Documentary Review ***The Real David Platt: The Hijacking of McLean Bible Church***

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What happens when a documentary comes out that's supposed to be totally convincing on one side and leaves you going well

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That's what we're going to talk about today on your calvinist podcast which begins right now Welcome back to your calvinist podcast.

01:17

My name is keith foskey and I am your calvinist and i'm joined to my left by my

01:22

Wonderful and beautiful wife jennifer and i'm joined by my friend and not yet calvinist friend

01:30

Matthew henson, it's true. And as usual, I am outnumbered in the room and that's okay. That's right.

01:35

That's right We're gonna get him. Eventually. We're gonna get him. We're working towards that. He he thinks this is a friendship But really it's a covert opportunity

01:42

What the listener doesn't understand is that we just had a three -hour intervention, uh in this little spot here and uh, no i'm kidding

01:48

No, it's great. It's a tough place to spend three hours. I've done it. Yeah It's a small shed, but hey, isn't it neat that we can actually get three people into the theo shed?

01:56

This is we had richard here the other night richard. I have to say richard's a little bigger than you Is it it was it was our knees were touching and it was a little awkward in many ways

02:05

He is still here with us over there on the wall. Yes riches uncle rich is on the wall Yes, he is. He's actually a part of every show because he's in the intro as well

02:13

It's special if you guys don't know who uncle rich is he's my man and he's in every show and uh

02:19

Little scary. Yes He's he's ubiquitous with your calvinist brand and he likes guns and he likes guns which which is

02:30

Theology well not according to r. scott clark, but oh, there it is. There it is. I throw that jab in all the time

02:36

Well guys recently on the friday night live. We have been talking about Things that you guys want us to talk about and two main things that have come up several times

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Is you've asked us to talk about steve lawson and ecclesiology and I am working on that video because as many of you know

02:54

I wrote a book on ecclesiology called a biblically functioning church And i'm going to talk about what happened with steve and the issues

03:01

That surrounded what we now know was a really unbiblical ecclesiology in his position at that church in texas

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But that's later today. We're going to be talking about the subject of the david platt documentary

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That landed a few weeks ago and has literally become Just the talk everyone has seen it.

03:24

Everyone's talked about it. It's hundreds of thousands of views on youtube And we're going to talk about what we think about the documentary

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We're going to talk about what seems to have happened at mclean bible church again You guys asked for our opinion jennifer and I have seen the requests come in And the reason why we invited matthew is because quite frankly, he's a great researcher

03:46

Yeah, and uh in talking to him about it. He has seen the documentary what now eleventeen thousand times

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Yeah, you've seen it several times Yeah, uh once by myself watched it a second time with my wife and then a third time pausing taking notes thinking

03:58

That sort of thing so more intently I guess. Yeah, absolutely and and matthew comes along as he's an elder in his church

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He's a biblically studied person and uh, he he he also has a unique history in his own church that I think we're going to Talk a little bit about how how some of the situation at mclean.

04:15

Um, he kind of feels somewhat of a a unique Connection to it because of some of the history that that he's experienced and even in our church at sovereign grace

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You know, we weren't always sovereign grace. There was a time when we were forced christian church So we've experienced some major changes.

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So we we've gone through at least three constitutional changes since I became the pastor and so The the the idea of church is changing with new leadership things coming in things going out ministries dissolving and ministries

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Starting new leaders coming in all of these are things that were part of the documentary And all of them were were part of the question of is this right or is this wrong?

04:56

So that's part of what we're going to talk about today but before we do that got a few things we need to talk about first and Uh, you see both of them going to their ads.

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I've asked these Uh folks with me today these folks i've asked my wife and my friend if if they would help me with our

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Our sponsors we now have uh, not just sponsor singular We now have sponsors plural for the show as always.

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Our next sponsor is striving for eternity ministries and they have a book that they want to recommend

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And we're going to read this to you about it indeed So we live in a time where many want to avoid theology thinking that it's not necessary for the christian life

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This cannot be further from the truth Theology that is the study of god is necessary for every christian to understand not only god

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Excellent, thank you and I want to remind you with that book as well The link will be in the description below if you use that link to go get the book and use my name

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So please do that again. The sponsors help us keep the show running. So support our sponsors and you

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Will be supporting us. All right, we're going to move on now to Talking about the david platt documentary now for those of you who are maybe blissfully unaware of what this is david platt

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Is a pastor who rose to a lot of notoriety after writing a book called radical radical was his his statement into the modern

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Evangelical world about how there needed to be a radical view of missions a radical view of the christian life

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Where we shed the american dream and go after The the the people in the world that that don't have the things that we have we need to Invest in missions invest in those types of things and it really resonated with a lot of people

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I remember when the book came out. It was a it was something that uh, everybody I knew

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Uh, it was talking about they were saying. Oh, man. Did you did you read radical? Did you see what he said about this? Oh, man, maybe

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I need to repent of this Maybe I maybe I don't need the this car this house Maybe I need to step back and and reinvest in something else and and and and it really had an an interesting effect

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I I remember very specifically a young man in our church had read that book and when he came to the church He he was he was sort of in a in a in an attitude of almost.

