Russell Fuller Predicts the End of the SBC

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. Today we have Russell Fuller with us, formerly a professor at the

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Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, now doing his own teaching at Theology Classroom.

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You can go to RussellTFuller .com to find out more. We're kind of gonna drop into the middle of a conversation with Dr.

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Fuller, and it's on the current state of the SBC. And we did a long interview, so he talks about the

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Southern Baptist Convention quite a bit. And then we talk about some passages in the Old Testament that are used by social justice advocates.

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So today we're gonna talk about Southern Baptist Convention, and then in the next episode, we'll talk about the Old Testament. So without further ado, here is

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Russell Fuller. I would like to maybe just pick your bane for a moment on what's happening in the Southern Baptist Convention.

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I'm not even sure if you're still in the SBC, but you see what's happened with the executive committee and this waiving of attorney -client privilege.

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What are your predictions for the Southern Baptist Convention? I don't think this is gonna end well. And I think this is gonna be problematic on many levels.

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We don't know where this is gonna go. That's the problem. When you set forth an investigation like this, and here's the problem.

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I don't know of anybody in the Southern Baptist Convention who is for sexual abuse or for defending sexual, people who are committing sexual abuse.

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I don't know of anybody who's for this. However, here's the problem.

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Again, it's that notion of what is just and what is right. That's the problem here.

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Again, the Southern Baptist Convention is, as it's shown in the convention of this last year in Nashville, the two days,

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I called that convention, the convention of apostasy. And I think what you're seeing right now is -

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And you were there. Oh, I was there. But let me say this. I think the apostasy in the

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Southern Baptist Convention as a whole, not every church, is much deeper than I thought when

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I was on your show last time back in either June or July. I think the situation is far greater.

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Let me just say a couple of things. One, this situation that's going on with the executive committee over sexual abuse, this has caused a real, you can see the real division in the

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Southern Baptist Convention over this. And by the way, I do not know of any credible claim.

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No, I am not familiar. I'm not saying they don't exist. I know of no credible claim that any member of the executive committee has done wrong in any of this, that they've either committed sexual abuse or that they're defending people who've committed sexual abusers.

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I don't know. I've heard no credible. However, I have heard very credible evidence.

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Matter of fact, some of it's not just credible. It's absolutely true. What's going on in the Southern Baptist Convention? You've got convention agencies filing false briefs before the

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Supreme Court, false briefs before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals saying that the

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Southern Baptist is a hierarchy when it's not. I don't hear a peep from these people who are pushing this investigation into the executive committee.

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You've got heresy being taught in the seminaries, social justice, you've got critical race theory, you've got postmodernism, and then you just got

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Plano liberalism being taught in the seminaries. The seminaries are,

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I mean, theologically apostate. That's exactly what they are. And yet again, you don't hear, you hardly hear anything about this.

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You've got other agencies like NAMM that, I mean, they're just totally, I mean, corrupt.

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Somehow one of their vice president is able to take money, give it to his church, and then give it to another church that he wants to give it to.

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How does this work? You have Lifeway where a man leaves, walks away with a million dollars, and the trustees don't even know about it.

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Just one trustee knows about it. These are just, I mean, pure examples of corruption.

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You don't hear a word about it. But yet, when it comes to, and by the way, a lot of this,

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I think, comes from Russell Moore's famous letter that he made charges, and by the way, it was leaked by one of his people, about two weeks before the

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Southern Baptist Convention, making all sorts of unsubstantiated. He doesn't name names or anything other than, well, he implies people like Mike Stone and others are covering up.

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But again, he has no, he really has no credible evidence that he brings forth here.

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And John, this is, and by the way, he said on this letter for like two years before he decided to have it leaked.

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It was part of his scorched earth policy as he was leaving the Southern Baptist Convention is what it was.

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Let me just say this. If, you know, I looked at some of the motions that they're gonna be investigating.

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Listen to this one. Resistance to sexual abuse reform initiatives. Well, wait a minute.

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What's the, if you're against, for instance, this, what's going on here in waiving these privileges, these legal privileges, does that make you resistant to sexual abuse reform?

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I mean, it looks like the fix is in on this stuff. And here's the problem, John. This is Me Too -ism.

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The problem with the Me Too movement is this. Listen, there are people who've been sexually abused.

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We all know this. However, there are cases out there that are being portrayed as this person's a victim, where they were adult and they were willing and they committed adultery is what happened.

