Is the Entire American Church Guilty of Peddling the Gospel? An Interview with Conley Owens

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Salvation in Christ Alone and the Coming Judgment

People are tired of hearing nothing but doom and despair on the radio. The message of Christianity is that salvation is found in Christ alone, and any who reject Christ therefore forfeit any hope of salvation, any hope of heaven.

The issue is that humanity is in sin, and the wrath of Almighty God is hanging over our heads. They will hear His words, they will not act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment, when the fires of wrath come, they will be consumed and they will perish.

God wrapped Himself in flesh, condescended and became a man, died on the cross for sin, was resurrected on the third day, has ascended to the right hand of the Father, where He sits now to make intercession for us.

Jesus is saying there is a group of people who will hear His words, they will act upon them, and when the floods of divine judgment come in that final day, their house will stand.

Introducing the Guest and the Dorian Principle

Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask. We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we're joined by special guest, Pastor Conley Owens, author of The Dorian Principle, a biblical response to the commercialization of Christianity.

Today he's going to help us answer the age-old question, is the entire American church guilty of peddling the gospel? Now Conley, why don't we start by you just taking a moment to introduce us to yourselves.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and tell us a little bit about your motivation for wanting to write The Dorian Principle.

Sure. My name is Conley Owens. I'm a pastor at Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church. I'm a bivocational pastor, so by day I'm a software engineer, and I live with my wife and seven kids here in Sunnyvale, California.

And as far as the book goes, what my motivation was, I spent a lot of time thinking about how the church tends to abuse copyright. My day job involves copyright, and I've been interested in copyright for a long time.

So that was really kind of the intro to beginning to think about these things. And when I started seeing some things in the Bible that concerned money and ministry, I wanted to study this for a thesis.

I ended up writing a thesis, realizing just how much the Bible had to say, and I felt that it needed to be a book. So, yeah, I just want to share that with others.

Sure, and I know that we appreciated that you gave the book away for free, and it's always nice to have free books. So we appreciate that. And I definitely enjoyed reading the book and profited from it a lot.

The first question I would have for you, Conley, is that you've basically written a book that argues that basically the entire evangelical church in America is in sin. So not just the prosperity guys, or even our theological closer adversaries, but essentially everyone.

Every big-name theologian out there is essentially guilty of peddling the word in some way or another. I know that that's a bit of a generality, but hopefully you'll forgive me that. But that's essentially what the book is arguing.

And then what's worse is that you have the audacity to name names, so you get pretty specific at certain points. You commit the unpardonable sin of actually naming organizations like Tim Keller and Crewe and Together for the Gospel.

So the first question I guess I have for you is, how dare you? And the follow-up is, who do you think you are?

Well, yeah, I consider myself friends with many of the people that I'm willing to name. Maybe not all the people that I named. But yeah, and then who am I? I'm just a guy. And I think there's a lot of things in Scripture where when you realize just how broad the commandment of God is, to use the phrase from Psalm 119, to point at something and say that everyone is guilty of this is not really an unusual thing.

There's not anything too profound about what I'm doing when you realize that really this is how it is with everything. And I'm just calling people to a deeper level of fidelity to the biblical text on this one specific matter.

Sure, I guess to ask the question in a little bit more of a serious way, I know that there's been plenty of times in my life where I've taken positions that are deeply unpopular. And sometimes, I mean, I know that it can be pretty lonely when you're reading a book and you're reading the Bible and you're coming to conclusions that it seems like everyone around you just thinks that you're absolutely crazy for coming to.

And I would say that I know that it should be somewhat unsettling the thought of maybe coming up with something new or something that you're all out on your own. It's one thing to praise guys like Athanasius or Martin Luther, but then it's another thing to conceive of yourself doing something similar.

I know that the reform motto is always reforming, but then it seems that we have little tolerance for individuals who are actually trying to push us towards that next step of faithfulness. And so, I guess one of the questions I would ask is how are you personally kind of processing the idea of coming to truths that you see that are being violated in a pretty comprehensive way?

Right. Well, in the book, I try to justify from a historical perspective that this isn't so new, and yet at the same time, why it is that we need a greater clarity today. So, I think I have some justification for that.

