Why churches should leave the SBC - a systematic explanation for pastors

One, two, three. Welcome to Apologetics Live. We're here to answer your questions and challenges about God and the Bible. Meet your hosts from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport, Dr. Anthony Silvestro, and Pastor Justin Pierce.

Hello and good evening. And as you can see, we're live together. We're not on two different computers. We're not in two different states right now. This is Dr. Casey Buttner, pastor of Beulah Baptist Church in Winter Garden, Florida.

And I'm your host, Dr. Anthony Silvestro Jr. tonight. And I'm so excited to have you here. We had a great weekend this past weekend, had a wonderful conference, the Conference on Worldliness in the Church.

And I know for you, this special place was in regards to the SBC and all the worldliness that you watched come into the church over the years, which is exactly what we're talking about tonight. But the conference was Justin Peters, Phil Johnson, you, myself, and Susan Heck for the ladies.

Yes, she only taught the ladies, by the way. And because I know there's some videos that were blasting you and your church and others, but what a great conference. People really enjoyed it. We had people as far as Seattle, Washington fly out for this conference.

There's a pastor and his family that drove from Texas. And I know it was a blessing to everybody that was here. So if you had any words for it or not.

Yeah, I'm so grateful for everyone who came and we have some amazing testimonies as to how God has worked over the weekend that we just could not have expected. So to God be the glory. And I'm so proud of Beulah Baptist Church and all of the volunteers that pulled together.

They were just simply being themselves in Christ and loving on those who came. And so our campus was full of visitors, lots of folks that drove an hour and a half and two hours away and stayed in hotels and stayed Saturday, Sunday, and Monday with us.

And so that was great, exposing worldliness in the church. And that is in the church, not the obviousness of the Benny Hinn craziness and all that kind of stuff, but the things that were creeping inside of our good churches and calling Christians to stand upon sound doctrine.

So that was a great conference. Yeah, it was great. I'm still kind of coming down off of it right now.

I was very, very impressed. Phil Johnson said that he had never been invited nor even seen a conference like this before. So I thought, ah, I'll take that as a compliment.

That's right, yeah. And it really was done absolutely well. Amazing to have a church your size, which is a good size. I think it's a healthy church size. You're not in the thousands, but to have 50 volunteers dedicated to just the service and taking care of those that were here at the conference is amazing, let alone the people that were here to set up and tear down and everything.

It was really, really great to see. Thank you. So having said all that, our main purpose for the show tonight is this. Pastor Casey has been on our show, Apologetics Live, and we've done shows about the SBC and the problems of the SBC.

And just to kind of throw some stuff out there, look, you have been born and bred SBC. I can only imagine, you grew up in a family where he's gonna be a pastor and you're like, SBC, blood, everything is SBC on you.

They can cut you open when you die and you have SBC written on your blood vessels. So I get it, right? And you were raised in all this. You actually become an SBC pastor. You rise the ranks. You become the head of the Florida Baptist Convention, which is the, I'm sorry, the GOLDA, Greater Orlando Baptist Association, which is right underneath the Florida Baptist Convention, which is right underneath the SBC.

So you headed that, what, several hundred churches. And talk about counting the cost, right? You do these videos with Apologetics Live. You do some videos with Justin Peters shortly thereafter. And the next thing you know, you're showing the door.

Got the SBC boot. SBC boot. And not only that, you also have friends, lots of people who you would have considered close friends as pastors who, as you told me the other day, could walk past you in a store and not say a word to you now.

Yeah, yeah. It's sad. There's a culture of being committed to the SBC mechanism, the machine, the cooperative program, or the way, however you want to refer to it. And it kind of creeps in and these elephants in the room are not spoken to.

So the 11th commandment has been called. There's all kinds of different things, but I've experienced all these things and we may smile and laugh about them now, but boy, they do come at a cost. And it just reminds me of true Christianity.

If you will stand upon the word of God, it will come at a cost.