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But now they wanna be viewed, because in our society today, the highest rank you can have is victim status, you see?

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And so there are cases that have happened within the Southern Baptist Convention where people who are adults, and what they'll say is, well, it was a power relationship.

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And so people will think back to maybe Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky and so forth and see her as a victim.

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Well, let me tell you, she was an adult, okay? And according to the word of God, that's adultery.

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That's just adultery, you see, according to the word of God. Now, again, does Clinton deserve greater condemnation?

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Okay, yeah, absolutely. But let's not say, oh, just an abuse victim here.

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No, no, no, no. That's what's going on right now. And I've seen it in the Southern Baptist Convention. I've seen a case like this.

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And I'm telling you, this is what this is about. And so the conservatives who are still on that committee, they better think hard and long about whether they want to participate in this, because I have a feeling what you have is the fix is in here.

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And they're gonna be coming after people, I think, like Mike Stone and others who look at certain cases and say, wait a minute, this person was an adult.

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They knew what they were doing. Just because you have, let's say, a person, we'll call him with power, and then another person without power, that you have a sexual abuse situation where if it was your butcher in you, now that's adultery.

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But yet, if it's somebody who in an organization is one level above you, now that's sexual abuse and you are a victim, this is very dangerous, you see.

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And this is the stuff that's going on right now. This stuff about what they're doing.

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Now, again, we'll see. We'll see. Maybe it's not what I think it's going to be, but I have a feeling this is revenge.

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This is Russell Moore's revenge taking place. And it's taken out of the executive committee. Everything you've said has been right.

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I mean, from the beginning, when people, when was that, last year, early last year, they were throwing the kitchen sink at you for speaking out about Southern.

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And to see where the SBC has gone since then, it's just,

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I could not have conceived it would be falling as fast as it's falling. It is worse than a free fall.

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It is a, in my mind, it's like a rocket tied to the back of it and it's going down as fast as it can.

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You said that there was a situation, maybe you can't talk about it, I don't know, that was similar to this. Was that at Southern Seminary?

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Yes, it was. There was a situation at Southern Seminary. And again, we're talking adults here.

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And had it been, again, people on the same level, so to speak.

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So if it were like, it's hard, I don't wanna go into great detail on this. But yes, it was,

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I see what's going on and it's very alarming. So this kind of thinking that has been there is what you're saying.

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I mean, you saw this at Southern and now, I mean, it's affecting the entire denomination, but this idea that you're a victim if you, you know, someone has a power relationship and they're above you in the hierarchy, you know, somehow that makes you not, you're not complicit in it anymore or something like that.

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Sometimes that's right. And another thing, again, what they'll say is victims have to be believed, regardless of the situation, you see.

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And this is not right. Again, scripture, you have to have, there has to be some credible evidence.

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You just can't simply say, well, someone claims they're a victim. They have to be believed because they're claiming to be a victim of something.

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And then if you ask that victim hard questions, then what you're doing is you are giving mistreatment of sexual abuse victims.

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And that's what they're gonna investigate as well with the executive committee. By the way, John, I'll just say this.

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I do know of one case. Well, let me just tell you, I mean, like, here's what they're looking at. Mishandling of abuse allegations by the executive committee, allegations of mistreatment of sexual abuse victims by the executive committee, and patterns of intimidation of sexual abuse victims or advocates, you see.

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And then finally, resistance to sexual abuse reforms initiatives. Well, the guys, the 31 who voted against this investigation, they may be guilty of this already.

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I mean, again, it looks like the fix is in. Let me tell you about these because there is an example

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I do know in the Southern Baptist Convention where there's credible evidence that this occurred. And by the way, nothing happened to this individual.

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And who am I talking about? I'm talking again about Al Mohler. For instance, mishandling of abuse allegations by Al Mohler.

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Oh, absolutely. There was a guy named Brent Detweiler. He was on the pastor staff where C .J.

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Mahaney was a pastor. Mahaney was, sexual abuse occurred in that church, but Mahaney was not, he did not, as far as we know, commit any sexual abuse.

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But what he was claiming is, I didn't know what was going on. And Detweiler came out and said, yes, you did.

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And he had extensive documentation, emails that he took with him, which showed that Mahaney did know what was going on and tried to keep these people from going to the authorities.

