27

But I here's the thing. Like, I don't actually have a problem with targeting certain demographics, even getting advising.

46:37

I mean, if you're on the mission field, you're going to want to maybe change the way you do some things and you're going to want to get feedback from the people there.

46:45

You want to make sure that your message doesn't have static in it and that kind of thing. You're going yeah,

46:52

I mean, I think, though, like you shouldn't you should go where God's moving and working, not try to force something or jam something like we're going to we're going to do these quotas or whatever.

47:02

But I think in the SBC, given the track record and given what we've seen and given the quota thing

47:10

I'm reading here, you can kind of read between the lines and you sort of know what's going on. Like this is this is an attempt to diversify the convention and there's a moral quality given to certain demographics because they have minority status over others, a superior moral quality that you you make your boards better.

47:32

You make your denomination more just, I guess, acceptable if you make sure that it's diverse in these ways.

47:43

And that's the kind of thinking that that's the woke thinking right there. All right. Interesting, wasn't

47:49

I appreciate you posting that smog wolf. I don't know why I hadn't seen that before.

47:56

Other questions or comments.

48:03

I see MacArthur in a previous generation, a truly great man of God. He's God has used him mightily without MacArthur and Arcee.

48:10

I don't think we would have the reform world we see today. I don't think so either. You could I think Arcee, MacArthur and Piper are kind of like the trifecta there of like the boomer theologians, pop theologians who really made a lot of this stuff popular and inspired a lot of younger guys.

48:31

Not trying to be an ideologue. Good. You should never try to be an ideologue, but it's stuff like the

48:37

NAF that makes white Christians wonder what the heck is going on. Imagine NAF, but it's National Anglo American Fellowship.

48:43

Oh, yeah, for sure. Hundred and ten percent. I I totally understand why guys can get imbalanced and start getting obsessive about certain things.

48:55

I get it. I totally get there's a by the way, there's a piece coming out tomorrow in an American reformer. Look out for it and please share it.

49:01

Please share it that I think is going to help help us immensely.

49:06

I hope it'll help us immensely navigate some of the challenges that are confronting us in the online discourse.

49:12

So I'll say I'll just say that, but it's sort of along the lines of my video on ideology and so forth. John, do you think the prognosis of the reform camp is good?

49:22

Like, do I think that the reform camp is in good shape right now? No, not really.

49:30

And if you mean like by that reform, reform, soteriology, you got your legacy ministries, right, which now includes, ironically,

49:38

Moscow and G3, who would have been rebels years ago. But but, you know, I'm kind of concluding them as legacy ministries.

49:45

You got your grace to you and you still have Ligonier going. But there's a lot of I think momentum is diminishing,

49:53

I think, overall on the conference circuit, in the publishing world and all of that. So so I think whatever movement had been there,

50:03

I think it's fading. It doesn't like I don't want to discourage people. I think that God's still moving.

50:09

And I think whatever comes next is just going to look different, perhaps. And I think it probably should look different.

50:15

But I don't I don't see good things. I see a lot of division. There's a lot of fracturing. The idea that just sort of like this blank, almost blank slate biblical approach or like just just a so soteriology,

50:29

I'll put it that way. Soteriology alone will be able to bind us, you know, the sort of the

50:36

TGC model. You can have coalitions, you can have some some loose alliances.

50:42

But there's these very fundamental things, these creation things, even. That's why I wrote this book.

50:47

Again, that's why I wrote this so you can understand some of the divisions. I have a whole chapter that just explains how liberalism is a division in ways you probably wouldn't realize.

50:56

And I do quote guys, even G3 guys who are on the wrong side of some of these issues, like really wrong side of them, in my opinion, who do otherwise great work.

51:05

But they've you know, it's become like a test of fellowship if you whether or not you agree with certain aspects of the liberal order.

51:13

It's just assumed, right? This isn't something from necessarily scripture. I don't know what to tell you, like it's we do need to have positions on some of the questions like what is a nation?

51:26

What is what should pastorate? You know, should pastors be men? What should leadership look like?

51:33

And there's a lot of questions that are coming up that male leadership, patriarchy, we're going to have to navigate all these things.

51:41

But as we navigate these questions, they're exposing fractures. And that fracture, those fractures are all over, even in the realm where people agree on other important matters, like soteriology, or tulip, you know, they agree on all those things, but they're fractured over all these other, other things that manifest themselves in social issues.

52:01

So those social issues have shown, I think, exposed what was already there. And that will continue.

52:07

And so you're going to have guys and a lot of the young guys, you know, you look at guys, you know, like the guys out in Ogden, for example,

52:14

Ogden, Utah, who do like the haunted cosmos podcast and stuff. I mean, they're the kind of like name they're they're not not even

52:21

I don't even know if they're trying to make a name for themselves, but like the way they're known and stuff is for this podcast on the supernatural.

52:28

And it's very different, if you notice, than someone like John MacArthur. That's not always that's not wrong. I'm not saying that, but I'm saying like.

52:35

They're they're building a platform off of social issues and some of these fractures, which means they're going to attract people beyond the scope of just like reform, reform soteriology.