Yeah, that's absolutely right. So Jason, you're asking a question here and you're asking, was the conference streamed online? Unfortunately, it was not. What was streamed online on Apologetics Live, and you can find on YouTube right now, is the Q &A from Sunday night.

So we did a special Apologetics Live episode from 7 to 9. You can find that on YouTube right now. And I think that the Sunday sermon by Phil Johnson would have been streamed as well, right?

Actually, every main service in the worship center was recorded. And so it's just in the lineup to be edited and slowly uploaded on our YouTube channel. So bbcwg .org, and then just click on sermons. And so I perceive here in a couple of weeks that you'll start seeing the conference sermons, yours as well, will be uploaded.

Yeah, wonderful.

So the rest will be up there, but at least you can see a couple of those things now. The Q &A was a great one. So I vowed to answer every single question that came in during the conference and in the chats.

And we did that. We answered every one of them.

And I remember we were about halfway through and Phil's like, I think we need to go to a lightning round because you got a whole stack in your hand.

And I said, yeah, I think that's a good idea. I got two pastors up here. So I know you guys can be long-winded at times. So yeah, we ended up getting through them all though. So that was good. Well, let's get into the show because the reason why we're doing this show is you did all these videos.

You lost a lot of friends in the process, but you've had a lot of other pastors that have emailed you, called you, texted you to say, hey, Casey, can you explain to me all your thoughts, everything you found out, especially about First Baptist Orlando, what's going on in the SBC, and can you tell it to me?

And so I said, you know, Casey, it is great. You're willing to spend this time, but you know, two hours here, three hours there, two hours there. And before you know it, all you're doing is gonna be talking on the phone all day long, every day to pastors trying to explain the exact same thing to them.

So we thought we would do a show that would have all the information. We're gonna lay out everything tonight to the next couple of hours so that any of you can take this video and share it with any pastor, any church member, anybody, and have a full lowdown on the SBC.

So on that, we've got a number of topics and we've taken the time now for the show to lay out our main topics, as well as any subheadings underneath those main topics. And we're just gonna work through them tonight.

Why Southern Baptists Were Proud of Their Convention

So the first question, Casey, is why have pastors and congregants, their members, been proud to be a part of the SBC historically?

Yeah, that's a good question. And it's really one that's kind of hard to simplify. So one of the reasons why they have been proud is because we're better together. We can do a whole lot more as a team when you kind of put your money and pull everything together.

So when you pull your money together, it's amazing how a small church can have an amazing amount of dignity and participating in forward missions. So nevertheless, we're better together and you can get more bang for your buck.

Another reason is that people and preachers have certainly been proud to be SBC historically because we've been known for being Bible-believing, Bible-carrying, those men and women who believe in the word of God as the word of God that has no mixture of error.

So the SBC generally has been Bible-believing and preaching people who believe the word of God is the word of God without any mixture of error. So that's something that we have been proud of. So nevertheless, that's some of the things that I think that we could be historically very proud besides the fact of standing upon sound doctrine.

Historically, Baptists have been the most sound denomination, not only the largest, but the most sound of Baptist faith and message. Yep, that's right.

And I'll tell you, it was important for us when we left our old church nine to 10 years ago now, we wanted to seek out a church that was gonna remain solid to doctrine. And so we actually at that time said, or I told my wife, I said, we're gonna look for SBC Church.

And that was really a big thing for me. It was either SBC or one that had a MacArthur grad as the pastor. But yeah, and for the same reason, because of doctrine, right? They were historically the best denomination overall.

So tell me a little bit about the unity. I mean, because SBC has been really proud of their history of unity as well, right?

The Historical Benefits of SBC Unity, Missions, and Training

Yep, absolutely. The unity that we have as Southern Baptists to me has been second to none. There's a plus to have a curriculum that's produced by seminary professors and distributed through Lifeway. It keeps everybody on the same page and such.

