EP 43, Why are Pastors like David Platt being protected by Big EVA?

The ones who are supposedly the least political are the most political. They're politically towing the line of the people that are controlling them.

So the freest pastors are the ones who are not controlled by the woke establishment.

They don't have the Gospel Coalition money pouring into their churches or into their own private bank accounts.

They say whatever the Lord tells them to say. That's what makes them free. The political ones have these connections that they have to tow the line.

They can't go outside of what's politically correct for them to say. And those are the politicians actually.

Welcome to Tearing Down High Places.

My name is Average Joe. Today in the studio, two pastors, Seth Brickley and Jeff Kleewer.

Hey guys, how are you? Hey Joe. All recovered. Are you excited today to not talk about politics or are you sad because you're still so excited from a week ago?

I haven't even been watching politics for like a week, which is so weird for me.

I've kept no ear to the ground on it because I'm excited just to kind of move on at this point.

But at the same time, I'm still just walking on air. I just want to bask in the celebration of the victory for a while and not get back in the weeds for a bit.

We had a really nice short of you out of your sermon this past Sunday, Jeff, where you talked about the importance of the election and the blessing that it really is.

And I just encourage everybody to go to YouTube and x .com slash tearing down HP and look at those shorts because I think they're impactful.

Guys, you're out there. Please share them. If you like the show, please share this. So, yeah. But today, today, the theme that we discussed with Pastor Seth from Wisconsin is another swing state that he brought it in.

He brought it in. Thank you, Seth. You're welcome. In Wisconsin, we needed it. You're welcome. We're going to talk about why are corrupt pastors tolerated in the church?

Corrupt pastors. I think you've got to define your term first, Seth. What are you talking about? What's a corrupt pastor?

Yeah. Great to be with you guys. Yeah. A corrupt pastor is someone who is in the ministry for the wrong reasons and is exposed over time as truly being in the ministry for the wrong reasons.

I think sometimes it can be hard to tell with some guys. But I think the example in 2024 of this would be they have tolerated critical race theory in their church, and they've either taught it or allowed it to be taught.

Secondly, there's the financial piece of financial shenanigans taking place.

And then I think third is they're a hireling. Like I said, they're in it for the wrong reasons.

And one of the ways this is shown is through the fact that they're not accessible to the sheep.

They're distant. You might see them preach on Sunday, and that's about it. And I think that's a telltale sign.

I think with the Steve Lawson situation, it's interesting how it's just been discovered that he wasn't even a member of his church, and he was not accessible to the people.

He was distant. I think that's a telltale sign. But the big one, of course, is the

David Platt situation. And the real David Platt was a documentary that just came out where David Platt is exposed as a corrupt pastor.

You're surprised that no one's talking about David Platt, but everybody's talking about Steve Lawson.

Why are you surprised, or what do you see as a difference? Yeah, correct. I wrote an article on TrueScript titled

The Respectable Sin of Pastoral Corruption. And the argument that I make in there is that Steve Lawson has this five -year affair, and we all agree it's a horrible thing that he did.

He's disqualified. And the ministries that he was involved in, his church,

Ligonier Ministries and the Master's College and Seminary, all of them scrubbed his entire work off of their websites.

Passion One Ministry, which was his own ministry, scrubbed everything off of the website. And we haven't even heard from Steve Lawson.

So all these things happen where he's just silenced. He's taken out completely.

He's scrubbed. And then David Platt, this documentary comes out about him exposing his push of critical race theory from his own mouth at his church.

Secondly, this financial corruption where millions of dollars are being transferred between McLean Bible Church, where he pastors, and the leadership of the

Southern Baptist Convention. And so all this is taking place. In this documentary, he's exposed.

And yet, where are the Christian leaders, the well -known Christians in America, where are they calling out

David Platt? Yeah, $2 million was the number I heard. That's what struck me.

And he wasn't even supposed to have the relationship that he formed with the

SBC was against the articles that the church was operating under?

Correct. Yeah, within their constitution, it says that they were not to be affiliated with any denomination.