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Well, guess what? Mahaney, again, at the time was not a Southern Baptist, but he personally gave over $100 ,000 to Southern Seminary.

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And his church, which was not part of the Southern Baptist Convention, was giving over $100 ,000 to Southern Seminary.

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Mohler, of course, was defending him. And then when those sexual abuse victims showed up together for the gospel and was protesting outside,

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Mohler mocked them from the stage. And so when it says here, mistreatment of sexual abuse victims, he mocked them.

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He later apologized to them in a sort of a formal apology. But by the way, he did something else.

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It says a pattern of intimidation of sexual abuse victims or advocates. That's the one

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I would really look to, because let me tell you what Mohler did. Janet Medford, she's a

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Christian radio host. Brent Dentweiler went to her and says, listen, I've got evidence of true sexual abuse that went on in the coverup by one of evangelicalism's big names.

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Because I think at the time, he was part of the Gospel Coalition's board. Again, he was a major donor to Southern Seminary.

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And he says, listen, there's a problem here. And she looked into this. I think she even invited

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Mahaney and his lawyer to come on. Of course, they would not do that, of course. I guess they were invoking a privilege there,

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I guess. And by the way, since I said that, Dams' head,

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Kevin Eazell, in a court case here in Louisville invoked the same thing in a case where a guy on his staff was put in jail for years for sexual abuse.

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So let's remember that as well. But let me say this. She investigated this and was gonna have

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Brent Dentweiler on her program. All of a sudden, she gets a phone call. Her bosses get a phone call putting pressure on her not to interview this guy who had evidence of sexual abuse.

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Somebody made a phone call to her bosses to put real pressure on her. And who was it?

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It was Al Mohler. And all you have to do, just Google Janet Medford and Al Mohler.

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It'll pop up where she wrote, it's on her blog. She details the pressure that Al Mohler put on her through her bosses to protect

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C .J. Mahaney. So if the committee wants some real evidence as opposed to these, but as far as I heard, no real allegations, why don't they investigate

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Al Mohler? Well, I was gonna say, so you're filling in something that I knew a little bit about, but not to the extent you did.

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I remember when Al Mohler went to the Houston Chronicle. Was it two and a half, three years ago? Yes. And right.

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And he sort of apologized, but I thought it was weird at the time because I'm thinking, isn't there like a

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Baptist press or something? Why are you going to the Houston Chronicle for this? And kind of letting them know that he did not agree with Mahaney.

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Distancing himself, all of that. And there was no new evidence that publicly had come out about the case, but all of a sudden there's a political switch that he flipped.

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And he's all of a sudden on Twitter, saying very nice things about Rachel Denhollander.

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And it's like, he's now in sort of more of an advocate for the victims. Whereas before he's defending his buddy,

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C .J. And like you said, I didn't know this, but I guess making fun of in your words or saying things about -

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Oh yes, he apologized. He put out, it's on his website. I think it's the seminary's website.

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He put out an apology. And let me, I'll tell you a little story about that too. A member of the faculty during a faculty meeting raised their hand and said, let me ask you about what you wrote here in this apology.

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Moeller blew his stacks. He was so upset and just kind of ripped into this professor because the reason

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I believe this, what I'm about to tell you, I have a feeling Moeller and his lawyers crafted this apology.

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And so I was very clear in what I wrote. I don't need to explain what I wrote.

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He wouldn't even explain some of there because I think it was legalese. And he did not want to say anything that might put himself in legal jeopardy of some sort.

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But yeah, once the Me Too movement came along, Moeller jumped on board of that because he realized he was on the wrong side of it.

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And so when it comes to this investigation in the executive committee, of course, oh, he immediately started saying, yes, the time has come and so forth for this investigation.

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Well, how about an investigation into you, Al Moeller, for what you've done? Maybe we should bring Janet Medford in and ask

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Janet about the pressure she received that you, because what he was doing is he was trying to keep evidence of his friend and a major donor covering up real sexual abuse.

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That's what Al Moeller did. Let me tell you, John, I've got two children who work for a

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Fortune 50 company in America here. Let me tell you, it's a secular company.

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Let me tell you, if the CEO of the corporation had done the same thing

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Al Moeller did, he would have been fired yesterday. He would have been gone.

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He'd have been cleaning up. But let me tell you, the trustees at Southern Seminary, they're on the take too, but they just look at this stuff and notice these social justice warriors, they're not saying a word about Al Moeller.