But then additionally, how I'm processing that for myself, I'll have to think about that some, but I don't think I'm... I wondered if I would be, you know, conly contramundum the way Athanasius and Luther were, and I was uncertain about that because it...

You're right, that is a reason to be very concerned that, you know, maybe you are wrong. But I have been shocked at just how positive the feedback has been. There's been... The ratio of positive feedback to negative feedback has been very high, and that was not what I was expecting.

I was expecting a lot more pushback on this, at least initially.

I think part of what's happening there is I think that there is, you know, from my perspective, for many people, I think that we're deeply troubled with... I think... The way I would describe it is this celebrity culture that is happening within broader evangelicalism.

And I think there's a lot of things that are troubling to people, and I think at some point...

With some of it,.

I think it's hard to put your finger on quite specifically what the problem is. I think that there's a lot of things that are deeply troubling. I mean, you know, I went... I've been to all the major conferences.

I've been to the Gettler for the Gospel conference in particular, or the G3 conference, or I've been to, you know, your standard circus Southern Baptist Convention as far as that goes. I think there's so much in these kind of big events that are troubling to someone who is somewhat reflective.

So maybe part of the lack of significant hate mail or pipe bombs that you're being sent is related to the fact that.

Maybe we all realize.

That there's some problems here that are long overdue for correcting. So maybe there's something along that line.

Well, yeah, I think you're right. A lot of the people I've encountered, you know, they had concerns as well, and they haven't necessarily put it all together. But, yeah, I've been surprised at how many people had similar concerns as to what I have.

I've just tried to collect all the text and synthesize them together. Mm-hmm.

Reciprocity, Co-Labor, and the Meaning of Profit

Yeah, and kind of turning to the book itself, it seems like the basic premise of the book, and you can correct me if I'm wrong or if I misrepresent anything, but the basic premise of the book is essentially that God does not condone profiting on the gospel.

Now, that statement in and of itself, I'm sure most people, there would probably be, you know, virtually no pushback whatsoever, but then you get a lot more specific in what you mean, and you try to define a lot of these terms in a way that I think is helpful.

You know, it seems like the two basic premises, or the two terms that you refer to a lot in the book are reciprocity and co-labor, and reciprocity would be basically charging for the gospel, or charging to teach the gospel, and then co-labor would be more like people coming alongside you who want to help you further the gospel, who want to help you be able to go to other people and teach them the gospel, so they, whether it's fundraising or whatever, they give you financial support so that you can go to other people and proclaim the gospel to them.

Is that a fair sort of basic summary of the book?

I think part of it was. I think part of it, I might want to clarify some.

Okay.

Yeah, co-labor and reciprocity, that is the key distinction that I'm putting forward. In Matthew 10, 8 through 10, Jesus says, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons you received without paying, give without pay, and so there you have a statement that you shouldn't be giving in exchange for payment, and so there you have his forbidding of reciprocity, and then right after that, he says, but take no bag for your journey or two sandals or a tunic or a staff for the laborer who deserves his food, and so there he's saying, but you're supposed to expect others to support you, and Matthew and Luke, it calls them, that would support the disciples, a son of peace or a worthy household, so you have these people who want to further the gospel who are giving, and so they are to receive that co-labor, what I'm calling co-labor, so that is the distinction.

Now, a couple of words that you used that I want to clarify, so one is profit, right? This is what a lot of people, the word a lot of people use to describe this. Well, it's okay to take money as long as you're not profiting off of it.

I don't think the Bible ever, if we're using the word profit to mean getting more than you put into it, I don't think the Bible ever uses the word profit to, or not just uses the word, but I don't think that's ever the concern is that you would get more than you put into it.

Lord willing, if a pastor does an excellent job in the congregation or whoever's working with him wants to support him and honor him in such a way that he's financially receiving more than what a typical minimum wage would be, then praise God for that, so I wouldn't, so in that sense, there's nothing wrong with profit, and a lot of people will use the word profit to say something like, well, I can charge for this ministry just as long as I'm not making more than I put into it.