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Um Almost he almost became disenfranchised with our church because we weren't necessarily saying the things

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That david platt was saying and he was sort of challenging me on a few things and I loved him It didn't cause a conflict between us but it did certainly it resonated with him for whatever reason and It caused him to ask questions about things that we did how we spent money how we invested as a church

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And I remember not shortly thereafter a book came out by michael horton called ordinary

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Do you remember that book? I remember hearing about it. I haven't I haven't actually read it though Well, michael horton basically said you know what?

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Just an ordinary christian life is great and so uh that that was his michael horton's sort of response to david platt who was saying, you know

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We got to be radical and michael was like well, what about just the ordinary christian life? Can that be lived to the glory of god?

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And so that just goes to show that Platt's message even though it was received by many very well.

10:59

There were some people who gave pushback And even the elephant room Documentaries that came out from that time now you you might have been what in diapers back then what you're what you're talking about here 2010 yeah.

11:13

Yeah. Yeah. I was I was uh, well, I was a sophomore in high school. Oh, okay I was just kidding about the that's okay Quite all right.

11:19

He's my he's my young elder friend. That's true Yeah, there's a 30 year age gap between me and the next next youngest elder on my team

11:26

So it's okay. I get this a lot but but there's what 14 years between us. How old are you? 30 okay.

11:31

Yeah, so so so not not too far. You're actually almost the same age as my younger brother. Okay. Yeah but the

11:39

The thing is at that time it really resonated with young people and like I said But some people looked at it with some skepticism and there was this thing called the elephant room

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The elephant room was guys like perry noble uh mark driscoll uh several other guys

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In fact, greg moore did a did a podcast about the the david platt documentary And he mentioned that most of the guys in the elephant room got defrocked

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Well, I was going to say that's basically a murderer's row of people who just aren't in well left in scandal essentially from their churches

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Yeah, yeah, I mean now that now david platt's in scandal all the other guys in some form or fashion In fact, the only one

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I remember seeing on the elephant room that I don't think has had any scandal and i'm sure there's others But the one

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I remember specifically is greg lorry Never really heard anything negative about him. I mean, he's a calvary chapel guy.

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He's basically the the the Person who came in after chuck smith and sort of you know, do you know him?

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Do you know much about him? Not much. I mean, I know the name but I haven't really watched his preaching or anything Yeah, chuck smith's actually a good preacher

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I've listened to him quite a bit and if you've ever heard greg lorry, you've heard chuck smith They sound alike. They have the same mannerisms.

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You can tell it's just like listening to john gerstner and r .c Sproul the first time you listen to john gerstner if you never have and you're and you're a fan of r .c

12:54

Sproul like I was I listened to john gerstner. I was like now I now I know where sprawl got his mannerisms Now I know where sprawl got the growl

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You know sprawl growled, right? Do you ever listen he'll he'll he'll get down and he'll grow, you know, you know, like what's wrong with you people?

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He's got this sort of growling thing Well, john gerstner was like a pitbull when he taught he taught and he had a growl

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And I was like well, this is where jesus said, you know a student is not above his his master You know these guys learn from their teachers and greg lorry, of course

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Being a student of chuck smith many years ago when we first became christians We used to watch tbn and greg lorry was on it.

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Greg lorry was all over the place I mean, I've listened to hours of greg lorry's teaching from from early 2000s.

