It’s Like TGC Isn’t Even Trying to Hide Hypocrisy

Travel Update and the Article That Prompted the Discussion

Hey everyone, welcome to the conversations that matter podcast. I'm your host John Harris for today's travel edition I am heading to Kendalville, Indiana. I'll be there tonight to speak to an audience there at a church and then on Sun sorry Saturday, I'll be in Syracuse, Indiana for the Jesus and politics conference looking forward to that and I am in Ohio Pulled over on the side of the road here.

There's a barbecue place. You can kind of see it in the background there and I just had some lunch which is Always good. I don't get really good barbecue in New York and the people are already friendlier You just when you leave New York Well, if you go south or west Going north you don't run into friendlier people as much but if you go south or west From New York you immediately run into people that actually talk to you.

It's kind of a interesting experience so anyway, I'm enjoying this and Someone sent me I saw in my messages as I was eating lunch an article from the gospel coalition from today by Brett McCracken Called stop throwing pastors under the bus and I thought perfect.

I wanted to do a short podcast anyway, and So we'll just do this. We'll read the article talk about it a little bit and I read the first paragraph and Didn't need to read anything else. I haven't read actually anything else the first paragraph alone sold me so Here's the first paragraph.

The Gospel Coalition’s Own Pastors-Under-the-Bus Rhetoric

It says I've noticed an increasingly prevalent genre of online evangelical Christian commentary in which pastors are shamed because they're Insufficiently vocal about this or that outrage or not militant enough in the culture war.

Increasingly, it seems there's a lot of social media mileage and throwing pastors under the bus now I've only had like Not even 10 minutes to look at articles on the gospel coalition. So I have a few pulled up I'm sure that many more could be pulled up but Let me read for you Some excerpts from other gospel coalition articles just really quick.

This is from January 21st 2021 Thomas Kidd writing for the gospel coalition in an article called evangelicals in a post Trump world and it goes like this Pastors and churches will have an opportunity to wean people off politics all but the most hardened evangelical Republicans insiders will readily concede that American Christians tend to put too much hope in politics and politicians yet we keep doing it pastors and teachers can avail themselves of this moment of greater Marginality and perhaps a couple of relatively quiet years for evangelicals and politics to model the truth that whatever our political Alignments Jesus is the king in the church.

No other partisan Allegiances should compete with his eternal kingdom if Christ followers are at each other's throats over temporal partisan alignment. Something has to be done. We're sorry something has gone wrong.

Okay, so this is Thomas Kidd in the gospel coalition last year, which Aside from I mean, he's a historian. I would think he'd have a little better sense than to say evangelicals are gonna have some quiet years here, but he With the Christian nationalism thing, I'm pretty sure it's the opposite of that right now, but Anyway, what do we see in this pastors and churches have an opportunity?

What's the opportunity to wean people off politics because there's these heart and evangelical Republican insiders and Pastors and teachers can avail themselves. Well, what does that sound like? I mean wouldn't that fall under the criticism that Brent McCracken is making today in the gospel coalition.

You have this from 2020 by David, I think it's Chloe a false rivalry of rivalry gospel preaching and social justice. This is from TGC Africa friends across Africa. We've witnessed slavery colonialism and apartheid.

These were advocated for and approved by many Christians because the church kept silent because of their skewed theology of justice and our mission in the world. We've also seen a departure from the gospel with the emergence of the social gospel because other Christians were not immersed and rooted in the foundational doctrines of the gospel.

Well If that doesn't say that pastors ought to take a certain position and if they failed then There's a certain level of scorn or correction which Again, I thought that was what Brett McCracken's critiquing.

There's two other articles. I found two one by Thabiti Annabelle a Called a call to evangelical pastors. Let's do our part to end police brutality in mass incarceration and one by Edward Copeland. He's the one that wrote that why I hate August article about Kyle Rittenhouse.

Anyway, he wrote another article called why all Christians must keep was sneak seek. Sorry public justice some of us reject the concept he says of systemic or structural evil altogether. Leaving us no category with which to describe what the Bible clearly portrays is beyond the realm of individual responsibility.

It's lack of robust robust biblical framework to address systemic evil fosters a type of psycho Sclerosis that hampers dialogue. Okay, so Anyway, I just thought I would read you a few of those and again, this is like 10 minutes if that of searching around I would bet if I looked for stuff on the Conspiracy theories and Vaccines and masks and lockdowns and things like that.

I would probably find more articles from the gospel coalition in which They actually I think I've talked about them on this podcast. That's the thing where pastors are being told essentially they need to take a stand here.

They need to stop the misinformation. They need to carry Fauci's water and do something. So the gospel coalition in my mind, I know it's lost a lot of credibility. It's It's kind of low-hanging fruit at this point.

