Lawsuits Against the Woke Church?

Hello there, this is A .D. Robles and you're listening to A .D. on the Fight, Laugh, Feast...

Alright, well, let's just jump right into it today.

No advertisements, no promotions, none of that. I have a feeling this is going to be a longer episode of the podcast, so we will see.

But it's going to be about this lawsuit, right? So McLean Bible Church, I did a video about that chaotic meeting that they had electing elders.

It seemed like a very non -shady election, if you know what I mean.

But the meeting was absolutely ridiculous. It was Big Eva all over it. You know, preposterous.

So I was on the side of the congregation. If that wasn't clear, I'm on the side of those who are making the complaint against David Platt and the elders.

In fact, I think David Platt should be disqualified from this. I hope that David Platt is kicked out of the church. I hope that he's never able to pastor a church again.

That's what I hope. But this lawsuit that's been brought, I don't know who the defendants actually are, but the lawsuit alleging that the church elected elders improperly, among some other things,

I think that should be retracted. I think the Bible is very, very clear that that kind of a lawsuit or injunction or whatever you want to call it is completely unacceptable for a

Christian to bring against a Christian. And so I wanted to just respond. I got a lot of pushback for that.

I got a lot of support for that, but a lot of pushback as well. This is a very divisive issue in the sense that people are falling on both sides.

Everyone who's pushed back has been very friendly, and I think they understand I'm on their side. I want to help them.

But they disagree with me, and so I wanted to just do the right thing and respond to their disagreements and basically explain why

I'm still holding. You know what I mean? I'm still holding. Some of the arguments were pretty lame, but some of them were pretty interesting, so I thought

I'd respond to them. So I'm not going to respond to everyone, but there are certain categories of argument that I did want to respond to.

So one person said to me this. He said, look, A .D., why have a constitution in a church at all if we can't force the new leaders to follow it?

If we can't do it, what purpose does it have? And so this is a very interesting question.

Actually, let me finish this comment because there's a couple things going on here. The second thing he says is, my understanding was the passage precluding lawsuits dealt more with civil lawsuits between individual

Christians. Maybe I'm wrong. So he's kind of trying to make the distinction where it's like, well, that passage, it precludes civil lawsuits against individual

Christians, but this is a lawsuit against the church because they're not following their own rules, which, by the way, why have the rules if you can't force them to follow them?

And this is a distinction I heard Capstone Report make as well, which I like Capstone Report, so I'm not trying to say that he's bad or anything like that, but I don't think it's a good distinction because the church as an entity, it's a legal fiction.

It's just a group of individuals, right? So it's just a group of individual Christians. So it wouldn't make any sense for Paul to say you can't sue individual

Christians, but you can sue a group of Christians. That distinction is very artificial and I don't think makes any sense at all.

And plus, I don't think it makes any difference because at the end of the day, you're going to the pagan courts to try to get them to adjudicate how to elect elders in the church.

I don't think we want to set the precedent where we're going to go run to the pagans to help us decide how to elect elders in the church.

That's a very poor idea, in my opinion, and not only is it a poor idea, that's the exact kind of thing that Paul was condemning here because the pagans don't have any wisdom to offer us and things like that.

They just have nothing there. So the church can handle its own situation that pagans have nothing to offer us.

But the other thing is he says this. He says, what's the point of the Constitution? Well, the point of the

Constitution is so that we can handle it in the church. In other words, we can say, okay, David Platt, here are the rules, one, two, three, four, that you agreed to.

And now here is how you're acting. It violates one, it violates two, it violates three. Repent of your sin.

Your yes is not yes. Your no is not no. Repent right now or leave. It's just that simple.

Make it right or leave. And you can hold them to account because it's written down, their names on the dotted line and all that kind of stuff.

And, of course, David Platt, because he's in Big Eva, he doesn't care what he said. He doesn't care what the Bible says in many places.

So he's going to do whatever he wants to do. But then that's how you bring in other Christians. You bring in other people within the church.

Maybe you can stage a lock -in or something like that, stage a sit -down, refuse to leave his office.

All that stuff is on the table. See, I'm not against shrewd tactics.

