Mocking and Slander Is Not Going to Fix Evangelicalism | Ligon Duncan on The Moscow Mood

The Moscow Mood and the Limits of Indiscriminate Grenades

Brother, this is not meant to be like a click baity kind of,. Ooh, for the views question, but so, so just so we should know what's coming. I genuinely want to know thoughts on the Moscow mood conversation.

Yeah. Uh, yeah, I really.

Loaded that up. I think Kevin did a service to us writing on that. I think Kevin realized that he was going to take a lot of incoming, uh, on that. He told me probably a month or two before he was ready to release that, that he was, he gave me sort of an early draft of it.

I think it's a good warning to send right now. I think there are, there are some people in our culture today who are saying that here, this is the model of faithfulness, lob grenades. And, um, and, and I think, I think it's really good for guys like Kevin who himself, Kevin's got backbone, right?

Kevin is willing to speak into things that he knows are going to get people upset for the fight. He's, he's down for it. Uh, but that doesn't mean that you are the most faithful when you are lobbying the most grenades indiscriminately in every direction.

And when you are doing click baity stuff on, you know, it's, it's one thing to, to LARP faithfulness and courage on social media. It's another thing to do it in real life. And, um, and I, and I, you've got a lot of live action role playing going on in the social media world from guys acting like they're tough that put them in a room and you'd have them in a fetal position in three seconds.

And, uh, and that's, it's not good for that voice to influence our, our young folks. We are going to have to cultivate backbone, but we're also going to have to cultivate a love for the world that hates us.

Bill Davis, who teaches at, um, at, uh, covenant college says that the most common student question that he gets from his philosophy students is Dr. Davis teach me how to love a world that hates me. And that, you know, I, so I, I want them, I don't want them to get any of their signals from the world.

I want them to get all their signals from the Bible. I want them to faith be faithful to the whole panoply of Christian doctrine. But I want them thinking, how can I reach out to this lost world? How can I love people that hate me?

Not how can I make them hate me more? Uh, how can I demoralize and demean them with every word that I say? How can I drive them away from the gospel for the sake of branding and building.

My own and even wound my brothers and sisters on the way? Correct. Yeah.

Evangelicalism, Big Eva, and the Problem of Mocking and Slander

And so I think that's, I really appreciate Kevin being willing to wade into that. And I think underneath that is it's, it's not only a mood there, there's a, there's a theological view of the, of the church, of the gospel, of fidelity.

And there are problems at each of those levels underneath that.

I'm about to ask you about big Eva, but because you are one of the patriarchs of it, I don't expect an honest answer from you, but let's just, let's just play this game. Okay. Setting a low bar for me there.

Uh, I mean, what do you think when people talk about this shadowy syndicate, this big machine of big Eva? Um,.

Most of the conversation that I hear about big Eva is complete nonsense. Um, and it is funny. Some of the, some of the biggest critics of big Eva, if there is a big Eva, they're it, uh, you know, uh, I, I could name organizations far larger and more extensive than the gospel coalition, for instance.

Yeah. But boy, do they hate the gospel. That hate the gospel coalition.

And they've got more money, they've got more reach, they've got more, you know, and, and, and, and they'll jump in on the big Eva conversation. So a lot of it is just nonsense and I pay no attention to it whatsoever.

Now have people been disappointed by leaders unwilling to take stands on important things? Sure. I'm sure that's happened. You know, welcome to the fallen world. Uh, and, uh, I, I want us to be people of principle and sometimes that means calling out people that we love and care about.

But you can, you can do that in such a way that is not, we have a culture in, in a, in a part of evangelical writing, evangelicalism right now that is desensitized to its own spirit of mocking and slander.

And that's, that kind of goes back to the Moscow mood thing again. Mocking and slander is not a Christian way of dealing with anything. And so, you know, many of those mockers and slanders, I have no reason to even think they're Christians.

Jesus, John the Baptist, and Daniel as Models of Faithfulness

Can I pause you right there?

Cause I know somebody from that world will hear you say that and go, this guy doesn't know his Bible. What about the prophets? What about Jesus? Look at the way Paul talks. How would you respond to that?

Well, I mean, one thing is that Jesus was neither a mocker nor a slander. Ooh. Okay. So, uh, when, when, when, and, and if you, by the way, if, if, if some of these folks had been around, they would have been going, yeah, John the Baptist, Jesus, you're a weasel.

John is preaching truth to power. Why don't you come out and say, why don't you go up to and say, Herod, you Fox, you know, why don't you be like John? And I think one of the things the Bible teaches you is there are different ways to be faithful.

You know, if, if, if some of these people had been around, they would have been on Daniel, like white on rice. You're a sellout. You, you work for the wickedest King in the world. You are facilitating his wickedness and his ungodly rule.

Yeah. Daniel is a high ranking official in a pagan empire with extensive influence in how the, the empire works. So in the Bible, you find believers in very different circumstances, dealing differently.

Now, you know, is, is Daniel willing to go to the lion's den rather than stop praying to his God? Yeah. But he's still working for the government, you know, and there's some people that call you out today for, for that.