Now that hasn't been a strength in the end. And we'll kind of explain that a little bit more as we go on. But the unity in Southern Baptist life has been a real blessing to me, the fellowship, the camaraderie, the conferences, the meetings, the annual conventions, both with your association, the state, and the national level.

It's exciting to be able to see what God is doing on a grand level. So I've loved the Southern Baptist Convention my entire life.

Yeah, amen to that. So, okay, so let's transition a little bit further. And I will say, someone says they can't get into StreamYard. I actually, and Andrew's gonna be so upset when he finds this out, if he's watching right now.

I actually forgot to go onto the Apologetics Live page and upload the newest, the newest, what do you call it? A website or web address for StreamYard. So no one's gonna be able to get into StreamYard tonight.

Sorry. Oh, whoops. Whoops, yeah. I mean, we didn't intend on having anyone in StreamYard until later in the show anyway, but the YouTube link is out there and that's what people can come on to and watch or through Facebook.

And feel free at that point to go on and ask any questions in the chat, because once we get through our list here, we're going to go through and ask every question that comes into the chat tonight. So yes, I'm gonna hold you to that too tonight is we're gonna answer every question that comes in, at least in regards to the SBC.

Yeah, yeah. So we might go on Anthony time tonight, Melissa. You might be right. Okay, so part two, we first asked why pastors and congregants been proud to be a part of the SBC historically. Number two is what have been the benefits of being part of the SBC historically?

Now we kind of covered a couple of these points already that kind of went in with the first point, which is doctrine and unity, right? So that has been a huge benefit overall. But what are some other benefits?

One of them is the collective funding for missionaries. Oh yeah, yeah.

If you go on to the sbc .net website, you can click on the giving or the amount of funds that have been given to the cooperative program. And just by way of example, in October of 2021, $16 million was given to the cooperative program in one month.

And then you can forward down and look in January of 2022, earlier this year, $21 million to the cooperative program in January. In May of this year, 16 million. August, 15 million. It is powerful when you have nearly 50 ,000 churches who give to the cooperative program.

That's how we have seminaries that offer such a high level of an education at such a low price. And obviously the education has been tainted. It's one of the biggest reasons why we're pulled out, you know, and all kinds of different things.

But nevertheless, the collective funding for missionaries also gives them stability on the mission field. So if you're an independent Baptist church that supports missionaries independently, so that missionary is codependent upon that church.

And if the church has a bad season of life, then that missionary loses their funding. But with the cooperative program, there's a huge pool of money that keeps it floating along rather consistently. So that's a strength.

So, and this is just a question for you. So listeners know, what is the difference between cooperative program and the North American Missions Board and International Missions Board, the IMB and AMM?

Okay, so the North American Mission Board focuses on church planting and missionaries here in North America. The International Missions Board is focused on church planting and missions internationally.

And so you have these two different entities and the cooperative program gives a percentage of the income to each entity. And then you have the other major entities of the SBC seminaries. And within the seminaries, you have our church planters, our educators, our chaplains, and preachers and all of that.

So Okay, so when people gave money or give money to the cooperative program, that's getting funneled to the different missionaries both nationally and abroad.

Yes, so your money is getting percentage-wise split up into those areas.

And so, and that's why we listed this as a benefit for being part of SBC historically, because I mean, churches have a responsibility to one, evangelize, right? And you know how big I am, I know how big you are about this.

If a church isn't evangelizing, if a pastor's not teaching on evangelism for the pulpit and telling people to go out and evangelize, not saying on the streets, not saying getting up on a box and preaching on a street corner, I'm saying in your everyday lives to evangelize.

If we're not doing that, we have a problem. Equally, we have a problem if we are not supporting missionaries that are going outside or around the world. And so, the cooperative program was really neat because small churches didn't have the ability to often fund even a single missionary family for a year.

So now you can put money towards a cooperative program, collectively with other churches and be able to support missionaries. It's actually a really good idea when you look at it from that perspective.

So, okay, so that's one of the great benefits. You know, another one is pastoral training, right? So.