And yet they secretly became a Southern Baptist church under David Platt's leadership.

And this was the plan all along. And you can see the strategy in this. This McLean Bible Church had 13 ,000 people under the leadership of Lon Solomon.

This was a church of a couple hundred people when he took over. And then it explodes to the largest church on the

East Coast. And it was a very conservative church, and not just theologically conservative, but politically conservative.

So in other words, it was a very anti -woke church. And you can see the

Southern Baptist Convention's plans. They tried to do the same thing with First Baptist of Naples in Naples, Florida.

But the congregation rejected their chosen man, who was a woke pastor. And so they got

David Platt into McLean Bible Church, and he just destroyed the church. What was the polity structure?

Did everyone in the church have to vote on changes? Or did the elders—because some churches out there—and maybe,

Jeff, you can comment on this. Is that a great church template for a church where the elders just rule everything without asking the congregation?

What do you guys think about that? Is that part of what you're talking about? I think this goes even beyond that, whether you're talking elder -led versus congregational.

Because the elder who was signing checks, it's incredible in the documentary. You have to watch it, the real

David Platt. He shows, oh, that was me. Here's where I signed off on this $46 .10

charge, and here's me here. And then there are these inserted ones that he's never seen, $60 ,000, $80 ,000.

He's like, I never saw this at all. So even the elder himself who was overlooking the finances, overseeing the finances, he says,

I never saw these tens of thousands of dollars going left and right. So it's way beyond just a polity thing.

Wow, wow. Yeah, and there's one point where one of the guys, one of David Platt's right -hand men is being asked, where are these church plans?

Can you name the pastor? Can you name the church? And he can't name it. And so the big question that's raised here is, where is all the money going?

And obviously everybody should be alarmed that at least $2 million was being transferred from McLean Bible Church to the

Southern Baptist Convention. And no one knows how this money was used.

There's no transparency whatsoever. So when you look at it, it's dishonesty.

It's financial corruption. It's false teaching being pushed. So biblically speaking, what's the conclusion we reach as shepherds?

This is a wolf. So when you say people aren't talking about it, are you referring to within evangelical organizations, media outlets?

Are we talking like periodicals? Who is talking about Steve Lawson but not talking about Platt?

Correct. Yeah, I think all over YouTube, Steve Lawson is being talked about.

And I think John MacArthur spoke out against what Steve Lawson did.

He had Justin Peters. This is one of their guys. Steve Lawson was a guy who spoke year after year at Shepherds Conference.

He taught at the Master's Seminary preaching classes. In fact,

I think he was a dean there. So he was high up. And they said he's gone.

You see the strong stance that they take against him, which is correct. But Platt, think about the

Young Restless Reform Movement, the Gospel Coalition, those types of people.

Why aren't they calling out David Platt? This is their guy. And not only are they not calling him out, in April...

Maybe since they're done calling out Trump, they will. Yeah. In April, there's a

Gospel Coalition conference scheduled where David Platt is scheduled to speak.

And alongside David Platt are a couple of big names, Alistair Begg. And, of course, his big controversy was, should you be attending a gay wedding?

And his answer was an unbiblical answer. And then... No repentance. No repentance.

You said that before, Seth. We really need to have these guys repent, not just start acting better, right?

Yep, correct. Yeah, no repentance by Alistair Begg. And yet he's in good standing, similar to David Platt.

And then you have... John Piper is speaking at this conference. And we know about John Piper.

There's a woke history with John Piper, too. So not only are these people not calling

David Platt out, they're all speaking at the same conference. So what I call it, and I mentioned this in my article, this is a climate of corruption within pastoral ministry.

It's tolerated. You can push critical race theory, not repent of it.

You can do backroom deals with the Southern Baptist Convention and not repent of it. And you'll be just fine as a pastor.

Wow. Wow. And so the climate of corruption that you're referring to is the leadership in what areas?

In the individual churches, in the organizations, both? What are you talking about? Yeah, we would call this

Big Eva. Of course, we've had a previous podcast about what

Big Eva is all about. This is the big industry of American evangelicalism where they get books published and the big conferences, the celebrity pastors.