I'm not against peaceful protests that look a little bit, you know, like a little bit chaotic.

Like I liked what that guy did at the business meeting. I thought that was – I completely supported what he did, the point of order and then the speaking and yelling.

He should have forced them to drag him out. That would have been amazing. Imagine that. He says, I'm not leaving.

This is my – oh, you're trespassing, sir. No, I'm not. I'm a member of the church and I'm at a business meeting. How am I trespassing?

Oh, you're trespassing. I would have forced them to get him arrested because then they would have been the ones sinning.

They would have been the ones appealing to the pagan court to handle their business. See, that's the thing. You got to be shrewd as a viper but innocent as a dove.

Like I think there's all kinds of things that could happen. You could call a third -party arbiter. Say David Platt, we call the third -party arbiter.

Come to arbitration with us. And he would have been like, no, I'm the great David Platt. And then you could have exposed that.

Like David Platt refuses to go to arbitration with us. You could have appealed to the SBC and the SBC would say, no, we're the great

SBC. And you could expose the SBC. Like we have to be shrewd but we have to be innocent as well.

And so the lawsuit kind of takes away your innocence in that regard because now you're violating the

Bible too. There's all kinds of things. A sit -in would have been great. I mean imagine that if like 50 or 100 of you went to his office and refused to leave.

You can't – we're not leaving until you talk to us. Imagine that. He would have been like, I've got to call the police on you. And then he would have been the one violating

First Course 6 and all of that kind of stuff. And the optics would have been great on your side. I'm for all that kind of stuff.

You know, it's time to find our rowdy side as Christians sometimes, right?

Be a rowdy Christian. I should have worn my rowdy Christian shirt. But being a rowdy

Christian is – you still can't violate the Bible. And this passage, guys, in First Course 6, it is very, very clear what it's talking about.

And so I hope that answers your question. Why have a constitution? So that you can hold their face up to the mirror and say this is what you've become.

You violated this, this, this, this, and this. Now repent or we're going to take further action. You know what

I mean? And I don't think that further action should be going to the pagan court. Another question that came up is – so thank you for your comment.

I really appreciate that. Here's another one that a lot of people use, right? So here's what he says. He says –

I'll go back and read some of the commentaries in the passage. But reading the Corinthians passage again, it lays it out as trivial disputes between brothers.

And the rectification is finding someone within the church to adjudicate it. But that doesn't really fit this scenario.

The church itself is violating the rights of its members and will not subject it to anyone else's authority other than their own.

Yeah, that's the point. I completely agree. The church itself is violating their own constitution, right?

And I think the point here is – and that's not a trivial matter. And 1 Corinthians 6 only applies to trivial matters.

So therefore, they can go to the pagans. I find that to be very, very weird. And, again, no disrespect.

But do you really think Paul's saying, okay, the church can deal with trivial matters because the pagans aren't wise enough to deal with the trivial matters.

But the pagans are wise enough to deal with the very serious, complex matters like electing an elder in your church.

I really don't think that's what the apostle was saying here. What he was saying was, you guys are going to be judging the big matters, the serious matters.

Do you not know that we will judge the world, all the most serious matters. And you're telling me that you can't even judge this small matter?

The point is that the Christians are ultimately competent to judge all matters.

And he's insulting them, saying, and you can't even judge a small thing here. That's where the triviality comes into play.

It's not that the church is only competent to do the trivial matters, but the pagans are the only ones competent to do the serious matters.

No, it's actually quite the opposite. It's the church is competent to do everything, and he's insulting the

Corinthians and saying, and you're over here. Someone stole your penny, and you can't even solve it without going to the pagans.

It's an insult. And so, yeah, a few people said that this is about trivial matters.

I just do not see that in the text at all, at all. He's saying the church will judge all things, and you're running the pagans to judge this small thing.

Shame on you. That's what he's saying. And so I disagree completely with that characterization of this.

This is about trivial matters. I don't think it is. By the way, again, I just have to say, why would you think that the pagans would be qualified or interested or do it in a way that would be to your advantage as far as how to elect elders in the church?

That's a precedent that I just can't imagine anyone wants to set where the pagans are qualified to decide how the church has agreed to elect elders.