Yeah, you know, you see passages in the Bible where good men were pulled aside for a season of life, you know, John the Baptist, the Apostle Paul, and they were trained. Well, nevertheless, whether it's trained by the Holy Spirit or trained, however, it's really good for a man whom is called to preach the gospel, to pull aside for a season of life and to submit his self to professors, those that study through books of the Bible and really be entrenched in pastoral training.

I've often known that if I could just get at a breakfast table with three or four experienced pastors, what I gleaned from the conversation could save me years of pain and mistakes. And when you're dealing with souls as you're a pastor over a flock, the wisdom is priceless.

And so I'm constantly putting myself in a position to where I can learn from those who have gone before me. So I believe in pastoral training. In fact, we're gonna be doing pastoral training here at Beulah Baptist Church with about six or eight men in the upcoming year.

I'm excited about that. So, and just starting in small areas and allowing them to be kind of under shepherds when it comes to getting involved and serving in particular areas. So that's, it's great. But the SPC has been strong in pastoral training and, you know, in preaching.

Power in the Pulpit by Jerry Vines is one of the icons. It's one of the most popular books when it comes to a pastor having a preaching book on a shelf. And he was a very good expositor.

Yeah, that's great to hear. And I know there's, I've talked to several of the guys that are gonna be doing the pastoral program next year under you, and they're really excited about it. So it's really cool to see.

Okay, so another part of the benefits of being part of the SPC historically under point number two still is that there is a pastoral unity and fellowship.

Yeah, absolutely. You're definitely not gonna run low on opportunities to meet with one another and rub shoulders and you're constantly able to see what's going well with one another in the churches and such.

So pastoral fellowship is essential. A lot of times pastors are going through tough times. They need someone else to be able to talk to. And oftentimes it's another pastor that's gonna provide the right amount of fellowship and the right amount of advice to help that pastor stay grounded and not quit.

Yeah, absolutely.

Now, would you say that, now granted, this is a big problem today in the SPC, but would you say that historically when a pastor has needed not just advice, but from an accountability perspective, right?

So there's a lot of smaller churches that are SPC, one pastor, there's really no accountability for the pastor. Do you think that some of the other churches and other pastors may have been able to provide some of that, some accountability for those pastors?

Oh yeah, historically, like for the association, the association is designed to be able to keep doctrinal integrity. So there's a process of being approved as a church that can belong to the association and the association is in compliance with the Florida Baptist Convention or the state convention for where they're at, which is in compliance with the national convention, the Southern Baptist Convention.

And we were all underneath the Baptist faith and message. So we had a standard there and that was held to. And within that, there was a backstop, not only the word of God, but an explanation to our faith and our practice.

And so basically there is this standard that kept everyone unified. And so when a pastor was going through a hard time, we just talked about what was, and the word of God has always been the standard and there's accountability and there's always been good friendships in those things.

Yeah, and so for viewers and anybody who's gonna be watching us in the future, I mean, keep this in mind, right? That there should be, that the structure is there for the accountability. It's always been there practically, really up until it seems like some recent years.

Like granted, there's been some issues in the past that SBC has kind of gone through. So we'll get back to that one in a little bit. And we touched on this a little bit already, but what about the benefit of church planting, both US and international?

Church Planting, Missions, and the SBC's Historical Strengths

Yeah, you know, so it's hard not to just bounce right into the problems in the church planting today in the SBC. But historically, Southern Baptists have been given to church planting. It's been one of the main pushes, not just evangelism, not just churches, but starting good solid churches.

And unfortunately, I need to, it's just not done well today. The church plants are dying. They're, anyway, yeah. So historically saying, the church planting has been a good emphasis within the SBC.

Yeah, now I will say that we had one of my good friends, Alan Beach on the show back, oh, it's probably a year ago now. And he's, he came on, he was a SBC church planter in Ohio for, oh, I don't know, several years at least.