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Yeah, certainly not a calvinist Certainly, but but uh, and we won't hold it against him. Yeah, at least one of us won't well

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But Be that as it may there were people having questions about david platt even back then if you go back to those old shows those old elephant room videos what you find is

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They were they were questioning him then particularly mark driscoll said it was quote Sucktastic that he took away the the the goldfish crackers from the kids in the lunchroom of their school

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Because they wanted to save money for missions And that's ironic when we find out

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How some of that money was spent in the documentary for sure when when we go back 15 years ago or 10 years ago to the elephant room and we see what was happening back then

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And then we now we find out wait a minute. Maybe it was Maybe there were some things that that uh that that were there really needed to be a question mark about And so that leads us to where we are today uh within the last couple of years

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A lot of red flags have been coming out of the church there. It's mclean bible church in virginia

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And a lot of things I remember way before the documentary came out Maybe you guys don't but I remember way before the documentary come out there were short

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Clips being passed around on twitter and on facebook and it was clips from people's cell phones where they were clipping sections of congregational meetings

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And one specifically was a man who uh come to find out later wasn't even a member of the congregation

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But he was there and he was standing up and he was making a big deal about stuff And he had to be removed by security

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And I remember thinking well, I wonder what's going on. I don't really know And then lo and behold this documentary drops and it tries to tell a story of a church that went from The leadership of one specific pastor lon lon solomon lon solomon

15:35

Thank you. L -o -n for the first name. It took me forever. I was like l -a -w -n L -o -n which may be short for something but yeah lon solomon.

15:43

Yep lon solomon at to david platt and the changes that occurred after that and The issues that arose when david platt took over and the major issues that I saw in the documentary

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And we're going to get to your list because I know we're going to walk through everything but the major issues In the first part of the first documentary because there's two parts

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In the in the in the beginning of the first documentary. It's all about how everything under lon was great the entire ministry was smoking like a

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Or was was going along like a well -oiled machine, you know, it was trucking along I would say smoking along it was trucking along everything was doing great.

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Everybody was happy You know everybody who was who walked in the door received jesus into their heart and became an active part of the ministry

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It was like it was like god had blessed this church above and beyond anything anyone's ever seen

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And then along comes david platt and everything goes down That's a huge red flag for me that that's how the documentary begins

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Because it seems to be painting the idea that this church was a tremendously wonderful church until dun dun dun

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The new leader comes along and destroys everything and that that raised suspicion in my mind remember when we were watching it

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The first time and we said, you know what? Some of the arguments these people are making

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Just didn't resonate with me, but we'll get to that more and I don't understand the part question. I had was

17:10

What happened to the pastor? I mean, did he step down? Did he I don't remember the the

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Documentary. Well, you've seen it multiple times. Did it really explain what happened to lon? He well, he so he had been there for 30 something years at that point um, and he was stepping down but the way they made it seem like was that he was

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Strong -armed into doing it. There's this like the the the main I mean david platt's the main villain of the documentary, but there's this other guy

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Sutherland, I think is his last name. Um, who uh was The sort of the guy orchestrating it all in the back

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He was the sbc's hatchet man, and he was doing all of this and they showed these weird clips of him having awkward interactions on stage with lon during lon's final few days, you know at the church and then

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Later on at the very very end of the documentary. They talk about a victim of legitimate abuse saying hey

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I left some information for lon solomon And lon responded. I never saw this. I never knew anything about it, you know, and then there's an explicit statement where um,

18:14

If I could find it somewhere in the notes where they Someone says in the documentary the separation between mclean and lon was not amicable Now they never provide any evidence for that.

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They don't say why They don't give any grounding for that. It's just asserted without any there's like because they man this documentary they in legal discovery they were pulling out hundreds of emails and they had text messages and all like Huge amounts of evidence that they subpoenaed and got

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And they never backed that claim up which I always thought was very interesting They never were able to establish that lon was forced out

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But it was very much insinuated and then towards the end of part two It was outright said they forced lon out.

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But again, no evidence of that. Yeah And and it was confusing and again,

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I would say that's my first issue with the documentary It certainly presents it from one side which many documentaries do

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I mean a documentary is usually produced by someone who has a point To make and they're making their point for their side.

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It's a it's it's almost uh, uh, It's an opportunity to to say what you say what you think happened and say what you want

19:20

The issue with that is what the bible says is everyone sounds right until someone comes along and corrects them

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And there's no one in the documentary and you can correct me because you've seen it more times than I have There's no one in the documentary who is speaking from the side of the of the other side

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There's no one saying well, this is this is why this happened or this is the good part

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There's no there's no advocate for david platt No, no, and then you know, and they said and this is something that kind of bugged me and and they said uh towards the end in subtitles

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They were like we graciously offered the opportunity for david platt and any of the leadership of mclean bible to come on and not

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A single one of them responded and i'm just like, you know Have you got a 13 000 person church with an internationally known pastor?

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Maybe you don't have time to sit down with every tom Dick and harry that you know is going to be making a hostile documentary to you.