I realized that in fact the person who sent it to me said I know this is low-hanging fruit and I thought I'm kind of glad to be honest with you that the gospel coalition is viewed that way by so many people because I remember when it wasn't not too long ago and just you know, people don't take it as seriously, but Anyway, this is a further an illustration of the hypocrisy here from Brett McCracken that He's noticed this increasingly prevalent genre of online evangelical Christian commentary in which pastors are shamed Because they're insufficiently vocal about this or that outrage.

I'm just thinking Wasn't gospel coalition one of the main outlets that started doing that kind of thing. I'm just saying The formula is familiar Brett McCracken says a highly online Christian takes on to social media to put generic pastors on blast By unfavorably comparing them to secular thought leaders or politicians who are supposedly more courageous truth-tellers.

I Wonder if I'm a I'm one of these highly online Christian Christian people who takes a social media Anyway, he says but is this a good faith critique and is it helpful pummeling your pastor? Few call out their own pastors online, but many employ the imprecise word pastors To advance a narrative of negligent clergy sitting out the culture war.

Well, hold on a minute. Hold on Brent McCracken just said in the last paragraph. What did he say? Did he name someone specifically? Let's see, was he brave enough? No. No, he said highly online Christian as a genetic.

So a generic Christian, so Christians who are online is the broad category he used To criticize he's created a criticizing that category and then he's criticizing This broad category for using a broad category because they are going after pastors and not specific pastors often the social media post focuses on a Hold on another thing too here.

I just got to say this Brent McCracken, how do you know this? How do you know what these highly online people are? Do you must if you to see the trend you got to be online? I'm just saying So are you a highly online Christian too?

I'm wondering. All right. Often the social media post focuses on a timely front in the culture war and it turns it into an indictment on beta pastors. Think I think someone's very sensitive. Who are allegedly naive about the issues gravity wake up pastor while you're trying to winsomely engage the culture.

The culture is indoctrinating your congregation with CRT LGBT plus agendas woke ideology and so on. Quit sitting on the sidelines. Left-leaning Christians also joined the pastor as a punching bag. Social media chorus their post similarly indict pastors as a vague class.

Taking them to task for enabling various evils. Pastors have blood on their hands. They're cowardice in staying silent on racism Christian nationalism abuse. They are 15 mass shootings climate change and so on means they have zero moral authority on any issue now that's an oh, that's a.

That's an exaggeration I suppose but this is the kind of thing gospel coalition has engaged in at the very least. On on a level that what isn't quite that exaggerated but they've certainly done this kind of thing mostly from the left.

Pastors aren't above criticism. There are some pastors who refrain from speaking up about vital issues. If you're losing favor with one's group or another they're oppressing issues some pastors should speak about more often yet is impossible to lump all pastors together and It is unhelpful to make blanket accusations in cyberspace.

Why Generalizations About Pastors Can Be Fair and Necessary

So he's he's going on and on here and I'll just say this. As someone who writes I've been writing this week. You are met with difficulties. No matter what you're writing about when you are covering a trend you have to you have to be very careful and precise in your language because You don't want to give the impression that every single person in Let's say I just did it at the beginning of this podcast.

Didn't I said people get friendlier outside of New York? Is that does that mean every person in New York is unfriendly? And every person outside of New York is under front. No, of course, and no one takes it that way, but it's It's an understanding that we have.

It's a social convention we have with with each other when we make those kinds of statements and depending on the context of the statement we know what the person means and Whether they're talking about every New Yorker or I'm making a general statement, right?

And so Brett McCracken in this article makes general a general categorization a general statement about online Christians. Yet his whole Criticism here is that you you have to be specific. Apparently you can't make general statements which gospel coalition does all the time.

All right. Much pastor bashing on social media doesn't jive with the realities on the ground from what I've seen. Most pastors are aware and concerned about the pressing social and cultural issues of our day.

Most of them are seeking resources to be equipped to address timely topics from the pulpit. Highly online Christians expect pastors to be highly online too if they don't see a pastor retweeting see, I don't even think this is quite true if if the past if pastors talk about current issues making application from Scripture to them in a sermon or at church or Bible study that would Satisfy look if I'm one of these highly online Christians I don't have to see it but you know online, but if a pastor is highly online and They're not like there's a hole in there in their hot takes.

They're not focusing on something that is pressing that. Are there's legitimate questions coming from their congregation most likely about then I may say something I may say like hey, this is a popular Christian leader here pastor who?

He's he's highly online, but he's not saying he's not talking about this issue or he's Pushing the wrong perspective on this issue in his sermons and in his online activity or he's just silent on it yet.

And we saw this actually, let me give you an example Church down the road from me that was highly Involved in the social justice move in 2020 and Lockdown masks all that but at the same time when Roe v. Wade was overturned nothing.

In fact, I even think they made a statement about Ukraine. Nothing, though. So that kind of thing we noticed that but it's because the church is highly online about other things and it's obvious when they're on eggshells about certain topics, so.

Anyway, this is actually a long article. Let me skip ahead a bit and try to get to the meat of this. We've come to an absurd absurd place where online performance of passion is more important than passion that leads to action in the real world.