And he was so upset about the church planting that was going on versus what it used to be decades ago. And that he says in the forced, they forced a lot of different church plants and revitalization projects without doing the necessary work.

They would just throw money at it. But what discouraged him is that there were millions being poured into Northeast Ohio. You'd have at least 30 new church plants a year. And within a year after that, only two would survive on average out of the 30.

So you imagine the amount of money that was wasted. And again, we'll get into that a little bit more later, but it is interesting thinking about that whole church planting thing. So, okay, we've talked about why pastors and congregants have been proud to be a part of the SBC historically.

Two, what have been the benefits of being part of the SBC? Is there any other benefits that you know off the top of your head that you'd like to talk about?

You know, just basically being the most God honoring denomination. And all of these great things have now taken a turn and gone in a different direction, which we're getting to soon. But Southern Baptist polity and worship and preaching historically has produced a lot of phenomenal churches.

And when you drive through the Southeast, you see nothing but Baptist churches. And it's just amazing to see how God has used Southern Baptist in the life of this country. So nevertheless, I've always been proud to be a Southern Baptist.

Yeah. And I mean, really, there are a lot of greats in the last, you know, 30 to 50, 30 to 60 years ago of guys who we all look up to, you know, not perfect in theology, right? But I mean, guys like Adrian Rogers, who we were just talking about earlier, who, you know, not everyone loves Adrian Rogers, but Steve Lawson, that's who he studied under.

That was his pastor for years. That's who trained Steve Lawson up, in part to be the pastor and trainer that he is today.

In the pulpit. And the same thing with Charles Stanley, you know, he wasn't perfect, but he was willing to take a stand. And the same thing with W .A. Criswell, willing to take a stand. These late greats that are no longer in their prime had the influence, and they could pretty much say with clout, we're not gonna do that here, you know, and keep the SBC camp clean, but we no longer have the W .A. Criswells, the Adrian Rogers, the Jerry Bynes, these guys who were willing to stand up and tote the line and expect others to do the same.

Yeah. And yet historically, you had them, right? You had those stalwarts who are willing to stand and that people would actually listen to. So, okay. So point number three now is, now we're gonna start to get into the stuff, right?

Yeah. What are the main problems with the SBC today? And I'm gonna just kind of throw several of these things out here right now. Seminaries, liberalism, money and where it's being thrown now, and then some of the dark money that's out there.

And, you know, I don't even know how much you know about the dark money. I know I forwarded some stuff to you, but, you know, and I know this pastor has kind of fallen from grace in sin, but I don't wanna negate the work that he did over the years, and that would be Jordan Hall.

Some of the money that they traced was unbelievable. You know, the dark money that would be behind a lot of like the ERLC and a lot of the people behind all that stuff in the SBC that really helped policy shift over the years was dark money through shell companies and went all the way back to George Soros.

George Soros, right. You know, and I know you saw firsthand that not this year's or this year's, but last year's convention. I remember talking to you about the vote, right? You felt there was a ton of conservative churches, and I know we talked about this extensively.

You were really excited about going into Nashville last year. Because you're like, there's way more conservative churches than there are liberal ones. The problem is is that most conservative churches don't send their delegates to the convention.

And that when they do, usually the good churches don't have a lot of money, so they're only sending a certain amount of delegates. Because as you told me, the more money you donate to, I think it's the cooperative program, the more money, I'm sorry, the more delegates you get to go to the convention.

And so the liberal churches tend to have more money to give to the cooperative program. They would have more delegates therefore. And I remember us talking about that, and then a month or two after that broke, or after the convention, the story breaks that all these liberal churches that put all this money towards the cooperative program had money funneled to them to pay to the cooperative program in their name.

And then they were given money to pay for all the travel expenses of the delegates that those liberal churches were sending to the national convention. I mean, essentially doing worse than what the Democrats have done for the last two presidential elections now.