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But when it comes to Mike Stone, we're all concerned about Mike Stone. Are you kidding me? I hope, let me say this, the churches that are staying faithful to God's word in the

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Southern Baptist Convention, I'm telling you, you either better think about getting out, forming another convention, supporting one another or something.

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You stay in the Southern Baptist Convention, the whole gonna be rotten open.

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Like B .B. Warfield said to Machen about the Presbyterian Church USA many years ago, when Machen said to Warfield, do you think it's gonna split?

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And he goes, it's too late. You can't split dead wood. And that's exactly right. And you better get your church out pretty soon because the

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Southern Baptist Convention is gonna end up being nothing but dead right now. The Southern Baptist Convention's in bad shape.

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If they wanna do a real investigation, why don't they do Al Moeller? But no, they're not gonna do that. Why don't they investigate the liberalism in their seminaries?

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No, they're not gonna do that. What about investigating NAM and buying the votes for the Southern Baptist Convention last year?

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They're not gonna do that. Even the Washington Post knew about that, John. The Southern Baptist Convention is in very bad shape.

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I know, and there's so much you could... I even just got an email the other day about 50 seminary students from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary being swayed to vote for Ed Litton at the convention by Whitfield, who

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I guess is the provost now or something. But it never ends.

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The amount of corruption, the backroom deals. I mean, that's why you have people now resigning from the executive committee.

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A number of them have resigned. They said, I don't wanna be part of this anymore. It's backroom deals. Now I could be pursued with the waiving of attorney -client privilege.

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So why would I be part of this anymore? And it's... Oh, I was just gonna say one thing.

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Do you think there's a purge? Do you think that the whole purpose of this is let's purge the EC of conservatives that won't go along with the

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Me Too stuff. And if we can do that, then we can really get what we want. I think so.

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I think there's people on the EC that are hindering what the advocates of social justice and the

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Me Too want. And so I think, oh, it's obviously a power play going on here. And again,

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I would look for Mike Stone, maybe people like Rod Martin to be the fall guys. I think they're going to come after those type of, you know, the real conservatives on there.

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Again, we know what their views of us are. They said at the Southern Baptist Convention, one of the convention speakers called us a bunch of jerks.

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And then J .D. Gergis calls us a bunch of Pharisees. So listen, these two groups cannot coexist, okay?

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There is no way these two groups can coexist. Oh, let me just conclude what I was saying about Detweiler and Mueller and all of these things.

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This is what Detweiler, this is a quote out of the Houston Chronicler. In fact, to the contrary,

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Mueller has gone out of his way to protect Mahaney, promote Mahaney, advance Mahaney and cover up for Mahaney.

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And that continued as recently as 2018, you see. So again, if they want to do a real investigation, why don't they do this?

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But they're not going to. Again, I believe the fix is in. And one other prediction, the lawyers, the trial lawyers are getting ready to make a lot of lawsuits coming off of this.

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Because once you waive this, I think it's going to be waived even when you get to the courts, if they go to courts on this.

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So I look for a lot of lawsuits where victims, people who will be perceived as victims,

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I think you're going to see. What will be interesting is the insurance, whoever is the insurance company of either the executive committee or the sub -members convention, waiving legal rights is something they may say, we want nothing to do with.

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And all of a sudden your Annie Armstrong offerings and so forth is going to be going to trial lawyers.

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And I tell you what, so the best convention is teetering on absolute disaster doing this.

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Because again, they don't know the future of this. They don't know what's going to happen here. They think they can control this.

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But let me tell you, once you say all this injustice has happened, the trial lawyers are going to line up and say, hey, you've already waived this.

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I heard there was about five or six lawyers on the EC. All of them says, you better not do this.

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They're not listening. They're not listening because they're on their crusade. Even though again, there is no credible evidence against any of these people that I'm aware of.

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Well, this is a disaster. This is punishing political opponents. This is the kind of things that you see in totalitarian regimes when they take over and all the people that even some of the people that help them get to their spot, but are useless for the revolution or might be a speed bump for the revolution.

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They just run over them. And this is the kind of thing I'm seeing. And I've had some of these same thoughts that this makes absolutely no sense, none whatsoever to do this.

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Financially, it makes no sense. If you care even about your denomination, your institution, it makes no sense.