And it's almost like unless they commit adultery, right, which is not a respectable sin, as long as they don't do something like that, they're fine.

Because the whole industry is supporting these guys. They make a lot of money off of these guys, their books, their conferences.

And so it's almost like they're too big to fail. So, OK, well, yeah, he might have had some things with the

Southern Baptist Convention, and he might have said some things about critical race theory. But we're going to protect him.

And honestly, like if these are things like CRT, these are things that they themselves have pushed.

So my argument is if Platt is taken down, then at some level, they're all exposed alongside of him.

So it's almost like he needs to be protected. Is anybody working on taking him down?

Is anybody doing the right thing here? Is there ongoing lawsuits? I mean, the video, if you watch the video, which we'll have links to in the notes, in the show notes, sounds like there's a whole bunch of lawsuits going on, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Jeff, do you want to say anything about that? No, I don't know what's going to happen.

It does seem like they're just protecting him. I just wanted to share something that happened in 2019 at our church.

So now it's all exposed, right? The real David Platt came out as a documentary. But in 2018, he began to preach this critical race theory.

And he took the book Divided by Faith, which was Emerson and Smith, and he popularized it for all of evangelicalism through one of these big conferences.

I think it was the MLK 50 event where he preached that. So after that event, in my church,

I actually spoke out against David Platt. And I said, you've got to be careful. This is critical race theory.

This is social justice nonsense that it's false teaching. Well, there was a family in our church that had only been and was only with us for a year because they were military, and they had to move on to the next base.

They had come from David Platt's church. And David Platt had been at the birth of their child back in Alabama when the church was not this mega church in Washington.

He was a pastor to them. They loved him. They had a direct friendship with him, could talk with him.

So they heard me preaching about how Platt was dangerous. He's become a wolf in terms of what he's teaching.

And they came to me privately. And at first, they were really thinking, I'm over the top to be critical of someone like David Platt who wrote

Radical and the whole movement, which, by the way, was so hypocritical. Because the way he lives his life in his million -dollar house versus what he tells

Christians they need to be doing, these two things just don't go together. But that's another example of Platt's corruption.

But they were at first a little upset thinking I was being too harsh against the social justice stuff and against David Platt.

He's got a good heart. So I said, well, why don't we get together with David? You know him. And they said, we will.

I'm sure we could set it up. We have a direct line to him. So for months, this wonderful godly family kept trying to get a meeting with David.

And they found that he was completely unwilling to speak with them, completely unwilling.

And they were shocked. It took that, I think, to open their eyes to see that he actually is corrupt.

But what I think happened was he got into that environment in Washington, D .C., where he became the celebrity pastor.

His star kept rising bigger and bigger. And he got too big for his own britches. He thought that he wasn't accountable.

He was disconnected from his people. And he stopped listening to the common man, just this family friend of theirs.

He wouldn't give them the time of day. He wouldn't be questioned. And he just dismissed every criticism.

So I always come back to this again and again. Truth doesn't mind being questioned.

If you're not willing to sit down and listen to somebody's concern, hear it out, and have a biblical answer for it, you know that there's something going dreadfully wrong.

So, yeah, I just think he wasn't a true shepherd in that way. He just pushed the sheep out, didn't want to listen.

And I knew it from that time on, from 2018 on. So when everything fell apart for Platt and his church went from 13 ,000 down to,

I guess they say, what is it now, Seth? I know they lost like 60 % of their people.

So I don't know what the math would be there. Yeah, and this whole documentary then comes out in the

Providence of God showing what Platt was doing. Yeah, I think it's clear that the corruption was exposed.

But yeah, the issue there is not being a true shepherd, but really a hireling. How about his theology?

I heard his theology was, I mean, outside of critical race theory, polarization politically.

I'm reading, and maybe some of this needs to be talked about.

Not only did he have, he also had some strange ideas about teaching on biblical sexuality and the book of Genesis.

He rejected that Adam and Eve being real people.

He also, what was the other thing? He also rejected a worldwide flood.

