Ed Litton in Freefall, SBC Elites Incapable of Responding

Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. Well, I thought yesterday we were done with Ed Litton plagiarism. They're calling it sermon gate, some people at least. That whole issue, I thought I've spent almost an hour talking about it, we can move on.

But as I thought about it last night and as the story developed even further and this morning, I thought, you know, this actually has some legs to it. This can go places that even the critical race theory issue can't go, or people are willing to bring it places they weren't willing to bring that issue.

And so I wanna talk about that. There's a real political opportunity here for conservatives and it's kind of the last glimmer of hope, I think, for those in the Southern Baptist Convention who are conservative because this could really actually end up with Ed Litton resigning.

Now, will he resign? I don't really think so. And I think the reason, the main reason is the elites in the convention will not let that happen. But it's, this is one of those situations where you cannot be called a racist, or it's very hard to call someone a racist when they're making their issue Ed Litton's plagiarism, namely because the person who would take Ed Litton's place if he were to resign is a person of color and a very conservative person of color.

So this is actually a very interesting situation and I wanna take a different angle on it and show you some new developments because this is actually, if you wanna talk about something being systemic, this may be systemic, could be, I don't know yet, but it seems like there's a lot of plagiarism going on.

It wasn't just that one sermon. There's a lot more examples. And now that people are starting to look into his sermons and podcasts he's done, and even one person asking for his dissertation, which I don't think is publicly available, which it probably should be, there's now all sorts of questions about how often is he plagiarizing?

Is this something that actually characterizes him? And the answer that seems to be developing is not a good one for Ed Litton, but it's also not a good one for progressives, social justice advocates in the denomination because they don't have a great response to this.

So I'm gonna show you some more of that. Some more responses have come out. Still some analysis of where conservatives are. I'll give you some of that because I think, even though I think this is happening in an organic way, a grassroots way, I still feel like conservatives are kind of fumbling the football right now.

They've got a pass, they can make a touchdown, and it's just, is the willingness there? So I wanna pump you up with some motivation if you're a conservative who's still in the Southern Baptist Convention.

Maybe you're thinking of getting out, but this is that last little glimmer of hope you thought, okay, maybe this can do something. We'll talk about it. Few housekeeping items before we talk about that.

Social Justice Pharisees by A .D. Robles, Woke Church Tactics and How to Engage Them is out. You can get it by going to adrobles .com, and you can also get it by going to the link in the description in this video.

Now, there is a price there. It's $15 for the book, $5 for shipping, and that's, I think, A .D.'s charging like 18 bucks for all of it, something like that. So I'm not undercutting him or anything, but my primary purpose in providing this link, which is actually, it's not even a publicly really available link, it's just in the info section for this podcast, is not primarily that.

So you can purchase it if you want, because I do have a lot of books, but it's primarily for patrons. If you are a supporter on Patreon, there is a link in the info section to go and pick up this book, and I waive the $15 fee.

So all you need to pay for is shipping, that's it. So if you're a Patreon of even five bucks a month, then you get this book essentially for free, and I'll ship it to you personally. So I wanna let you all know that that's a promo that I'm doing for patrons, and just a way of saying thank you as well.

I think it's a great book. I should actually read. I've endorsed it, and this is what I said. It's on the back of the book. A .D. Robles has written a wonderful and very accessible primer on the woke church movement, filled with helpful examples and biblical engagement.

If you have to pick one book to give to your Christian friends who is attracted to social justice movement, this is the one to give them a necessary and important work, and I mean that. I don't just give my endorsement out willy-nilly.

I really mean it when I say what I say, and I think it's a great book. I think A .D.'s a very different person in the way he thinks than I do, and he reaches some people I won't. I reach some people he won't.

I think I tend to be a little more academic in the way that I write. He tends to be a lot more conversational, and we just have different ways of going about things, but I think those strengths, those different skill sets and ways of thinking that we have, ways of processing information, actually, when combined, I think it helps you see, it just helps you see the issue from two different vantage points, and so I think that's very helpful.

Also, Social Justice Goes to Church, my first book, The New Left and Modern Evangelicalism is still on the website. I'll put the link in the info section. $15 to get this as well, same price, and I sign it for you, so you can get that, purchase that, and I am still writing, coming to the end, more, of writing the next book, which I'm really excited about.

I mean, I've read a bunch of books on the woke church movement. Most of them, I think, are lacking. I think A .D. does a very good job, obviously, or I wouldn't be putting his book out there, but there's, most of the books that have come out, they're lacking, there's something missing when I get to the end of it.