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Like maybe you just don't like You you cert if you have any kind of twitter presence, you don't humor every twitter rando

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That's like debate me sit down and answer these questions Like you just don't do that and i'm not saying these people didn't have legitimate grievances or anything like that but this kind of kill shot like ah

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We offered them a chance and they wouldn't even sit down with us It's just that that didn't like i'm not saying it hurt the case of the documentary makers

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But that didn't do anything for me. I was like, yeah Because they know you're making a hit piece on them and they'd rather not participate.

20:40

I I kind of understand why? Yeah, I want to just add a thought on what you just said and jennifer can back me up on this

20:48

Uh since i've been doing debates online and now I think i've done seven Debates unless you include the diehard and sandwich debates that puts me up to almost double digits

20:56

Uh but but i've done several debates online, uh from everything from the millennium to uh, to the subject of infant baptism

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And since beginning to do debates I get messages quite a bit from people and sometimes people want to debate me on something that has

21:11

Nothing to do with anything. I I have any interest in debating And I have to write them back and say you know what either one

21:17

I don't know enough about the subject to debate you or two I'm, not interested in debating that subject with you or three.

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I don't like you Yeah, and um that third one is one that a lot of people don't want to hear

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But sometimes I don't want to debate somebody just because I find them personally Objectionable.

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I don't want to spend time with this person. Yep and and again, we're getting ahead of ourselves in the documentary because i'm going to say a few things on behalf of The the side that is being hit on this in this documentary not because I think

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David platt was right But because I think that there there's blame on both sides Yeah, and and I think that's something we we would agree on very much and I think you and I jennifer agree on this as well um, of course in a patriarchal house, you have to agree with They asked in pre -show, what does aaron think about all this my wife and I was like whatever

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I think no, i'm kidding She thinks what I tell her. That's exactly right. Yeah. I love you, honey.

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Enjoy your view from the couch There you go Don't let my patriarchy friends hear you say that that's right i'll lose i'll lose all kinds of credit.

22:25

No, there you go No, you're here to give us your opinion too. And and and I do think we did see this differently

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And we talked about this in the car today because uh, today's my daughter's 12th birthday So we took my daughter out for lunch had some fun and we just got back and um

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I think you saw it differently because you sort of did see it From the person in the pew perspective

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And when we were watching it, I think your heart kind of went out to the people who Were legitimately hurt and my heart went out to them, too

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But I my perspective was a little different because i'm looking at it from the position of the leaders

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Thinking how many times have I done something in church? That someone could easily go out and make a documentary and say well look where keith foskey made this error

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Look where he did this. He brought this leader in and he did this or he he brought this person in to help

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You know his because he had an agenda And they can assume And ascribe all kinds of motives to me

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That unless i'm willing to like you said go on their documentary and fight back If i'm unless i'm willing to do that, i'm not going to be able to defend myself

23:33

And again, i'm not defending david platt as I said from the beginning I've thought from the big i've thought from the very moment radical came out that this guy has had some issues

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What i'm saying is I don't think all of the documentary all of the issues brought up in the documentary are necessarily

23:50

An an aspect of david platt's problem. I think the money issue is a big problem.

23:55

I think questions about the Connections with the spc and we're going to talk about how that works in a minute

24:01

But ultimately when I see the lady and this is this is where you know, maybe you can chime in on this jen when

24:08

I saw that lady say You know, he wanted to stop our home groups and My home he said our home groups weren't uh mature enough.

24:18

They were problematic. They were problematic and who is how does Why is it problematic? We're mature.

24:23

We're doing what we're supposed to you know We're leading people to jesus and we're doing good things and I thought to myself as a pastor who has had to In the past Say to people

24:36

Yeah, this ministry isn't functioning healthy anymore And this ministry needs to now end

24:45

And I know it hurts to hear that And I know this ministry has been going on now for 10 years and it has done some fantastic things in the past But where it is now it's no longer functioning healthy

25:01

Within the body And you know, what's my what's my saying about that? About plumbing it to death.