This sphere sovereignty thing, this is a violation of sphere sovereignty just like the government trying to shut down church when the coronavirus is out there.

It's the same violation. This is not their purview. So why would we appeal to them as if it is their purview?

So that was another one that I just didn't think made any sense at all. So this is another kind of form of argument that a lot of people said.

Basically, the idea here is – let me just read it. It says, I respectfully disagree with you, A .D. That church took decades to build and countless resources along the way.

Platt has only been there for a few years and is acting in an unbiblical way. He leaves them no choice.

And I sympathize with that because it's right. Yes, this church took a lot of effort, blood, sweat, and tears to build over time, money, resources, time, the whole thing.

And now Platt is destroying it in a couple of years because he's just a – I'm going to be a nice guy.

He's just completely inept. So it just doesn't seem fair, right? So he's saying that leaves them no choice but to sue.

See, that's where I disagree though. See, all of that is right. It sounds ridiculous. So something that takes years and years and years and years and years to build can be destroyed by just one –

I'm going to be nice – one person to take down in a couple years.

And it seems like this is the only recourse we have. But it's not. God never puts you in a position – never, brothers.

This is biblical. Hear me. This is a biblical truth. God never puts you in a position where the only option you have is to sin.

There's always a way out. There's always a way out. And I do not think that means tucking tail and running.

That's not the only way out here. That is a possible solution, by the way, and totally legitimate.

But it's not the only solution. There are so many other things you can do, and chances are I would support many of them.

Stage a sit -in. Do some kind of protest. Just expose what you've got to the masses.

I'll help you. You know what I mean? Like, if you need help, we'll help you. But the one thing that we can't do is say, well,

I have no choice but to break 1 Cor 6 because this is a serious situation, so the pagan's got to be called in.

I just don't think that's what this passage is saying at all. You always have a choice. You never have to sin.

You know, one of the things that people commented on this video as well is a lot of people that are from McLean Bible Church started giving some more details.

And actually, a few people reached out to me privately with, like, a list of all these things that they've done over the years to try to rectify this in a biblical way.

And when I read that stuff, guys, it's like, I believe you. Let me just say this at the outset.

Everyone from NBC that has messaged me privately and everyone that commented on the channel,

I believe what you're saying. All of it sounds like stuff that I've heard time and time again from people that are suffering under these

Big Eva goons, right? These Big Eva, I'm going to be nice.

It all makes sense. It all adds up. I believe you. But none of the suffering that you've endured at the hands of these guys, these men, makes it not say what it says, guys.

That's the point. Like, you try to do it in the church, but what you can't do is there's one thing you can't do.

By the way, this passage, a few people were saying, How dare you say that this passage says you can't go to court?

Christians, of course they can go to court. That would violate other principles when other Christians went to court. People bring up Paul a lot where he went to court and he defended himself and stuff like that.

And this passage doesn't say, first of all, that you Christian can't go to court, right? This doesn't say that.

What it says is you can't bring a brother to a pagan court to solve your civil differences.

That's what it says. And so here's an option, a third -party Christian arbiter. You could go to a third -party

Christian arbiter. You could do this. This is totally fine. By the way, if the law of God were established in this land and we were a

Christian nation, you could go to court because that would be a Christian court, right? But you still couldn't go to court over an ecclesiastical matter because it's just not their jurisdiction.

The civil court's jurisdiction is not to rule in ecclesiastical matters.

It just simply isn't. And so that's the point here. That's the point. By the way, I think

I've said this already once. If I haven't, this is what I think could have happened. You could be shrewd here and stage a sit -in, refuse to leave, refuse to let the business meeting go on until they hear your point of order.

Then they're going to be like, oh, I'm going to arrest you. And then you get arrested. They take you to court, and then you defend yourself in court.

That's totally fine. You can defend yourself in court when they take you to court. Let them be the ones to sin, drag you to court, and then defend yourself.

Then you get discovery. Then you get all that stuff. You see, we have to have tactics that don't involve us being the ones to sin.

We have to be shrewd but innocent. Shrewd but innocent. So, you know, all of you people,

I have not responded to all of your messages with all the points of all the evil things that David Platt and his goons have done.