I like it, but there's something that's, it's not getting to the heart of something, whether that's it just fails to understand postmodernism adequately, or it fails to understand Marxism adequately, or oversimplifies certain things, and I probably think in terms, in ways, because of the way I write and the way I process information that are, some people like it just being laid out very simply.

I like to get the details often. There's some things I like simple, but I like, give me the full picture here. Give me the items I need, and what I'm writing right now, it's really my statement on the social justice movement.

It's the history of the movement, the secular movement. I mean, it's the kind of things that, in the book I'm writing now, which is gonna be called Christianity and Social Justice, Religions in Conflict, it's gonna help you answer a lot of the questions that I get all the time from people.

I'm gonna have an appendix with, here's the questions to ask your pastor, or your potential pastor who wants to promote social justice. What kind of questions would you vet if you're on a committee? If someone asks you, why can't social justice be a good thing?

You got the full history right in front of you in the most succinct way I possibly can give it to you with chapter and verse. All the citations are there. We go through the epistemology. We go through the metaphysic of it.

We go through the false gospel with lots of citations from the Southern Baptist Convention, from the Presbyterian Church in America, from just all kinds of different places. We go through the ethics. We go through the Bible verses that are taken out of context.

So it's gonna be really helpful when it comes out. And those who support me on Patreon, you're helping me do this. I can't just write a book. Because you support me, it enables me to take that time to write what I need to write.

So while you're waiting for that though, this is a good accompanying book, Social Justice Goes to Church, because it is the history of how this got into evangelicalism. And then again, once again, you can go pick up this book.

If you're a patron, the link is in the info section for that. Now, other things you can expect moving forward during the week. I got a bunch of stuff planned. We're gonna talk about Mormonism, actually.

I don't usually do that, but I've wanted to branch out and do some other things. Talk about Mormonism. And I'm gonna ask someone who knows a lot about Mormonism, what social justice is doing even to Mormonism.

That's not the primary reason we're doing it, but you will find out more about that. We're gonna talk about the audit in Arizona and what's happening with the election issue, the fraud issue, et cetera.

All the ballot issues. Haven't talked about that in a while. We're gonna plan on doing an episode on that. We're gonna talk about the Presbyterian Church in America and what's going on in the PCA. I know some of you have wanted to hear me talk about that, and I'm planning on getting some content out there.

And a whole bunch of other stuff. I know, I just saw two weeks ago, the town of Charlottesville, city of Charlottesville, has voted to take out their Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson statues. And I know there's some other statues there that are under threat, some memorials, but they're actually taking those two out.

And so we're gonna do a podcast on that as well. That's local politics for me. Virginia's been, for those who don't live in Virginia, it's just, it's incredible. They've renamed the lakes, they've renamed streets, they're renaming high schools, they're renaming everything and taking down statues.

It's certainly, it's fascinating to see what's happening and how fast it's happening. And I'm probably just gonna read you quotes about Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee just from other people, people outside the South, foreigners, people from the North, people who even fought them, all kinds of different folks.

I'm just gonna read for you their quotes. So there's a bunch of stuff. There's even more than that, but I just wanted to give you a preview of what's happening. It's not all Southern Baptist stuff, but we are gonna focus a little more on Southern Baptist stuff today.

Ed Litton's Plagiarism and the SBC's Weak Response

Ed Litton, in freefall, SBC elites incapable of responding. I chose my wording carefully. They're incapable. They just, they can't, there's not much they can do with this one. I wanna start off by playing you yet another clip.

This is Ed Litton admitting to lying about his sermon prep times. This is some of the stuff that's just coming out. And I think what happened was people started thinking, okay, there's a issue here with plagiarism.

I wonder if, and they started looking under the hood. I wonder if there's a problem here. I wonder if there's a problem there and they're finding stuff everywhere. And I think we were probably at the beginning of this, but here's a clip.

It'll be the spirit. Here we go.

The spirit validating, hey, this son, this son, this is where I've been leading you on this. And boom, insight will come from that. And so that's part of it. But listen, we breathe, we have to breathe the Holy Spirit.

So the number of hours, to be very honest, I used to lie. I used to tell people, you know, 24, 24 hours of sermon, you know, if you're, you can spend too much time. You're dorking around doing something else with your head, but actual, and by the way, let me say this too.

When you're younger, it's gonna take longer.

Right.

The older you get.

So he's talking about sermon prep times. And what he ends up saying is that he lied about his sermon prep times. He would tell people I spent 24 hours, but he didn't really spend that long. I think he says eight hours later in the clip.