25:07

That's right. Like I said, if you got a drink sometimes you got to take old yeller out And shoot him

25:15

I mean I mean sometimes old yeller's got to be shot right because he's got the what they call it the the the uh, hydrophobia

25:23

Yeah, yeah ever see old yeller yeah, yeah, yeah, did you cry uh, probably yes, you must have cried it was it was when

25:30

I was like Five probably so I watched old yeller. I bawled our kids. They all man old yeller getting shot

25:37

But but that's I know this sounds funny, but sometimes ministries reach their inevitable end nothing in church

25:45

Is going to last in perpetuity except the preaching of the gospel and the participation in the sacraments music is going to change

25:52

Leadership is going to change ministries are going to change missionaries that you support are going to change

26:01

And so if that if the documentary and i'm not saying this is all the documentary does but if the documentary

26:09

Reached you because you saw a group of people whose ministries changed and they didn't like it

26:14

That I would say is the least problematic part Of what

26:20

I saw in this this whole movie Yes, it hurt people's feelings and yes, there were probably some ministries that still had some life in them that they were allowed to Let die and maybe that was wrong

26:31

But at the end of the day That that's not something unique to mclean bible church.

26:36

I want you to weigh in on this kind of you have plenty of thoughts yeah, so I That's absolutely right and on a personal level the church that I attend

26:45

I have attended since I was six or seven and I'm now one of the elders at um

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It's we're talking in pre -show the years the events everything matches up perfectly like you have a beloved pastor that takes it from a small rural church up to a

27:01

Not we were never 13 000. We were never 1000 but but significant growth From the late 1970s all the way up until in our case 2016 and mclean's case 2017 um

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And everyone's just talking about how great it is and how wonderful it is and everything's perfect and everything's great and then this new younger pastor comes in and he makes some changes and then everything goes to Pick your favorite metaphor and and you know scoob along.

27:27

Hey, there you go, right? and if only if only we could just do it the way that the old pastor did it then everything would be fine and and he would never have shut down this and he wouldn't and all that kind of thing and like We went through that at my church.

27:41

We're still in some ways recovering from that We're in a much healthier place now But like we had a much younger pastor take over from a much older pastor and uh

27:51

Want to make some changes and just got pilloried for it um Now there were some cases where like I was watching this documentary and they were like we just weren't

27:59

Like this ministry website just disappeared and we were never even told. Okay, of course That was a misstep by leadership.

28:05

You shouldn't just do that to people you should Communicate and care for people and and if there's good parts of that ministry

28:10

You should seek to migrate them or integrate them into something else That's new and good and maintain that and value your people and all those things

28:17

And I don't think mclean did a particularly good job of it at least by by this But I was just thinking to myself if if I were sufficiently motivated and had

28:27

The time money and expertise I could have made this documentary about my church Yeah, and I could have made it look just as bad

28:34

And I still know people Who will drift in and out of my own church breaks my heart and I always go up to them and hug them and they left mad years ago

28:43

And and but they never found a new church And occasionally they'll drift back in for a couple of weeks and I'll always go shake their hand give them a hug

28:50

I'm, so glad to see you I love you, and they'll listen for a bit and then they'll drift back out because the old anger and wounds they just can't get over it and you know,

28:59

I hate that and I I Past like I just as a christian. I love those people pastorally.

29:04

I care about them. I want them to come back But at the same time it's different It's it's it's not how it used to be and you know, mclean, virginia um mclean

29:16

Virginia itself went from an incredibly red state that voted for george w bush twice To where now they're on the like the right near dc.

29:25

I mean, that's a very very left -wing area at this point Um, they've seen the people in that area have seen tremendous political and social change just in their area

29:35

You know so I I can I understand that you have a church and your church is sort of the rock that isn't changing right like the rest of the world's changing and And the politics are different and the governor and the legislature and all the laws that are everything's different I can at least rely on my church being the same as it was yesterday and people

29:53

Felt that way about our church, even though our area hasn't really had any political shifts or anything And when it when something changes, they just they don't they can't handle it and on but I will say on a leadership perspective

30:04

You can intensify that you can aggravate that And you can you can make that from something that a mature christian should be able to get through To something that is almost faith ending for them if you do it poorly

30:16

And we certainly listen we have our warts. We're not throwing rocks here at mclean We certainly did some stuff that was not handled in the right way um, but I I do understand

30:26

I do understand Like you were saying keith about how we had this ministry and this ministry and this ministry and everything was great

30:32

And then he came and shut them all down and it's and I was thinking to myself Well, well, what if some of the ministries were bad, you know, like what if some of them were just not

30:41

What if some of them were soaking up not just financial but we're eating all of the volunteer hours Like if you pie charted it, they were just soaking up all of your high capacity people all the time

30:51

And the payout was basically nothing and I know i've kind of gone a little long -winded here But there's one I want to point out at our church.