Well, once again, if you are engaged in reciprocity there and you're exchanging something for what you put into it, whatever you determine that amount to be, that would be forbidden, so it really doesn't matter if we're using the word profit to define how much, if you're getting more than you put into it.

Profit's not the concern. Another word you used was charging, so it depends on what we mean by charging because someone might get the impression that I'm saying that everyone should be so willing to labor for free that if someone does not, you know, if a church is not willing to support them in the matter, they should still do it anyway.

I'm not saying that, certainly, so if you want to call that kind of activity charging, you know, to be unwilling to work if you're not going to be supported for it, I think that's perfectly reasonable.

People don't have infinite capacity to do that.

Maybe you can do us a favor and just go ahead and distinguish between reciprocity and ministerial co-labor. Those are the two major concepts there, so maybe if you could give us a definition for them and maybe just contrast the two, is, you know, however much time you want to take just doing that, just to give us, make sure that we're all using the same words in the same way and understanding what you're saying.

Sure, so I mentioned the text in Matthew 10, 8 through 10, so the way I define reciprocity is support, material, or otherwise given to a minister out of a sense of direct obligation for his ministry of the gospel, and that phrase direct obligation...

Like a pay-per-view kind of deal, right?

Right, right. So, you know, you gave to me, so I give to you, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a symmetric amount. You know, it could be even one dollar for something very large, and that would still be reciprocity.

And then co-labor is support, material, or otherwise given by a man to a minister out of a sense of obligation to God to honor or to aid the proclamation of the gospel. So when we are giving to a minister, ideally we're doing it out of an obligation to God that we have received this gospel ultimately from God, not from men, and so in order to give back to God, the one that we ultimately receive this from, we give to his ministers.

So there is an obligation we have to ministers, but it is an indirect obligation. And you see this in 1 Corinthians 9 when Paul appeals to the priesthood that the people of Israel would give to the Levites, but they would not be giving directly to the Levites.

They would be making their sacrifices and their ties to God, and then God would be supporting the Levites. So even though externally it might look like the Levites and the Israelites are exchanging money and ministry, what's going on in terms of the thought process is that they are giving to God and they are giving worship to him, and then God is giving to the Levites, him saying that he is their inheritance.

Sure.

So in terms of reciprocity itself, could you maybe give some examples for the people who are listening in the context of the American church? Could you give us some examples of what you would consider reciprocity that you see in the modern evangelical churches we know it today?

Sure.

So the biggest one, in my opinion, is the whole Christian publishing industry. So not every book operates like this. My own doesn't. But typically, the way this works is that you want to read some minister's book.

You have to give him money first before he will give you the book. So that's very definitionally reciprocity. You can't even access that teaching unless you pay him for it. And even if a minister does something like, well, here's a suggested donation, and then people are donating.

And so even if it's voluntary, if it's set up in that way where you're not colaboring, but because he did something for you, you feel a direct obligation to him, that would be reciprocity. Now some other things would be, typically this is the way seminaries run.

You give tuition. They give you teaching. And typically this is the way gospel conferences are run. You pay for a ticket, and they give you a gospel teaching.

Sure.

I think me being a part of the biblical counseling movement, and I went to seminary, and I did pay for my theological instruction, an ungodly amount of money in order to learn the Bible. So I have some sort of experience with that.

I think one of the areas that has been influential for me as far as this idea of reciprocity goes is within the biblical counseling movement. So when I went to school, I originally went to school with the notion in my mind that I was going to be pursuing basically counseling, but then using the Bible to counsel.

And the thought process I had in mind was that I would open up some sort of biblical counseling practice somewhere in order to basically develop a clientele and charge them for counseling and everything else.

I think somewhere along the way, one of the things that happened for me was that I started to realize that what I'm passionate about.

Is teaching the Bible.

And helping people solve their problems.

With the Bible.

And it began to dawn on me over time that this doesn't need to be disconnected from the church, and what I'm really wanting to do is be a pastor and everything else. But as those convictions started to clarify, one of the things that was really troubling to me personally was the idea of charging people for counseling.

That became pretty troubling to me because it seemed like a very obvious example of peddling the gospel to me. And it's something that I didn't really want to go there with in my mind. It's something that I've resisted over the course of my ministry.