52:48

That's a new kind of category in a way, even though they would claim reform soteriology, right? That's what

52:53

I'm saying is like things are shifting. And then you got guys that want to be Bible only kind of like, you know,

53:00

I preach and that's I exposit the word of God and I kind of maintain what was there before.

53:07

But they're not getting the traction as much because they're not focusing on some of these pressing social questions.

53:14

And I don't think that's necessarily bad either, but it's, you know, there was a need in a moment,

53:20

I think that the the American church had become so watered down, it was getting rid of so much tradition.

53:26

But they were also the evangelical church was starting to dump the good theology and just dumb it down so much.

53:32

And what happened with like the reformed resurgence was an emphasis upon theology of like recovering some of these older thinkers on subjects like soteriology, which you have with like the

53:45

Christian ascendant right or new right or whatever, is you have a lot of these social issues being navigated.

53:53

And to some extent, there's a lot of recovery also going on. What did the reformers think of the social questions now?

54:00

But that's causing fractures with people who agree about what the reformers thought on soteriology. That's my analysis.

54:06

And I think I think that the Lord, I mean, I don't stress out about these things like the

54:11

Lord is going to handle these kinds of things. And people rise and fall. We're only here for a limited amount of time.

54:18

The word of God endures forever, and it's going to keep enduring. So just be faithful. All right, is

54:23

I still have to finish Virginia for 1607, says Josh. Got it from you at Jesus Politics Conference.

54:29

Yeah, it's a good book. It's a good book. It's a great documentary. Go go watch Virginia first. I put that together last year, 1607 project on line.

54:40

Tara says the NAF focused focus is on Black identity first and not Christ, which is a problem with some

54:46

Black Christians. Yeah, I haven't read all the material, but that's possible that they're they have too much of an emphasis upon their culture or whatever.

54:59

That's that's possible. CREC is losing churches over LGBT.

55:06

Oh, sorry, CRC, not CREC. Sorry, CRC, Christian Reform Church.

55:13

Yeah, I would imagine that being the case because they've they've had some some dust ups over that.

55:20

All right, I think we're about done. So what did he say about Steve Lawson?

55:27

We have to go back and watch. Sorry. Steve Lawson issued an apology or a repentance statement today.

55:34

So go check it out. All right, guys. God bless. Oh, one last thing. I totally OK. I knew

55:39

I was kind of stalling myself because I knew I had to bring this up. All right, let me let me type it in and bring it up here.

55:46

So I keep forgetting to do this kind of thing, but I do need to let people know where I'm going to be. And I think

55:52

I probably have to update this page, but that's OK. So JohnHarrisPodcast .com

55:58

speaking, just letting people know kind of where I'm going to be. So we are past these events.

56:04

The next on the calendar, April 3rd through 5th, I'm going to be at the Right Response Conference in Temple, Texas. Now, I'm not speaking there.

56:11

I'm as I understand it, I'm sitting on a panel for one of the sessions on, I think, the last day of the conference.

56:20

If that does mean, though, if you come if you come expecting to see me or something, I will likely be very free and available.

56:27

So if you want to talk to me, I'm going to be at a booth and I'll have my books and I would love to talk to you.

56:35

My philosophy on conferences, especially if you're one of the speakers, is like that's the time you have to interact with people who you appreciate, who really do support what you do.

56:46

And so that's what I'm planning on doing is being out there and accessible as much as possible.

56:52

In fact, I'd love to even just share meals in between sessions or whatever with just some of the common guys who support what

56:59

I'm doing. So if you happen to come, I'd love to just hear what you have to say and enjoy some fellowship and maybe some bass fishing.

57:08

Someone needs to reach out to me who has a bass boat near, where is it? Temple, Texas. And let me know because I think it's

57:16

Wednesday morning is all free for me. And what better way to have fellowship than to spend it in a bass boat in Texas, slaying some large mouth or small mouth.

57:26

I don't know what you have out there, but yeah, reach out to me, please on social media, wherever tag me like,

57:31

John, I got a bass boat. You're coming fishing with me and we'll make it happen. So I'm inviting myself onto your boat.

57:38

I'm just being real with you here. And then, of course, after that is the Christianity in the

57:43

Founding Conference, which you can sign up for Christianityinthefounding .com in Sullins Grove, Pennsylvania.

57:51

And then the Truth Conference, Mount Laurel, New Jersey, May 2nd through 4th. That'll be in Melbourne, Florida.

57:57

I need to put the details for this up there so you can sign up. Right now, all you know is I'll be in Melbourne, but I'll have those details up by the end of the week,

58:05

May 17th. And then the September 25th through 28th is the Men's Retreat, Music and Masculinity.

58:13

And I really only gave it that title because we're going to talk about music, but I don't want to just talk about music. So I don't know what the other sessions will be on, but it's a men's retreat.

58:20

So I'm assuming it'll be something with being a man. And then in October, I'll be in Boise, Idaho.

58:26

But that conference has not been completely planned yet. So September 25th through 28th, you can actually sign up for the link is there.