And he also rejected Abraham as actually speaking or hearing from God.

Joe, I would be shocked if that's the case. Where are you getting that? Is that right? He rejected such fundamental things?

I'm asking the question because I pulled it out in a summary on Copilot. I had

Copilot summarize the movie, and that's what came out. Oh, no, that was in the movie. It was in the movie too when

I watched it. Oh, yeah, that wasn't Platt. That was someone else.

They were talking about a different person who believed those things. Oh, that wasn't

Platt? Okay. Yeah, it wasn't. Yeah, I don't think it was

Platt. I can't remember. It was kind of a side story about the

Southern Baptist Convention. And one of the professors that was there that they were concerned with.

He was introducing liberal theology. Platt's liberal theology is the social justice.

Yeah. So same -sex, what does he say about that? Same -sex attracted.

Yeah, that was in the film documentary. Yeah, he's for same -sex attraction. Like B -side, side

B, not full -blown. Yeah, the Sam Albury kind of stuff. But, Joe, the big question now is are you going to double down and say that this is the case, or are you going to issue a retraction and model for us the fact that it's okay for us to say when we're wrong?

There we go. No, no, I think we need to repent. I'm all about repentance, man.

There we go. Yeah. There we go. Got to do it. Got to do it. Got to repent publicly.

Are we popular enough on TDHP that we all got to do public repentance now? We're not there yet,

I don't think. Well, we just did it, though. We just modeled, I think, for, no, just because you said that doesn't mean that we're going to double down on it.

I've shared on TDHP before that there were a few weeks there at the beginning of the COVID hysteria that we shut down our church.

And I repent of that. That was wrong. We should have been open week one. I think Tim's told me that all along, but Tim's radar was a little better than mine.

I think I've repented of a lot of stuff on this YouTube channel. Yeah, good job. So, guys,

I went to, in 2011, I went to the

Desiring God National Conference in Minneapolis, not too far from where I was from, to see

David Platt preach and some other guys. And so he preached a sermon, and his sermon was really good.

And I think if you were to go back and listen to it to this day, I don't think he said one thing wrong. And I remember as a young man,

I think I was 24 when I heard this message, to think that I would be here 13 years later saying what we are saying about David Platt.

I never would have dreamed that that would have been the case. And I think that's what's so deceptive about this.

And this is how Satan works. And I think people need to understand this. When we're looking at wolves within the church,

I feel like I was raised this way where only the really obvious ones are the wolves.

So like a Joel Olsteen, a Kenneth Copeland, people like that.

But we have to understand Satan is so much better than that. He's so much more crafty. He sneaks in with certain kinds of people that will fool millions of Christians.

And I think David Platt is one of those guys. He preaches a sermon in 2011 that I hear and other sermons where I'm like, man, this guy is a rock solid

Christian leader. But what we have to understand about David Platt is that this is how he has always been.

He has a history with Ron Sider. Ron Sider is a liberal pushing liberal politics.

Ron Sider famously expanded the definition on the pro -life movement, saying things like climate justice and animal rights justice and things like that.

I want to do a whole show on animal rights. Yeah. Just note that for later.

Yeah. So yeah, this is the history of David Platt. So when he calls out full blown woke over the last seven or eight years, this was how he was back then.

It's just he he's been more open about it when the opportunity came. So are you saying that one of the ways that we can identify a .k

.a. gray or blue pastors or is is by some of these issues?

Because I think I think we want to try and say we want to solve the issue to the extent that we can.

We want to help guide people and say, you know, how do I how do I see if my pastors go in the wrong way?

I think one of the things we posted on I posted this on X today was Pastor Jeff's part of Pastor Jeff's sermon.

As I said, did your pastor preach a prayer of Thanksgiving or just mentioned how great the

God was, how merciful God was to us by pushing off this attack on the church through the election?

And if they didn't, please encourage your your pastor to do that. So I think people out there,

I think if you I think you have the ability right now to equip some people, you know, for things that they could listen to their pastor.

So their pastor gets some correction. So what would those things be? One thing I would say is that if you have a social justice preacher, it's indicating that they have a corrupt mind.