30:56

We used to do this incredible christmas presentation christmas cantata It was really really well done it we got started in like september on it and we did eight or ten songs and there we were we were spending money on renting equipment and choir robes and You know all kinds of theatrical stuff and we drilled and drilled and drilled and we're doing six and eight hour

31:15

Practices for weeks and weeks leading up to it. It was a wonderful presentation It was really well done.

31:21

I work tech for that's kind of where I cut my teeth on a lot of of theater tech stuff um but after Doing it for 20 30 years.

31:30

We were just like, okay metric wise how many? People heard the gospel and were saved as a result, right?

31:37

Like I don't want to be counting baptisms or stuff like that and having our little punch card but like what is the fruit of this ministry and ultimately the answer was very little and when the decision was made to To stop doing that.

31:48

Oh boy There were some people unhappy about that Even though it was soaking up almost half of our volunteer hours for the year for this one event

31:57

And probably a pretty good good part of the budget. It was yeah I mean budget we were we were we've always been god's taking care of our church very well

32:04

But it was a massive massive sink of volunteer time and people would get frustrated

32:09

There was pastoral issues where you're having to separate people that were being mad at each other because of singing parts

32:14

It was just a huge huge emotional time investment and it wasn't bearing fruit

32:20

It really wasn't and so we had to make a call. I wasn't in leadership at the time I was observing this but we had to make a call to shut it down and People got very upset

32:28

Yeah, and so that's my if I would say a check against the documentary

32:35

For me right away was that's what they led with This we had this perfect and they didn't say it.

32:42

But I mean the insinuation is we had this perfect church with this perfect leader It was you know, everything good about the world was happening in this church

32:52

Everything good in christendom was happening in this church and along comes the the evil david platt who brings about this destructive force

33:00

And and I I I have a phrase for that. It's not a phrase I invented but it's a phrase I I picked up years ago and I use it a lot in my ministry

33:08

And that is a phrase called poisoning the well poisoning the well is when you want to Uh, you want to get someone on your side?

33:17

So the first thing you do is immediately tell something that you know is going to resonate or resonate with someone very emotionally and Once they're emotionally invested then you tell them the real issues

33:30

I think part two of this documentary is the real issues part one is poisoning the well

33:37

If you want my opinion, that's well I like I said I took some some notes at at and I took time stamps for them dear listeners

33:43

If you want to go check at the 11 minute 55 second time stamp This is a quote right from this is how they're starting referring to david platt

33:51

He's weak. He's a coward. He is a false teacher. He is a wolf He's a liar and there's no doubt about it that he's in it for the money, okay that is basically

34:02

That is basically a pauline vice list right there. I mean like that could come right out of romans one I don't mean to laugh but it's it's just like it's just like and He beats puppies and another thing that's you know, what that's that's uh, christmas vacation.

34:17

That's clark griswold's rant right there He's a bunch of no good dirty rock. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you go to his happy holiday house over on melody lane

34:24

With all the other rich people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you tell him and I listen a big ribbon on his head Listen, I I just want to say this as clearly as I can.

34:32

Okay If you're going to use the accusation false teacher Um if you're going to call someone a wolf um, not only are you saying they're not a christian you're saying that they are

34:44

One of the one they they the documentary closes with just the subtitle for max 20 where it's like after I depart from you

34:50

Vicious wolves will come in where paul's warning the ephesian elders um You had better be very very careful about that kind of of declaration.

35:00

You're very right Yeah, you better be right. You that's a high standard for that. I mean again

35:05

I'm, not one of these benny hen touch not the lord's anointed quack jobs or anything like that I mean pastors are not immune from From criticism and from correction biblically and all that but I was gonna say your leg touched me a minute ago

35:17

So touch not the lord's anointed. Okay. Well, there you go. Um, oh, there you go. Uh, but like When you when you throw out a word like coward, okay revelation tells us that cowards go to hell.

35:28

Okay, like that's it it I mean, obviously any sin separates someone from from god and requires the imputed righteousness of christ to correct like obviously

35:37

We're all we're all good bible -believing protestants, but like specifically cowards when we throw around a lot that's damnable okay, like you you go to hell for that, so like just Saying that at the 10 minute mark in what is two and a half hours of documentary.

35:52

Um Poisoning the well. Yes. I I certainly I certainly would agree Yeah, and and and you felt that didn't you when watching it like there was

36:01

I don't want to speak for you No, no, no Yeah I i've been thinking through like what we've been talking about and thinking about the documentary and um

36:09

Yeah, especially when he was talking about or when the woman was talking about the small group and about how everything was just shut down But later on I think it was in the second documentary.