I know some people as a figure of speech, sometimes I don't, I'm not expecting to hear it from a pastor, but I've had friends who will just say, I lied about something and they don't really mean they lied.

They mean they said something that was false with there was no intention of lying there. It was more a, yeah, I mean, technically, yeah. Did they lie? They said something that was not true, but it was not intended to deceive someone.

Ed Litton, when he says that, I want to give him that benefit of the doubt, but even so it's still, it's, this has been played a lot. This is out there on Twitter and in social media. It's not a good look.

And it's not, when you're aware of yourself, and this is someone who's the president of Southern Baptist Convention, so he's gonna do a lot of media interviews. If you're aware of yourself and you're doing a public interview, especially on something like sermon prep, so this is for pastors, you'd think you wouldn't say something like that, or it's just, I don't even know how to, because part of me wants to try to help him out a little here and say, well, he could mean that he's just, he was mistaken himself, but the thing is he doesn't say that.

He says, I used to lie. And then they laugh about it. Not, this is the kind of thing, and it's gonna be, it's kind of like a death by a thousand cuts. It's not just that thing, obviously. It's not just what you saw yesterday when I played a side-by-side of him and J .D. Greer.

It's the stuff that's gonna be coming out over the next two weeks. That continual, here's another example of him plagiarizing. Here's another example of him saying that he's, because really the attack is on his character.

The threat to him is that he is deceptive, that this is a man who's deceptive, and that's not helping him. And there's gonna be a lot of other clips coming out that are gonna show this is a guy who's deceptive.

That's the problem, and that's where he's not helping himself by not just coming out and giving a full-blown repent, apology, repentance and apology, and then actually at this point resigning. And I'll talk about that angle in a moment, what conservatives probably should be doing, what they can do at least, to promote Ed Litton leaving the Southern Baptist Convention, which I think some are thinking this way, but not everyone is.

Here's another example of this. This is from Justin Peters, a Capstone Report reported on this. But Justin Peters put out a whole podcast on this. He says, I was watching this sermon just because I wanted to see if Ed Litton was going to address the plagiarism controversy.

But when I heard him, so literally, Justin Peters goes to Ed Litton's website, says, I just wanna hear if he's gonna address it this Sunday. And what he ends up hearing is, Ed Litton says, in the sermon from last Sunday, you know, that's an interesting phrase there.

I've never heard that before. Jesus is not my crutch, he's my iron lung. That's pretty catchy. So I thought, you know, I'm going to, so Justin Peters hears this. Ed Litton says, Jesus is not my crutch, he's my iron lung.

So Justin Peters goes and he says, I think I've heard that before. So he searches and sure enough, it's from a book called Meant to Live. And this is by Nancy Hicks. And apparently she says the same thing.

He's not my crutch, he's my iron lung. Peters also said, so Mr. Litton, did you yourself personally tell someone that Jesus is not your crutch, he is your iron lung? Or did you, or one of your team members who helped you write this sermon, read that in Nancy Hicks' book?

Now this would seem like such a minor thing, and it would be. A week ago, it really would be such a minor thing. No one would have thought anything of it. The problem is the microscope's on Ed Litton now.

And because he's already been shown to have plagiarized without attributing anything to the person he got the information from, now people are looking all over his stuff for examples of that. And they're going to find it.

And that's, I think, what's going to ultimately be a problem for Mr. Litton. So the narrative is hardening. You can look at the mainstream media. This is from al .com. These are secular, by the way. Newsweek on msn .com, Washington Post, all of them reporting on Ed Litton's plagiarism.

Now they're not giving it the kind of treatment a conservative news outlet would give it, but they are reporting on it. You have even on his Wikipedia page, the Sermongate plagiarism scandal. And it says on June 26th, 2021, Ed Litton became embroiled in plagiarism allegations.

It was sparked when a YouTube user published a video showing Ed Litton preaching a sermon that the media outlets described as strikingly similar to a sermon preached a year earlier by J .D. Greer. Southern Baptist websites described this as Sermongate, with more mainstream media outlets, including Newsweek, focused on Litton's church hiding over 140 sermon titles.

Litton released a statement on his church website admitting to using J .D. Greer's words without proper attribution. So this is what's happening. The narrative is hardening on them and they don't know what to do.

The elites in the SBC don't know what to do. And think about it. Their usual go-to measure is accuse the person of racism, of sexism, of some kind of insensitivity, of bigotry. Try to go down that road, Christian nationalist, et cetera.