And I would say that it's been that that has affected the types of ministries that I would pursue and everything else. And so I certainly see that as a problem. I mean, I remember early on when I was just in seminary, Tim Keller was the kind of guy that everyone was promoting at that point, and there wasn't a whole lot of guys who were pushing back against anything he's saying during those years.

But then everyone was recommending Tim Keller, and I remember going online and trying to get some of his sermons and seeing that he's charging $3 a sermon or whatever it was, and I just thought to myself, well, that's weird, right?

That's pretty weird. And I think, just to be frank, that was the type of thing for me that caused me to basically write him off as a guy that I would want to listen to. It's like, hey, if you don't want me to learn from you without paying, I don't have any money.

I'm broke. I eat ramen noodles every meal. But that seemed wrong to me. But then I didn't really connect it to some of the other ideas that you're speaking of in the same sort of way. But those are examples of things that I saw, and when I think about the distinction between reciprocity and co-labor as you've described it, I think one of the strengths of the book, as I can tell, is that I think that's a good distinction to make, and I understand where you're coming from with that, and those terms, they do make a lot of sense, and I think they do a good job of explaining a lot of data in the text as well.

And so I think you need some sort of word for the kind of scenario where you basically are walking up to someone and saying, hey, would you like to know how to be saved? Well, pay me first, right? And so I think reciprocity is a fine word for that.

Now, one of the things that's been funny or humorous for me to watch is I listened to a couple of your interviews online related to this book, and viewed the comment sections, and as is the case with the Internet, people have a great capacity to jump to conclusions as far as that goes.

And so one of the things we were wondering if you could do for us would be to maybe put some jumpy people at ease as far as that goes. And so one of the questions we had along those lines is, is it wrong to give pastors a salary in any way?

People seem to be repeatedly hearing you basically saying to pay a pastor in any way is wrong. Do you want to comment on that?

Right.

No, and I think I've already said in this conversation that I think it's great if pastors are honored with even more than they put into it. The Lord would richly reward them through congregations. No, pastors should be paid, and they should be paid salaries.

And the word salary is kind of important, not because I think it necessarily has to be a salary, but many people who have studied the same texts I have in the past couple of centuries have come to that conclusion that it is okay to pay pastors as long as it's not a salary, as long as it's not regular, that they would live by faith and kind of hang on from one week to the next, not knowing whether or not they would have money.

I don't think that's healthy.

And I don't think that's what the Bible's commending. We'll keep them broke. You keep them humble, you know?

Yeah, we'll keep them on their knees in prayer, hoping that next week they get a paycheck.

Well, what does that look like in terms of, maybe you can just clarify just the, I don't know if you've done it in the course of this yet or not, but clarify how does that look? What does that mechanism look like?

And how does that not violate the principles you laid forward? I understand how to answer it, but go ahead and just spell it out for us. What does that look like in a way that isn't troubling?

Salaries or what are you referring to?

Yeah, yeah, just do the math, show the math. So with the math, how would that look? How is that not a violation of reciprocity?

Oh, I see, how is that co-labor?

Yeah, yeah, just go ahead and just show your work.

Yeah, so, right, if it's valid, it has to be co-labor and it can't be reciprocity. How is paying your pastor co-labor? Because, you know, isn't he this guy that stands up there each week and then because of what he does for us, we give back to him.

I don't think that's the right way of thinking about it. You know, we as a people gather each week in our particular location. You know, I'm here in Sunnyvale, so we gather in this church here in Sunnyvale.

And somebody has to, somebody has to quit their job and do the work to dedicate themselves to the word of God and prayer, as it says in Acts 4. And so who should do that? Who's going to, you know, be impoverished so that they won't be able to support their own family?

But instead what we can do is we can all pitch in, right? Some of us by foregoing the fruit of our labor and one of us by dedicating himself to the work, at least one of us, if not multiple of us at our church, it is multiple of us.

And so, yes, that's what we're doing. We're co-laboring. And one thing to consider there is what Paul says about his persecutions. When he lists, and on numerous occasions, when he lists all the hardships he had to endure in order to serve the Lord, in addition to being shipwrecked and beaten, he always lists that he worked with his hands.