I believe you guys. I believe you. You know, I believe you. Here's another one that a lot of people were using, and it just didn't make any sense to me why you were using this argument.

Let me just read it, and we'll go from there. This person says, For everyone thinking all lawsuits or appeals to the local government in church affairs are unbiblical, what would you do if a member of your church molested a young child?

Obviously, you would call the police, and the courts would get involved. If the church organization is breaking a legal contract between it and its congregation, then they are breaking the law, and the state should step in as ordained by God.

I'm not saying this situation should be taken to court, but don't automatically assume all lawsuits are unbiblical. That would be mishandling 1

Corinthians 6. Yes, that would be mishandling 1 Corinthians 6, because we're talking about the difference between a civil matter and a criminal matter.

You see, a civil matter in the church, an ecclesiastical matter, is a matter within the church.

The church has total jurisdiction over that. I don't care what the civil government says. It has no jurisdiction over this, if you are a believer.

Right? The government might think that it can step in and help you select elders in a lawful way, but it can't!

It can't! Only the church has purview over its own government.

Only the church has purview over its own government. The civil governing authority does have purview over crimes.

And so, yeah, you better believe that if I found out someone was molesting a young girl in my church, they might—

Let me just say this, that I'm the kind of guy that if I came across something like that, that they probably would go to the police a little bit beaten up.

Let's just put it that way. But the thing is—and that would probably not be right. I'm not saying that that's necessarily right. But yes, you call the police if there's a crime.

If there's a criminal situation, you call the police because that is their jurisdiction. The Bible specifically says that that's what they do.

They bear the sword to punish evildoers. But that has no application to the civil governing life of the church.

And so if a member of your church was molesting a young girl, it would be completely acceptable to go hand him over to Caesar because that's

Caesar's whole job is to punish evildoers. Beat him up a little bit first, too, you know what

I'm saying? But ecclesiastical matters, electing elders, choosing—could you imagine?

Think about this. Think about the Israelites. They can't figure out how to pick the high priest. The Levites are having a dispute, and some of the

Levites say this, some of the Levites say that. But they happen to be in Canaan, so they go to Canaan courts to say, hey,

Canaan courts, can you figure this out? Obviously, that would make no sense whatsoever. The Canaanites are not qualified to judge how to pick the high priest that year.

They're not qualified. Even if they can read, they're still not qualified. And this is akin to that situation.

We should not be going to the pagans to judge ecclesiastical matters. The pagans do have things to judge, but not ecclesiastical matters.

That's for the saints of God. There's no way around this, guys. We'll get to some better arguments in just a second, but there's just no way around this.

Oh, Jennifer LaFontaine here, she's a YouTuber, by the way. I've checked out her channel a few times. It's pretty good. But she actually makes a really good point, completely unrelated, but I thought

I'd bring it up. Amos 5 says—it doesn't say, let justice roll down like waters.

It says, let judgment roll down like waters. That's from the King James. And actually,

I do believe that's the idea that this verse is talking about. When it says justice, it actually means judgment.

It means the actual punishments for your sin. That's what should run down like waters, not this ishy, squishy, feel -good, oh, everybody has the same money and same house.

Let that roll down like waters. Let socialism run down like waters. That's what most people mean when they say, let justice roll down like waters.

But Jennifer's right. It's actually—the emphasis is on the judgment part. Let judgment roll down like waters.

In fact, I'm going to probably—Jennifer, thanks for pointing this out. I'm going to probably quote the King James when I quote this verse from now on.

Let it be written. Let it be done. All right. Let us continue.

This brother actually is on the right path, in my opinion. This guy says, this is probably a foolish thought given the current state of SBC leadership and of NBC's confusing association with that body, but it would seem like a profoundly biblical service if the

SBC offered an arbitration service for cases such as this. I agree.

And, again, the SBC, you probably don't want to appeal to the SBC because they're also a disaster, but you kind of have to, and you should if they have a service like this.

You should do it, and you should appeal to other places, the third -party, neutral place, and you pick one yourself, whatever you got to do.