Definitely a liberal move. And I appreciated Tom Askell's movie, By What Standard, if you have not seen that, it kind of exposes a lot. But By What Standard is worth watching if you haven't seen it. And speaking of the liberal move there, I mean, we kind of felt like it was like the Mellon ballot system and how everything was hijacked.

And when the conservative Baptist network within the Southern Baptist Convention had its momentum going towards the annual convention in Nashville, we all had a tremendous amount of hope that we were going to get this thing going back in the right direction.

And our church, we sent a maximum amount of delegates. Our messengers were excited to go. Unfortunately, when we were there and J .D. Greer was the Southern Baptist Convention president, we saw the grossest display of attractional worship.

So, so, so bad that our messengers walked out of the worship there in Nashville. And I didn't blame them. I stayed just to see what kind of craziness they were going to do. Well, nevertheless, that kind of opens the door to show that this is how you do church.

This is how we worship as a Southern Baptist church. And some people would say, no, that's just J .D. Greer's worship leader. That's their church. But hey, J .D. Greer was the president of the SBC because of the amount of numbers that he has in his church.

His church runs about 9 ,000 and that's how he became the president because of how much they are able to give to the cooperative program. That's how the numbers matter. And then as well, they're pretty much saying that this is how you grow a church.

This is how you do it. And when you put your worship up on display and you do those things, it was woke. It was attractional. It was grotesque in a lot of different ways. I just can't even tell you how sickening it was to see that that was happening because that was not worshiping Jesus.

That was, look at me. I'm a professional. I'm on display. I'm just bringing attention to man and not glory to God. So nevertheless, the shift there was very obvious and the majority of the messengers ate it up.

So there was plenty in the back hallways who were like, this is for the birds. But by and large, 10 ,000 people in that room, so-called worship, was happening. I was very disappointed. It was the same amount of disappointment there in Anaheim when Rick Warren stood up and gave his self-exaltation speech.

And then he got a nearly unanimous round of applause. Everyone stood to their feet. Another 10 ,000 people in the room, it seemed. And the messengers ate up what he had to say. So you can tell the direction of the SVC by what is celebrated.

And it's celebrated on stage. It's celebrated on the floor. Those are the ones who actually are able to make things happen according to SVC polity. So the writing is on the wall. We have one naval E9 retired man in our congregation who went as a messenger.

And I thought it was rather wise of his comment. He said, this SVC ship is headed in the wrong direction and it's lost its rudder.

The SBC's Main Problems: Money, Power, and Liberal Drift

Yeah, that's about right. So I saw Drew, I'm gonna post this comment. There are people today willing to stand. SVC churches just won't hire them. I've tried applying. You are right. I know several guys that are pastors can't find a job.

They would love to go to the SVC and turn a church around. And it just isn't happening. So, okay. So we talked about the dark money. What about the wasted money that's going on in the SVC?

There's no telling. Kevin Ezell will not be accountable for a missing $75 million, period. They will not release where things have been being spent, that the budget is ambiguous, and how in the world could Southern Baptist churches in good conscience continue to give to an entity who hides things.

And the North American Mission Board somehow has become heavily invested in real estate. And we're not in the real estate business. So all of these different, very expensive homes that have been purchased, the list is forever long.

So unaccountability with millions of dollars is a major issue. And the fact that Kevin Ezell, when asked the questions about these things, gets the same runaround over and over and over again, and talks about how we exist to be able to share the gospel and that type of thing, but doesn't answer the question.

Isn't it amazing how conservatives, if they get audited and they can't account for even a few dollars, they go to jail. We have a federal government who has given billions through Ukraine unaccounted for.

And this is, by the way, if y 'all think that this is the first time this has happened with money given to Ukraine and disappearing, every single time the United States gives money internationally, it is always money laundered.

We've known this for decades. This is just the most blatant one that we've seen to date yet. But it's amazing. There'll never be accountability within the government. There's never accountability with liberal organizations and all the dark money that they have.

And here you watch the SBC, zero accountability for millions of dollars. This is fraud. People should be in jail for this stuff.