Try to cast shade on them because there's some kind of insensitivity there. They're not inclusive. They have a hard time with this one. And the reason they're having a hard time is because if you accuse someone of racism, which I'm sure they thought of, for shining a spotlight on Ed Litton's plagiarism, it's a stretch, first of all.

But secondly, if the intended result of pointing that spotlight on him is to get him to resign, is to say, look, you should resign or apologize or something. And if the vice president for the Southern Baptist Convention is a person of color named Lee Brand, which he is, and he's a conservative, it's gonna be a very hard uphill battle for the progressives to turn this one into racism.

Ed Litton is as white as a piece of chalk. And the person that is the VP is a person of color. How are they going to, I mean, they don't have anything. There's really not much they can do on this. And they can try their best.

I think they're probably having strategy sessions now, trying to figure out how in the world do we get the pressure taken off Ed Litton, but it's already there. And one of the things I had said in yesterday's video is that, and I went back and I looked at it because I wanted to see what I had said.

I basically, to summarize myself, I had said that the progressives in the Southern Baptist Convention are acting like the Boston University treated Martin Luther King Jr's plagiarism. They just, he plagiarized his dissertation.

A lesser person, normal person, would have been stripped of their PhD, but not Martin Luther King Jr because he's Martin Luther King Jr. And because he forwarded equality, he is, no matter what he does, he can do no wrong.

Now, here's the thing. I think the progressives in the SBC feel that way about Ed Litton for the most part.

That's true.

They're circling the wagons. I've already shown that and I'll show some more of it. The progressives though in the media, the social justice advocates in mainstream media, I don't think they feel that way as much.

I think they'll use someone like Ed Litton. They'll use someone like J .D. Greer. And of course, progressives in the SBC are more than willing to be used by the mainstream media. They interpret it as their, I guess, engaging culture and opening doors to get the gospel into places it wouldn't be.

Except when they go on these interviews, they don't really share the gospel. They talk about left-wing politics and agree with whatever the news anchor says. But the news anchor or the media organization, they're not trying to help Ed Litton.

They would just as soon destroy the Southern Baptist Convention. But what they do wanna do is pour some cold water on Trump voters. And they know in the Southern Baptist Convention, if it can go progressive, even though they still, I mean, this is the same thing.

I was reading this the other day. It's very similar to this. The way the Kremlin in the 1950s and 60s treated African-Americans, black people in the United States. The way the Kremlin treated them was they did not like the fact that they were so religious.

In fact, a lot of them were in the definition you're used to growing up with of racist. They would have been considered that. They didn't like black people necessarily, but they realized they could use them.

They could use them to be the co-belligerents, the cannon fodder for them to promote disruption in society if they could try to let them know that, convince them that the disparities around them, the things that they underwent, and some of them were legitimately unjust.

If they could convince them that that was all due to capitalism and that the communists had the answer to that, they had the remedy to that problem, then they could use them. And once they were done with them, they were done with them.

And I think that's the way the mainstream media views the progressives in the Southern Baptist Convention. They don't like the Southern Baptist Convention. Certainly, they don't like religion in general, unless it is, it has to be super far wacko left.

And even then, I mean, they have their own religion, which is a secular social justice religion in general, but they don't like Southern Baptist. I mean, you believe in even the authority of the word of God, right?

I know we're softening inerrancy to use authority now, but you believe in any of that stuff, that they're not gonna like you. But if you're the tip of the sword and you can get into places they can't go to fight the conservatives, they'll support you.

And so I don't expect the mainstream media to treat ad lits in the way the progressives in the Southern Baptist Convention do. They're gonna report on this, and maybe more favorably than a conservative outlet, but it's still gonna be unfavorable, just the fact that they're reporting on it.

Now, I want to show you something. This is, let's see if I can pull it up here.

Yes.

This is another sermon. Reformation. Charlotte put this out today. Another J .D. Greer ad lit in mashup, and I'm expecting a lot more of this. I don't think, 13 minutes is kind of long. Let's just see how far we get on this, and we'll watch it.

And this is the kind of thing I think that's gonna be coming out more and more as the weeks progress.

In fact, why don't we just do this right now? This is sort of a little uncouth, maybe spontaneous, but if you, right now, listening at one of our campuses in our church here, if you are employed by the government in any way, and I would include in that first responders, law enforcement, of course, military, social workers, teachers, a representative, elected representative of some kind, or if you work for one of those people, if you work for the government, receive your paycheck from them, would you do us the honor at all of our campuses of just standing up right now?