36:20

They were talking about how he tried to get a meeting With with him and he never could reach and it

36:26

I I guess I was thinking a little bit different as as a pastor's wife of a small church We've been in people's homes most of the people have been in our homes they have they text they call

36:37

You know, it's just very different. Of course. I don't have experience at a mega church, but I was thinking could some of this just be they just Felt so disconnected like they didn't have

36:47

I know that's probably no. No, I think what you're This is something the documentary doesn't really address

36:53

But there are inherent problems In mega churches that that don't exist in minor in many churches minor churches, but many churches um

37:03

And and vice versa. There's problems that happen in many churches that don't happen in mega churches, right? And but but you're but but that is true, you know

37:11

Well, I couldn't get a I couldn't get a meeting with the pastor. Well when the when the church is running 13 000 people You know,

37:17

I know of many many churches where the pastor is is walked in by security walked out by security

37:23

Now I would I wouldn't want a ministry that way and I and this is again i'm not I'm, not condemning all mega churches

37:30

But I don't want a ministry where I can't just hang out with people Where I can't invite whoever I want over to my house and I can't go over to whoever

37:36

I want's house because I don't want to have this Distinguishing where you know, well, I can't do this because you know,

37:42

I can't do that for everybody So i'm not gonna do it for anybody. Yeah mentality pastors shepherds elders.

37:47

You should be busy Right like in the lives of your church, you should be busy. Um smell like sheep You should smell like I was about to use that very phrase.

37:54

You should smell like sheep Um, and I I do not expect david platt to pastor 13 000 people by himself

38:01

And neither does the new testament by the way um a plurality of qualified elders is the new testament model and You mentioned the

38:12

I think in pre -show or maybe even just at the start you mentioned the lawson situation and some ecclesiological issues there um yeah, you know when they when they said here in the documentary that david was there david platt was there just to sort of Not sort of to teach

38:28

And apparently make all the staffing calls and that was that was all he was there to do um immediate red flag there my my biggest takeaway if I could say this is that um ungodly unbiblical ecclesiology

38:40

Is the greatest sin that I see here uh, because Yeah, well because Because I think god built the church durable enough to where if you bring in an elder who is a wolf

38:51

Um an actual non -christian and he manages to deceive and sneak by um,

38:57

I think god made the new testament church durable enough to Expel that man and withstand that I mean even this is something

39:02

I say all the time when we're talking about acts 20 Is that paul says that I know that you know from among your own number will arise

39:10

Men speaking twisted things or whatever in the context he's talking to the ephesian Elders.

39:16

Yeah, so he's saying not just among the ephesian church. There's going to be twisted people That's a given we know that but amongst the elders like guys

39:23

And maybe there were some in the crowd he was talking to right then they were unregenerate, you know wicked men um

39:31

But again, I think that god built the church in the new testament to be able to withstand that mclean had an unbiblical ecclesiology

39:37

I cannot tell you how many time and this guy was the hero of the documentary for me was the elder craig Who was who was uh, sort of an older gentleman and he was he was interviewed

39:46

He probably had more screen time than just about anybody And he constantly he was saying they spent this and I just didn't even know and they made this decision

39:54

And the elders were not aware of that or whatever and then he admitted there were sometimes Things were brought up and he's like I should have said no, but I caved and i'm sorry

40:02

I I should not have just gone along with it and I I appreciated the honesty there but I also thought man craig like I don't know how many elders y 'all had but But when you separate out the elders from say the staff and the other infrastructure and machinery of the church

40:20

Um, you get these kinds of situations and then when you put a celebrity pastor up at the top

40:25

That's not involved in the actual shepherding work, but only in the teaching man That's a that is a time bomb. Even if platt was as pure as the driven snow.

40:32

That's gonna blow up eventually. Yeah and You hit the nail on the head.

40:38

The entire documentary is an example of bad ecclesiology Yep So again when I get around to the steve lawson video i'm going to talk about the same thing

40:47

What what what can ecclesiology do to a church? It can if it's wrong

40:52

It can cause the church to implode it can cause the church to crumble because the church is not functioning biblically

41:00

It's it's it's functioning like uh, you know, uh, like a business Yeah, and and even something you could even say it's functioning, uh

41:10

In a in a we would say you said like a business, you know corporately and I remember

41:16

Back when we were forced christian church back before we were sovereign our church had elders but the elders

41:24

Functioned not as a leadership capacity, but they were basically the spiritual advisors to the board

41:31

And the board made all the decisions. Yeah. Yeah, we had gosh I could tell you a bajillion stories because we're actually getting started on a project pretty soon to start rewriting our founding documents at our

41:41

Church to try and get a more biblical ecclesiology going on But man, oh man, I know a book

41:46

I have 10 copies of it actually uh and so They'll be given out to the rewrite team because we're going to start with not

41:53

I don't care what our old stuff said I don't care what you learned in the business world. I don't care what christianity today Has to say about this.