It used to be a system that was accountable. And I remember Ted Traylor stood up and he's the pastor of Olive Baptist Church up in the panhandle of Florida. And with his Southern drawl, he stood up and grabbed the microphone and said, you need to remember who you work for.

And what he was saying is to the SBC elites on the stage, they've been elected by the people to work for the people, but that is no longer what's happening. What's happening now is that the SBC elites are in positions of authority and they are no longer submissive to the will of the Southern Baptist in the pew.

So it doesn't matter what the messengers vote for or what they want. The people that are in elite positions are gonna do what they want with the money, no matter what. To the point, I mean, to the extent of when a good conservative pastor is pleading from the floor at the Southern Baptist Convention, this is to the extent, they will turn the microphone off, move the camera and down the lights where that pastor was and he's gone.

Now in a room of 10 ,000 people, it's easy to disappear. And all they do is just switch over and he's gone. And that happened over and over and over again in Anaheim and in Nashville. And it's rather sickening.

And Tom Buck was one of those guys. And so this is the way that sex scandals get swept underneath the rug. They just move the focus over somewhere else. And by the way, there are many people who think that the cooperative program is gonna be bankrupted by these Supreme Court cases that are happening right now.

So there are many sex scandals and lawsuits that are happening right now. And there are many who think that the Southern Baptist Convention is going to be bankrupted because of all of its you know, misuse in this area, which is just a tragedy.

Yeah. For the victims.

For the victims, yeah. Although I must say it might be the best thing for the SPC. Right. Just bankrupt them and knock them out, right? Move on. Okay, so we're still on what are the main problems of the SPC today.

Okay. Let's talk about the seminaries.

All right. Well, I'm a graduate of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. And I sent word through the registrar to the new president, Dr. Jamie Dew, and asked him if he would take a stand on critical race theory.

And the response from the registrar on behalf of the seminary was this, we're the chill seminary. We don't get involved in any of these issues. And so my response to that was, okay, we'll send word to Dr. Jamie Dew that if you ignore cancer, it's a silent killer.

And critical race theory, wokeness, and all these different things are an issue they are creeping in. And if they're not addressed and spoken to and you take a stand, it will be the death of the seminary.

And so all of these different issues compounding up, you may say, well, that's just a little issue. Well, when you add up all of these issues across the board and you play the chill factor, or you say, I'm not gonna get involved, or you ignore all of these elephants in the room, you're gonna get what you have today, massive issues because these things metastasize.

They just grow, they get infested. And all of a sudden, you're not standing upon the word of God for anything. So not only in New Orleans, which I would have thought would have been one of the most conservative underneath Chuck Kelly for so long, one of the best seminaries, we would have a seminary that wouldn't struggle with these things.

Obviously, Southeastern underneath woke, Danny Akin has become a real issue with critical race theory and wokeness and all of that to the point to where you can't even talk about it as a student on campus.

And then the same thing with Al Mohler at Southern. So at Southern, they're firing conservative professors and hiring woke professors, and the list just gets worse and worse. And so if you're not taking a stand, these things are gonna creep in.

Yeah, and think about how many people still trust Al Mohler who I think is the most dangerous man in the SPC today. He says one thing, especially on his daily briefings, after not answering the question at CHEPCON back in 2019 or 2018, whatever year it was, after not answering the question on stage, still has not talked to Phil Johnson since then.

He's then since gone on to his daily briefings and spoken against critical race theory and other aspects of social justice. And yet while he's speaking against it, he's still allowing the professors in his seminary to teach all that nonsense.

I mean, maybe he should be like Thomas White when Thomas White took the presidency at Cedarville up in Ohio, where I'm at. And when he came up there, there was an ultimatum. People had to sign a doctrinal statement, every professor.

And if they were unwilling to do it, he said, you can teach one more year and then you're out. If you teach anything against what our doctrinal statement is, I'll fire you immediately. And within a year, they were all gone.