This is just shadowboxing. This is not it's hard to take this seriously when it's coming from the gospel coalition because it's like you could say that about their articles like you. Know this all your articles are just online performance.

What about what you do in the real world? Don't make lazy assumptions from afar. There are far More ways to care about an issue than just tweeting about it. This is an article that Brent McCracken tweeted out.

Yes. When tempted to call out our pastors for not sufficiently speaking out about some controversial topic we'd also do well to reflect on our motives our Our pastor our calls for pastor to denounce that particular sin in the culture matched by our invitation for him to call us out of our own.

This. Okay, so I'm hoping Brent McCracken went to his pastor before he wrote this article and is like look you need to call out my. Oh, I'm about to blast all these online people. There's this nameless faceless group, but I'm gonna call them highly online Christians and man.

Can you just call out my son first? This is a tactic. I've seen this by the way in real life like when you start to Notice something's amiss like you notice there's corruption or there's some kind of immoral behavior some bad theology and you say something and The immediate pushback often is well, how's your relationship with the Lord?

Do you pray enough? Do you evangelize but yet you're doing this you could have used that time and shared the gospel. It almost sounds like Judas when he's like you should have used that money and given it to the poor.

What are you doing over here? It's like well, I mean, I Think some discernment is also part of being a Christian and warning others. It's kind of a loving-your-neighbor thing. I don't know why. That's the two are mutually exclusive.

But they're made to fight each other as if this is the tactic you saw it done at the Southern Baptist Convention the time before last in 2021 when who was it it was one of the members of the resolutions committee and I think it was James Merritt said to the whole congregation in the room that he rejected a proposal to denounce critical race theory and said if people were as bold about you know, or put in as much effort to Evangelize the world as they do against critical race theory.

The whole world would be saved by now. It was something along those lines. That's the same tactic being used here. It's a shaming tactic and we shouldn't fall for it. All right real courage for pastors isn't their willingness to say whatever the loudest voices on Twitter demand.

It's rather their willingness to unapologetically tell Christians what Jesus commands. Okay, well, I mean Jesus does have moral commands and if there's an unwillingness or just a lack of sense of proportion when it comes to let's say Speaking against transgender library hour when it comes to town, but yet there's was all kinds of denouncements of conspiracy theories and Christians who failed to get vaccined or something.

Then it that that becomes the issue it's. It's not about I don't think for anyone like including myself who's made critiques online I don't think any of us are saying like you got to be you got to do whatever the loudest voices on Twitter demand.

You say like obviously not it's it's always been about Jesus has ethical standards too. And why don't you uphold those? So it is about Jesus command. So Brett McCracken is making an assumption here. Like it's not about that.

It's it's about there's another again a dichotomy here. It's either about what the loudest voices on Twitter think or it's about Jesus. You can't have them. You can't have someone who's Supporting Jesus's claims online as an option.

So anyway, there's so much this whole thing you could read every paragraph and probably pick it apart. But I don't have time for it right now. Let's go to the last one. Don't throw your pastor under the bus get on the bus with them.

Pastoral Accountability, Discernment, and Speaking the Truth in Love

Help them repair the flat tires and avoid potholes. If you get lost pull out the map and help them get the bus back on track. Don't jump off the ride gets bumpy. Okay, so if that's the case What do you say to the congregations and I this is a story that I've heard so many times.

It's like a template at this point that they have approached their pastor. They've said pastor I'm concerned about this and then they get shunned then they lose their ministry then they're blacklisted in the church or in the ministry if it's a ministry and They they were trying to jump on the bus with their pastor.

They were trying to Come alongside of him and help him and be humble and yet this is what they're met with see, this is. Sometimes I wonder when I read articles like this I wonder are we living in two different worlds is Brent McCracken in a completely different world than The world that I live in in the world.

I think most of you live in what world is he in and You know, maybe maybe I don't know I don't know I don't want to assume anything about him other than what he's written here but The the social justice fight.

That people insisted three years ago, I remember I remember this well that people insisted wasn't actually happening is totally happening it is in some ways it has happened and You know, we just have to we have to keep Speaking the truth and encouraging the weak helping Helping the weak encouraging the faint-hearted but also admonishing the unruly.

And if it's a pastor who is failing that means that the damage is is much bigger, right? So anyway It's important. I think that we try to it's actually a loving thing to do to try to hold people accountable when you speak the truth in love and using your online platform to Propagate the truth.

It's actually an excellent thing to do and if you're saying I've noticed a trend here pastors Aren't they're not getting behind this. Then there's nothing innately wrong with this. Saying that Jesus did this all the time to with the Pharisees, right?

He would generalize them and say this is what you do. And and oh my goodness. What about Nicodemus? He wasn't yeah Okay, obviously there's an exception. Jesus could make a general statement and so can we so if we're gonna be like Jesus Then I don't see any problem with that.

So anyway, I got to get to Indiana now God bless. I hope that was somewhat helpful for for some of you and More coming by now.