Just stand to your feet right now, wherever you are, if you work for the government. All right, remain standing, put your hands together, and why don't you just stand there? Stay standing, okay? Stay, stay, remain standing.

If you're at home, please, I understand you don't have to stand up, but at our West Campus, if you serve the government, if you receive a paycheck from the government, maybe you're a public school teacher, maybe you're a police officer, maybe you work in the tax department, the revenue department, maybe you're an agent of one of our law enforcement organizations, and so if you are, would you just stand up for a moment?

And I wanna do what Paul says in another place in Scripture where he tells us to pray for you. He tells us to pray for those that serve in this capacity because it's hard work and you do so, as I'm gonna show you, in some ways, as God's representative and so we're gonna pray for you and I'm gonna kinda commission you in what you do.

So if you're around one of these people and you know them, just reach out and kinda put your hand on them, show them or lay your hands on them. If you don't know them, probably best not to reach out and touch them like that, especially if it's a policeman, they're gonna think you're feeling for their guns.

So just reach out if you know them, kinda put your hands on them and let me voice a prayer on our behalf to God, okay?

And I want all of us to express our gratitude for those who serve us in our nation. First responders, teachers, and we thank you for your work.

Father, thank you, thank you for these brothers and sisters that have given their lives in service to make our lives better and to protect us.

And to serve us and to help us.

We pray that, Father, they would be able to do this with justice and equity. They would do so with wisdom that comes from you. They would do so in a way that leads to peace and leads to freedom and blessing for all.

We thank you for these brothers and sisters. We're very grateful for them, anoint them in their work. We pray in Jesus' name and all God's people said, amen. Put your hands together one more time.

As they take their seat.

Matter of fact, I wanna pray for you right now. Father in heaven, I pray for those who serve us through our governments. And Lord, we thank you for those who serve on a national level, state level, local level, county.

Lord, we thank you that they serve and we pray your blessing upon their service that they will care for people, that they'll have a heart for justice and righteousness. Lord, give them wisdom in all that they do.

In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you and you may be seated.

There are two primary things that I believe you and I are to glean from this passage. If you're taking notes, this will be your outline for today. The first is we can see the responsibilities of those who govern.

We can see the responsibilities of those who govern. This is, if you will, a kind of job description for the government.

I wanna talk about two things this morning. I wanna talk about the responsibility of government.

The second thing you'll see, and this is the most important part, the responsibility of those who are governed. That's most of us.

And I wanna talk about the responsibility of the governed.

You think that many of our leaders are batty and for good cause, I might add. But Caligula, who was Caesar around this time,.

Was a Roman emperor by the name of Caligula.

Caligula was unfit to keep a pet, let alone run an empire.

Now, let me just say up front, he wasn't worthy of having a pet, much less being an emperor.

Let me just run you through a quick laundry list of Caligula's greatest accomplishments. First thing he does when he's in office, when he becomes Caesar, he has his mom and brother killed to make sure that they don't challenge his right to the throne.

He openly committed incest with three of his sisters. He frequently would cross-dress and go out in public. He installed his favorite horse, Encetitus, as a senator, and then later promoted him to pro-council.

He killed his mother and brother to gain his power. He openly lived in an incestuous relationship with his multiple sisters. He was a cross-dresser. He literally made his horse a Roman senator.

I have to ask, what had the horse done as senator that earned him a promotion to pro-council, right? I mean, how do you even vote when you're a horse in the Senate? All in favor say aye. All opposed?

Wait for it. Nay, okay. You get it, right?

Can you imagine that? A horse, every time the Senate gathered, a horse would walk in, it was the emperor's horse. When they voted, he would say nay.

Often during gladiatorial games, which were cruel enough,. Caligula.

All right, I can't take any more. I can't take any more.

This is bad.

This is really bad. This is him preaching the same sermon. It's the same illustrations. It's the same points. He's preaching the same sermon, and without attribution, that's definition of plagiarism. I don't know, that's textbook plagiarism.

How many examples are there of this, of Ed Litton doing this, and how many preachers has he done it with? This is the problem. And will conservatives actually pick up what's right in front of them and carry that baton is the question that I have, and I want to encourage conservatives in the Southern Baptist Convention to do.

Let's see here.

We have two people that I wanted to highlight. For those who didn't see yesterday, I talked about Danny Akin, Adam Greenway, Malcolm Yarnall, James Merritt, Keith Whitfield, all elites in the Southern Baptist Convention, and all of them circling the wagons around defending Ed Litton.