And so he considers having to have manually labored and then foregone, not gotten to enjoy the fruit of his labor by spending it on himself, that that was one of the hardships that he endured. And so when others do the same thing, when they work with their hands and don't enjoy the fruit of their labor, they are working alongside of Paul, assuming that they're giving that money to Paul.

So I see that as what should be motivating the congregation each week as they pull their money together and support staff and fund ministry projects together.

Go ahead, Eric.

One of the things that I thought was really convincing in the book that you had said is, basically, co-labor is this idea that people basically, they take their money and they give it to God as a form of worship, essentially.

And then God, he gives at least some of that money to like a pastor, for example, in order to support them to do exactly what you're saying so that they're able to study the Bible in a deeper way that really no one can without quitting their typical nine to five type job.

And one of the arguments that was really pretty convincing for me as I was reading your book was, I can't remember what chapter this was in. I think I wrote the page number down somewhere, but I don't have it in front of me right now.

But basically, you argued that if a pastor, for example, was simply, was not co-laboring with the congregation, if they didn't view it that way, then essentially what's happening is you have this pastor who you could essentially view as like a soldier who's meant to be working for the king, which is God.

But instead, he's taking money directly from the citizens. And when that's happening, he's no longer operating under the authority of the king anymore. He's operating under his own agency, taking money from whomever he sees fit.

I guess a mercenary.

Yeah, he basically becomes a mercenary now. And that was really a pretty interesting way of putting it because it immediately made me think of a lot of megachurches I've seen where they kind of over time become slaves to pragmatism because they've been operating probably in a similar way to the mercenary.

The congregation, I think, probably sees giving more as like I'm giving directly to the pastor instead of giving to God as a form of worship and then God is giving to our pastor to support him in the work that he's doing.

And because they view it in that type of way, eventually the pastor's kind of a slave to the congregation in a very bad way where he's got to really play this game where he tries to be as biblical as possible, but then he can't rock the boat too hard or say hard things very often because if he does, then all the money's going to dry up essentially.

So I remember reading that and I remember underlining all that and writing it down because I just thought it was a pretty strong point you were making and one that you can kind of see out in the real world right now.

Right, yeah, those implications that you're drawing out for the social pressures in a church, those were not things that I spelled out, but those are good observations. You mentioned the analogy of the king and I think it's in the soldier, right?

And it's probably worth pointing out for listeners that what I was referring to there is 1 Corinthians 9 because Paul uses a whole bunch of analogies in 1 Corinthians 9 and a lot of people just kind of glaze over them and they think, okay, well, these are showing that ministers should be paid.

Well, yes, they are, but stop and think about what the payment dynamic looks like in each one of those analogies. With the priests, they weren't paid directly by the Levites. They're paid as the Levites bring things to God and God gives to the Levites.

What about the soldiers? The soldier, sure, he may collect taxes from people, but if he takes money directly from them and not as a representative of the king that the king then pays him, yeah, he's committing extortion.

And each one of those analogies, Paul uses a whole bunch of them, each one, the source of money is not the employer in any of those circumstances.

I was just going to comment on that and basically just say that I'm sure that we can all imagine plenty of scenarios where the old, you know, like in the old country church or whatever where the big donor comes up to the pastor and essentially says, you know, I pay your salary, therefore do what I say kind of thing.

And that's the kind of thing that happens when you mix up those kind of principles that you're talking about, for sure. One thing that I was thinking about, Connelly, and as I was working through the book, I wasn't clear on this, but then I wanted to maybe get you to clarify this, or I think what I was hearing you to be saying was that it, and I think many people might come to the conclusion, perhaps as they read through the book, that it would be wrong to recoup any cost for books or CDs or conferences, but it seems like you're mitigating against that in your book in a significant way, essentially saying, let me see if I can just give you an example.

So I remember Grace Church used to, I mean, I listened to all my, all MacArthur sermons for free online at Grace Church, but then at a certain part where CDs used to exist, they would basically give you a digital copy for free, but if you wanted the CD, then they would say send us three bucks and we'll send one out, that kind of thing.