They don't know how to think biblically. So it's actually not all that surprising that Platt was funneling money and, you know, engaged in all that really embezzlement of two million dollars.

That's not all that surprising, because if somebody is willing to peddle social justice rhetoric, that means they're not guarded and guided by biblical ethics and biblical reasoning.

Wow. Yeah, Tim, you want to jump in? Hey, guys, nice to see you guys.

Sorry I'm late. Is that your new couch? Yeah, I got a new couch, same one.

As far as as far as animal rights, you guys touched on that.

Jeff and I saw a mouse that was on its last leg, may or may not have got into some of the poison at the church.

But we we scooped him up and we we gently put him in the field. I don't know if that's that's good or not, but but that's what that was our duty today.

But I do feel compassion on the animals. I was like, oh, no, that poor mouse. Yeah, we we got to do a whole show on that.

I can't even say a word because I've done I've done some research on it and it's crazy. People don't even believe it.

But another time for another time. But what other Tim, Tim, what what things have you noticed or or or Seth?

What like like Pastor Jeff was saying, what things have you noticed that you could help somebody, you know, share with their pastor?

Hey, you you're going the wrong way or maybe you shouldn't shouldn't talk like or do that.

That might be going down the wrong path. Well, I think, you know, the woke agenda and I think just staying biblically strong,

I think God will bless that. So like if you look back when, you know, you looked outside your house and people wearing masks, riding their bicycles and things like that, and you show up to church and they're checking your temperature and, you know, everyone has a mask and you're 20 feet from each person.

I think that's a good indicator. Maybe you should say something. And also looking at those churches that kept that going for a long time, they lost a lot of people, even to the churches that weren't doing that.

So if you look at all the conservative churches, I mean, I don't know the statistics and the numbers, but all the churches

I know that maintain biblical and maintain being open, they grew and God bless them.

And then the ones that were, you know, forcing masks and things like that, the those churches are even not opened right now or they're a fraction of what they were when before covid.

Denominationally, what denominations repented of that or didn't get involved in that?

You know, because I only know one. Okay. You guys know any? Which one is that? Calvary Chapel.

Okay. They repented? No, they just didn't. They didn't engage in the tyranny.

It was kind of a unique situation. My understanding is they don't have membership roles. Oh, really?

So they didn't. They're very unauthoritarian or anti -authoritarian, however you want to say that.

We also have Jack Hibbs and Gary Hamrick, who on each of the coasts were both preaching powerfully during those years.

So it really comes down to leadership. If you have leaders that lead well, the congregation will hear the voice of the under shepherd who's speaking for the shepherd.

So it's all about leadership. And to answer your question, Joe, the question you asked previously, and to tie this with David Platt.

So one thing that many of you have heard maybe is that Donald Trump, during his first term, showed up to David Platt's church, surprisingly showed up.

And Platt prayed for him, which was good. But then one thing the documentary shows, the real

David Platt documentary shows, is that David Platt sent out an email apologizing for what happened.

Basically, he was embarrassed that Trump came to his church because he doesn't want to be associated in any positive way with Donald Trump.

And I think this election, I think what we saw with a lot of these woke pastors is it was like a gag order.

They could not say anything about the election. So on one hand, you probably have some of these pastors who are, they're blue church pastors.

They're telling people to, you know, they're pushing progressive politics onto their church.

And then you have other pastors who have this gag order where they can't really say anything about, they can't say anything positive about Trump.

And I think that's a symptom of they've been influenced by the world. They're functioning not as pastors, but ironically as politicians because they're trying to toe the line.

And where oftentimes the pastors who are accused of being political are the ones who are not political because the

Bible is clear on biblical ethics in the public square. And so when we proclaim those ethics to our people and say there is a clear choice in this election who to vote for, and that choice is

Donald Trump, when we say that, we'll get the accusation, oh, you're being political.

No, we're telling the truth. We're bringing the Bible to bear on the times in which we live. While the pastors who are towing the line, they're the ones who are being political.