Christians are qualified to judge whether or not David Platt broke the bylaws or not.

Christians are qualified to judge. You know who's not qualified to judge? Pagans. Pagans are not qualified to judge, so that's the whole point.

There are other recourses that you could and should take, in my opinion, but one of them is not the one that 1

Corinthians specifically condemns. That about covers most of the arguments that I saw.

The one that I wanted to get to, I couldn't find it here, but someone made the case that, again, this is about brothers.

You can't sue brethren. Someone made the case that if you look at Matthew 18, you confront them.

They don't listen. You bring people with you. They don't listen. You bring the elders with you. They don't listen.

Then the Bible says, treat them like an unbeliever. They're like a Gentile to you. And so, therefore, now I can sue them because they're like Gentiles to me.

So a lot of people have said that. It's like, well, these aren't believers. They're not acting like believers, so they're not believers.

And so the question, though, is this. See, that passage in Matthew 18 talks about the church and the elders deciding who's excommunicated and who's not.

It's not talking about the congregation judging the elders because the reality is that, yes, maybe they should be excommunicated, right?

But they haven't been. So right now, as it stands right now, they have not been excommunicated from the church.

David Platt's still a member of the church in good standing. As much as you might not like that and as much as I might think that's ridiculous, that's the fact.

And so you can't just say, okay, well, I'm deciding unilaterally that in my mind

I'm excommunicating him, so now I can treat him like an unbeliever. Let me give you an example because someone might say,

A .D., you're being inconsistent because you've said that certain people are unbelievers. And, yes, I have said that.

I don't think that Jamar Tisby's regenerate. I don't think that Eric Mason's regenerate. I don't think that—there's a list of people, right?

It's a small list, but it's a list. But the point is, though, that I don't have the authority to say they're not a

Christian in the eschatological sense. I think they're showing no fruit. I think they're showing—I would not be surprised if one day

Jamar Tisby sues me because I don't expect him to act like a believer because I don't think he is a believer. But here's the reality.

I wouldn't sue him. I wouldn't sue him because despite how—no matter how outrageous

I think this is, that man has never been excommunicated from a church. Never. He's never been excommunicated from a church.

So he bears the name of Christ. I think that he's a spiritual adulterer.

A spiritual adulterer. I think he's betrayed his Lord. I think Eric Mason's the same way.

You might think the same about David Platt. But the point is, we still have to keep our scruples.

No matter how evil they've acted, we have to keep our scruples. It's just that simple.

We have to have our foundations in line. We have to obey Christ, even if they refuse to obey

Christ. And that does not mean that you just don't do anything. A lot of people—a few people—implied that I was a pacifist.

And I can't imagine watching this channel and thinking that I'm a pacifist. I'm not a pacifist.

I think there's so many militant -style activities that you could get involved in on this exact issue.

But the one thing you can't do is take them to a pagan court to judge how do we elect our elders.

Can you please, pagans, show us how do we elect our elders according to our bylaws? How do we interpret this?

How do we do this? That's just the wrong—that's the wrong look. It just doesn't make any sense that we would want to call in the pagans to judge how we should elect elders.

It's just that simple. The one thing that people keep bringing up that I did want to address is

Paul, right? Because Paul uses his rights as a Roman citizen. A couple people have brought up, well, he used the threat of pagan law to stop the jailers from whipping him.

That's why he appealed that I'm a Roman citizen so they wouldn't whip him. He appealed to Caesar his case because the

Jews had brought a case against him. And it was a very vague case. It was just like, this guy deserves death.

But every time they would question why he deserves death, they just would say, but he just deserves death, you know, like that kind of thing.

So he appealed to Caesar. And people are saying, well, that's what we're doing here. We're appealing to Caesar the same way

Paul appealed to Caesar, and I don't think that you are at all. Because in the example of appealing as a

Roman citizen, right, a pagan was about to beat him. He wasn't taking a brother to court by saying, hey,

I'm a Roman citizen. You can't beat me. That's not the same as taking a brother to court because he elected elders in the wrong way.

Right. That's not the same at all. And when it comes to the Jews, right, so the Jews, this is a little closer.