It seems like you were, in your book, commenting on that kind of situation or some sort of situation with conferences in the church where, essentially, if you just recoup the building rental cost and you call it that, you didn't really see a problem with that.

Is that a fair summary?

Is that So as I was rounding out the book and finishing it up, those were the last parts that I was working on and I wasn't, I was kind of keeping it a little bit open and I used phrases like, the problem would mostly be resolved by doing this, right?

And so I didn't quite say that it would be resolved. And as I've thought about it more, my thoughts are that if you're going to, if you're going to charge for those kinds of things, if you're going to charge for food, et cetera, you should be doing so, or you should be outsourcing that to an entity that's free to do so without undermining their sincerity.

Or, yeah, you should be co-laboring so that those are provided for. There's just all kinds of solutions that don't involve the ministering entity charging for those. And I would say that for a number of reasons.

One, Jesus in Matthew 10, 8, when he's telling the disciples to heal the sick, et cetera, and then says, give without payment, if they were to charge for the miracles and then not the gospel, that wouldn't have been sufficient.

And then similarly, Paul didn't charge for food and then say, you know, well, as long as you provide me room and board, I'll minister for you, right? He didn't charge for anything. So I think that it's better just to outsource those things.

You know, if you're running a conference and, you know, you want to say, well, there will be food trucks later, you know, and the food trucks are selling food, but you're not, I think that would be the safest way to do it because the problem is that you still potentially are undermining your sincerity by offering these things along with the gospel and then charging for them.

Okay, all right. Well, yeah, this was the, you know, trying to put jumpy people at ease portion here. So I guess that was a misunderstanding as far as that goes.

Well, no, yeah. And it's fair because like I said, I was, you know,.

You were open.

Yeah.

You were open to the possibility, but you closed it now.

Yeah, as I've talked to more people and I've gotten more positive feedback and I'm not so on edge about, you know, saying too much, I feel more comfortable.

Will you have a safe place to sleep?

I feel more comfortable that I can make harder lines.

Yeah.

Common Misunderstandings About the Dorian Principle

Okay, all right.

Well, Conley, I don't know if we've covered quite everything that maybe you've heard typically when it comes to pushback from other people. So what else is there that maybe we haven't asked you about yet when it comes to mistaken conclusions that you've seen people jump to when they either read your book or they hear one of your interviews.

Or in other words,.

Basically,.

What are you not saying that people frequently hear you to be saying?

Sure.

So for people who are opposed, who don't like what I'm saying, what a lot of times some misunderstandings I get are that I'm saying I've got this brand new thing that's never been heard before in the history of the church, which I don't believe I am.

If you look at chapter 10, I try to justify some precursors in history. And then on top of that, that I'm saying that we are in no way obligated to our pastors, which I'm saying we are, it's just a mediated obligation where it is directly an obligation to God and then indirectly an obligation to ministers.

And then of course, the idea that we shouldn't pay pastors, which I'm in no way saying we should absolutely pay pastors. Then on the other end of that, those who are in favor of what I'm saying, but misunderstand me, there is a tendency for people who already have some issue with the way church does, the churches, excuse me, church entities or parachurch entities do things.

And they bring all those to the table and they see me as saying those things, which I mean, you could just name any kind of thing that people get upset about and put that in there. A lot of people hear me saying these things when I'm not.

So maybe it has something to do with the opulence of what they spend their money on afterward. What pastors spend their money on. I address nothing about that. I think once someone's been given money, they should certainly avoid the appearance of sin, but they're free to spend their money how they would like.

That would just be one example.

Do you have any other quick ones you could?

Yeah, sure. Well, we were talking about profit earlier, that it's okay to take money as long as it's not for profit. That's a common one that people think that I'm saying. And then, yeah, that people are paid too much, right?

And I never address amounts. It's really not about amounts. It's about even though the amounts can sometimes expose sin issues more severely, it's really just about whether or not it's co-labor or reciprocity.

It's really just about those two categories.

Sure.

Objective Standards, Gray Areas, and the Regulative Principle Analogy

Yeah, I think one of the things that was helpful about the book is that you also kind of push back against the notion that the motive matters, meaning it's about the source of the funds. Essentially, it's not so much about a person's motivation in taking the money or something like that.