I often think that historically, when the pastor doesn't have a good grasp on history and church history, things go wrong a lot.

And I know you guys do. So I want to ask this question. So when was it exactly that this weird thing happened where the church no longer cared for the widow and the orphan and they gave it up to the government?

Because that seems to me that that's the politician. When you say that they're being political, that's what they're being.

They know Donald Trump's going to slash up welfare and things like that and cut taxes.

And they want to make sure that they continue to be a welfare state and that charity goes through the government instead of the church,

I think. What would you say, y 'all? Yeah, well, historically, I would say in the 1960s and with Lyndon Johnson and his kind of great leap forward welfare system that he engaged in 1965.

His speech that he gave at, I think it was Howard University, the race where African -Americans had their legs chained for the first couple laps of the race.

And now you've got to let them catch up by doing essentially affirmative action. And then the welfare state that came out of that, that would probably be the place where America turned just almost irretrievably to the left.

But believe it or not, it actually has turned back because Donald Trump's Supreme Court overturned affirmative action, which we celebrate the

Dobbs decision. But this was huge as well. The overthrowing of affirmative action, not that every college has implemented that decision yet.

They're still doing it to some level, discriminating mostly against Asians, trying to get the

Asian numbers down. But in any case, this is this is a positive move forward.

So historically, the 1960s would be that turning point. But I think what Seth was saying about politics.

Right. And that's those are the politicians, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting that our friend, our pastor friend,

David Whitney in Maryland would speak out very freely on politics.

And that's and that's what got him on the radar with the free church leadership and got him in big trouble because they said he was not of the ethos of the free church.

Well, what's the ethos of the free church? It's to be politically correct. And David Whitney is not politically correct.

He's a true biblical shepherd. So that's alarming that a true biblical shepherd is a is a red flag.

And I would just kind of wrap this all up by saying that David Platt was part of a political machine.

And he himself was receiving money and funneling money in all these different directions. In the documentary, one of the most incredible things

I heard in that whole thing was his own admission about what he had become. He was lamenting in there.

They have a direct quote from David Platt of him lamenting the political animal that he himself had become.

So that's. Wow. Wow. So so so we have a confession, but then he's preaching.

He's just preaching. Right. He's still preaching. And where is he now? Is he still at that same church or is he a different church?

So he he stepped down as the lead pastor of McLean Bible Church, but he's still like he's like in an associate role.

But yeah, he's but he's still he's still a pastor. And he gave the lead role to Mike Kelsey, who's the very guy who said he wants to torch all white people, all white evangelicals.

So that's no big deal, is it? Is that a big deal? Wow. Well, listen, guys, this is a great episode.

I think I think it's so important that thanks for bringing that. We talked about our Blood Red Church summit coming up in when.

When is it, Seth? First weekend in May. First weekend in May.

We're going to start Stone Church. Jeff, are we are we looking for volunteers to help coordinate that yet or.

Yeah, we'll need to. But we're going to call it a truth script conference just like Seth had. And we can still call it

Blood Red, you know, whatever. But it's also going to be a truth script conference. We've got John Harris coming.

Seth Brickley coming. And we'll see about some others. Oh, you got John Harris coming? That's great.

Oh, that's good. I love it. I can't wait to meet Seth Brickley in person. I know. Yeah. I might look a little bit different in person.

I don't know. But yeah, maybe you're a lot taller or shorter than what I think. Yes. Yeah. When Jeff came to Wisconsin, he figured out that it's not snowy year round.

And when I'm going to go to New Jersey, I'm going to find out that it's not a concrete jungle. Yeah. And the toxic waste sludgers, they're really hard to find.

They're all hidden. So it's the Garden State. It's the Garden State. I know there's got to be some there's got to be some green there, right?

A little bit of green. We got a little bit of green. Eagles green. Yeah. Bring your

Vikings. Anyway. All right. So let's do it. Let's do it. Tim. Tim, you want to lead us out in our.

Yeah, sure. When you see a brother down, what do we do? Pick him up. And when you see it's a high place, don't be afraid to what?