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We know this is all a big lie because there is no actual accusation of real misconduct on the

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EC. It's not like they actually, and the way the SBC is even structured, this isn't like a denomination where it's like the

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Presbyterians or something where there could be that opportunity for corruption. The churches are autonomous.

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The things that happen in local churches happen in local churches. You call the police, you take care of it. That's how it's always been done.

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This is so different on so many levels, it makes no sense. And nothing in 2020 or 2021 seems to make any sense, but it does when you start thinking about, okay, what's the political angle here?

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Who is in charge of the Southern Baptist Convention? Where do they wanna take it? If they're a bunch of revolutionary social justice warriors and they wanna purge it and they want to use it and take its hollowed out shell and use all the money that Christians have given for the propagation of the gospel and turn it around and make it do the exact opposite, the devil's totally fine with that.

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And look, I'm a Christian. I believe there's a spiritual war. And this is, in my mind, totally, this has the fingerprints of the devil all over it or demonic forces.

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I mean, this is, because nothing makes sense. And the end result is disaster for the convention.

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It's just, it's a way to waste all these beneficial, these resources that should be going for what they were intended to go for.

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So now I'm with you on that. That's right. And if you don't follow along with Me Too thinking, social justice thinking, you're the heretic now.

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And so you're, they wanna get rid of you. And that's fine. There's gotta be a division because if there's no division, all you've got is a massive corruption.

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So the division is coming. I would tell Southern Baptist, we better divide now for the good church's sakes because you stay in there long enough, all of us are going to be corrupted.

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And so the Southern Baptist Convention, we've quoted from the minor prophets today. I got one last quote to you from a prophet, it's

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Hosea. Ephraim is joined to idols, let them alone.

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And that's exactly right. Southern Baptist Convention now has been joined to a different gospel, social justice.

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And just like Jesus said about the Pharisees, let them alone. Let the blind lead the blind.

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And that's where the Southern Baptist Convention is right now. I think the corruption, just think, John, there's certain corruption we can see.

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Guess how much corruption is under the surface. Oh, I know. You know, it reminds me of a little bit.

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I was in the Boy Scouts of America, as a teenager, no one shocked at that, but it's become a lot like that where all the money for dues ended up getting eaten up in lawyers fees.

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And they thought that they were going to appease the world and we're gonna have a

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Boy Scouts that is completely, it's not corrupt at all. And we're gonna get rid of all the abuse and all of this stuff.

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And they probably had a more legitimate reason to do those kinds of things. But then they decided to take the extra step and we're just gonna get on the

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LGBTQ bandwagon. And it was over. There was no reason to be a Boy Scout left. And that organization is done.

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It's done. It's dead. Everyone knows that. There's no reputation left. Everyone who wanted the real

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Boy Scouts has gone to other organizations like Trail Life. And I'm seeing that with the SBC. They're letting a

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Trojan horse in and it's done. That's right. Hey, let me tell you this. For those people who think the executive committee is defending sexual abusers,

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I do know this for a fact. When evidence of a church that is not dealing with a true sexual abuse issue, and a church is not doing this, what the executive committee have done, and again, it's been like unanimous votes, they disfellowship from that church.

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They say, we no longer want you to be part of the Southern Baptist Convention. So the executive committee, when there's clear evidence that a particular church has a problem with this and they're not doing anything about it, they can say, we no longer wanna be associated with you.

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So these guys are not trying to cover up. Now, listen, it's funny for me trying to defend the executive committee because I'm not a fan of Ronnie Floyd.

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And what Floyd does many times is, he's on the take with these folks as well.

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But there is a solid group on the committee.

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But these guys, they're gonna be the fall guys. And so I hope they do not participate in this witch hunt because that's exactly what this is gonna be.

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I believe it's gonna be a witch hunt and I think the fix is in. And so they're gonna be the fall guys.

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So we'll see, we'll see, but that's what I'm predicting. That's what I think is gonna happen, John. Well, I know we've been talking for a while.

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You probably have other things to do and so do I, but it's been really good catching up with you and talking about these issues.

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And now that we've done this whole thing, I'll probably divide it into two podcasts because there really were two different topics.

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But hey, God bless you. And anyone who wants to sign up for Theology Classroom, you can go to Russell, was it

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RussellTFuller .com? That's correct, RussellTFuller .com. You'll go there and then from even there, you can contact me.

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Just go under where there's like my profile and you can contact me through that as well.