And it's just, it's unbelievable. Well, today I saw Bart Barber, who was on the resolutions committee for the Southern Baptist Convention last time around, and John Mann, who I believe is an adjunct professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, both of them also defending Ed Litton.

I mean, listen to this. This is Bart Barber. Litton has not transgressed the Baptist faith and message, nor has he committed any malfeasance of his office. If he were outside the boundaries, this is ridiculous.

So you make the standard of the Baptist faith and message. Well, it doesn't say you can't plagiarize. Well, that's not the point. What about the word of God? I mean, if that's their argument, let them have it.

Let them use that argument, because they're probably just trying to figure out what's gonna work and nothing is. John Mann, confession, I preach an average of 40 minutes per sermon. You could lift nine seconds from every one of my sermons and make me look really bad, but that would be uncharitable and sinful.

Well, yeah, but this is great. Let them do this. If they wanna make these their arguments, this is great, because this isn't like nine seconds lifted from one sermon. This is Ed Litton side-by-side for 12 minutes, preaching the same sermon as J .D. Greer, basically.

So these are pathetic attempts, but these are the attempts that are being made out there. And the thing that I wanted to highlight was that there's nothing being said from people like Albert Moeller. I'm not sure, who else would I even expect to weigh in on this, who's, has that, still to some people, they think of them as quote-unquote conservative.

There's not too many left, but people, even, think about like even the Conservative Baptist Network, right? I would give them a week to come up with a way of, I'm sure they probably will weigh in on this.

I mean, they have to. I don't know how they couldn't, but the people that would be leaders in that, are they saying anything about this? I know Rod Martin is, I haven't looked at everyone, but, and this isn't to condemn anyone.

This is more to encourage that, guys, this is the time. If you are in the Southern Baptist Convention, if you have any idea of wanting to be in leadership, wanting to return the convention to orthodoxy, this is an issue that you can really go to town on.

And people are way more willing to go to town on this who are in the pews, and not just the pews, but that mid-level, kind of like where I'm sitting. People who are on social media, who talk about these issues.

I've seen boldness in some people that I have not seen on the critical race stuff at all. They're willing to come out and say something. And I've wondered a little bit, like, why is that? And I think part of it is, people are deathly afraid of being called racist, deathly afraid of it.

This is one of the issues that you don't have to be that brave about. You can even have a little cowardice, and you can still go after Ed Litton for racism. And it's also a joke that's ready-made. People on social media are now posting things like, ask not what you can do for your country, but what your country, or ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country, and then quote Ed Litton.

Famous quotes that you've heard. Four score and seven years ago, Ed Litton, that kind of thing. And so it's becoming something that's developing into the meme world. And at that point, it's kind of like a baked-in narrative.

And I think because Ed Litton, and this is the reason I wanna be careful about this, because Ed Litton is not actually apologizing, not repenting, asking for forgiveness for those he's preached to for years, he's not, and including now, he's not stepping down from the convention at all, or even offering his resignation.

Because of that, I mean, go for it. Ask for this man to resign. Make this an issue. And I think if there's a Southern Baptist who show real leadership, really make this an issue, I think it's gonna coalesce some support around them, because they're going to identify with the people in the pews who are seeing this now, some of them.

And it's a clown show now. I mean, the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention is a clown show at this point. And for those who want there to be maturity, seriousness about the weighty matters that the Southern Baptist Convention needs to be focused on, for all the talk about, we need to focus on the Great Commission.

I mean, this is, you have a guy who's plagiarizing his sermons, it's disheartening. And I think if someone were to carry that mantle, and not to be a jerk about it, but just to say this is unacceptable, and there's forgiveness in Christ for this plagiarism, but you cannot be the president of this convention while being a plagiarist.

And I don't even know, I wanna, there's certain names I kind of almost wanna name. Like, I kind of, and I don't know LeBrand personally. I really don't. I don't know him, I've never talked to him. But in the position he's in as the vice president, I mean, this is, maybe he doesn't wanna do it because of that position he's in, and make it look like he's after power or something.

But man, guys, if someone could, if you could put the pressure on Lytton enough, that this is something that's beyond the pale, which it is, this is not just an opportunistic thing. This is not good. The world even sees that this is not good.

The world, which has lost all its moral bearings, still thinks that plagiarism is a bad thing in general. Now, I'm sure that's gonna go out the window at some point, but they still kind of think that.

So if they can even see this, I mean, is this really being a good public witness? I think it's time for someone to really make the case LeBrand needs to be the president of the Southern Baptist Convention.