The Jews handed him over to the Romans, and he was defending himself according to Roman law.

And people are saying it's the same exact thing. Right. It's not because it would have been.

Let me tell you what would have been more Paul -like because this is what I was saying from the beginning.

What would have been Pauline, guys, is if you at that business meeting said we're not leaving until we talk about this and solve this.

We're going to stay here, and you're going to acknowledge the point of order, and we're going to stay here until we figure this out.

And then they would have been like, well, we're the great McLean Bible Church. We're going to call the police on you.

And they would have called the police on you, and they would have drug you to court. That would have been Pauline because then you can defend yourself.

You didn't bring anyone to court. They brought you to court, and now you can tell the judge all about it and what you did and why you did it and all that kind of stuff.

And that would have been totally fine, and it would have been a great opportunity for the gospel too because it's like I would have.

Listen, we would have sued you before, but we're bound by the scriptures to not sue you because of 1

Corinthians 6. But since we're here, let's talk about exactly what our gripes are. And now you pretended like we were trespassing.

You lied to the court. We're not trespassing. We're members in good standing. We were never excommunicated. We were never doing anything incorrectly.

We were members in good standing at a business meeting, and you refused to hear us. You're the ones in the wrong. That would have been fine.

That would have been Pauline. That would have been Pauline, but instead what you did was more akin to what the

Pharisees did to Paul. You drug them to court. You drug them to court. And you appealed to Caesar initially bringing them to court.

It's actually the opposite of what Paul did. Paul did defend himself. I'm not saying you can't defend yourself. Of course you can defend yourself, but we can't compare this to Paul, guys, because Paul didn't do anything except get arrested.

That's what Paul did. Paul got arrested. He didn't bring the matter. He didn't say, all right, Caesar, look, I've been disputing with the

Pharisees. Jesus rose from the dead. Now I need you to decide who's in the right and who's in the wrong.

Did Jesus rise from the dead? That's not what Paul did, guys. It isn't. And I know you're all frustrated.

I know you're all upset, and I'm on your side, guys. I am. I want David Platt to be gone.

I want him to be gone from evangelical life in general. Evangelicalism would be better if David Platt didn't exist in it.

Let's just put it that way. But what we can't do is we can't break the law of God to accomplish those ends.

We just can't. And 1 Corinthians 6, Paul explicitly condemns this tactic of dragging them to court to solve this ecclesiastical matter.

Not only does it break 1 Corinthians 6, but it also completely confuses the jurisdictions out there.

Caesar is a deacon of God, a servant of God over criminal matters, rapists, murderers, thieves, all of that kind of stuff.

But when it comes to electing elders, that is squarely in the purview of the church.

Don't ask for Caesar's wisdom in areas that he has no wisdom in, no ability in, no jurisdiction in.

It's completely inappropriate, and I just have not heard an argument that makes me feel otherwise.

I just don't know. I'm not telling you to not fight. I think you can fight, but we have to be shrewd about this.

We have to be shrewd and innocent at the same time, and that's a harder road to walk.

It takes a little bit more thinking. It takes a little bit of bravery, because I think probably

David Platt would not hesitate to call the police on you or to sue you to do all kinds of illegitimate things for a

Christian to do against you, because maybe he's not a believer. He doesn't seem to be acting like one, that's for sure.

He doesn't seem to be acting like one. So I wouldn't be surprised if David Platt in the church sues you or counter -sues or calls the police when you sit in a meeting trying to conduct business because you're a member of the church, and he'll be like,

Sir, this is a lawful order, sir, and you're trespassing. I wouldn't be surprised to see him do that kind of stuff because maybe he's not a believer.

But guys, I believe you that you're believers. I believe you that you're conservative. I believe you that you care about what

God says. And so 1 Corinthians 6 does condemn the exact thing that you're doing here.

So I just hope you reconsider. That'll be my last word about this, because I'm not trying to beat you up.

I'm on your side. And listen, I could not consider myself your friend if I didn't confront you with this.

I think you're in the wrong. We need to be shrewd but innocent. I hope you found this podcast helpful. God bless.

Don't forget to tune in next week on Thursday for AD on the Fight, Laugh, Feast Network.