42:00

Um I care what does christ to see today? Yeah, right What does scripture say and your book

42:06

I think is an accurate reflection of that and i'm more expounding on that right kind of thing um, but yeah, you know when you get all these different abortive deacons that alexa pastor kind of model, uh, when you get situations where um, you have the men who have the spiritual authority the shepherding task and the

42:25

Administrative say so need to be the same group of men now one of them can be more specialized into one area or another

42:33

I think first timothy 517 gives us a A a subclass of elders whose work is teaching and preaching.

42:40

I think that if you want to pay your pastor, that's fine And not pay other elders that pastor elders. That's fine.

42:45

But I appreciate that concession. There you go Yeah, no, I I think there's I think there's a category for that but like this idea that the elders are just kind of a

42:54

Spiritual advisory board and the staff or deacons or the lead pastor or whoever actually runs the church

43:01

Um causes these kinds of situations where you have poor poor elder craig there again He's the hero of the documentary to me and he made lots of mistakes and he admits that But I was

43:10

I was paying attention to him as a young elder myself thinking like I never want to get into Not not

43:15

I never want to be that guy, but I never want to get into a situation Like he is where he's on camera having to constantly say this kept happening

43:22

And he's holding these sheets of transactions. He's like I never knew about this. They were doing this behind my back I never want to get there

43:29

Well speaking of ecclesiology. I do want to move into another area that the documentary addresses that I think is something that would be difficult for people to understand who are not part of anything related to the southern baptist convention because a large part of the

43:50

The documentary is the question As to whether or not david platt led the people of mclean or led mclean bible church into The southern baptist convention in a way that was not right in a way that was ungodly

44:05

And i'm totally skipping over an entire section and I know you probably noticed this i'm not even mentioning the woke stuff.

44:11

Yeah Yeah, um, that's bad and I and and obviously i'm opposed to woke i'm opposed to all of those things

44:18

And that's a lot of what they dealt with but it seems to be that the biggest gripe was

44:24

He's woke, but he's also trying to put us into this denomination And our constitution says we were never supposed to go into a denomination

44:32

And you have the part where the wife of the documentarian Or at least the one yeah The wife of the man who is in the documentary and I think was the one who produced it

44:41

Um, he was the one interviewed by greg. Yes, his wife says Are we affiliated with the spc and yes or no, yes or no and and and Platt tries to explain

44:56

And she's like just give me a yes or no answer. Just give me a yes or no answer Again, please don't think i'm an apologist for david platt

45:03

I'm not but I got to call balls and strikes because I want to be a good umpire Right when i'm looking at any documentary, have you sorry to break it?

45:10

Have you seen that that thing about the video called stop making me defend donald trump? Yeah Yeah, this is it stop making me defend.

45:16

It's like did you hear that donald trump wants to launch all of our nukes at mexico? And he's like no he just wants to hit them with some trade sanctions.

45:24

I can't believe you're defending donald trump He's like i'm not I don't like the guy just tell the truth So anyway, yeah keith keith,

45:30

I think keith is saying stop making me defend david platt kind of thing. That's right I don't want to defend him. I think he did some wrong things.

45:36

His wokeism is wrong He's taking the crackers away from the kids in the school cafeteria. There's some that was sucktastic

45:43

There's some mark Not mark. Yeah, mark. Driscoll. Yeah, that'd be a difference. Oh, can you imagine the combination of mark?

45:50

Driscoll and mark lowry, I would love to see that that would be wwe tickets right there. Oh, man

45:55

No, not against each other blend them together an amalgamation It could be it would just be hilarious.

46:02

Yeah, just Oh gosh just to lay down that marker a lot of the when keith says the woke stuff like this was really bad anti -gospel theology going on there

46:11

And it wasn't just terrible. It wasn't just like they had isolated clips in the documentary But if you actually look into it, it was like oh, oh, yeah, they really believe that blm stuff

46:19

The white christians are oppressors, you know patriarchy and intersectionality all this garbage was was was coming into the church

46:27

It absolutely was it needs to be condemned thoroughly and in my view that alone that should have been the documentary

46:33

That was that was pastorally disqualifying. That was a galatians five another god or galatians one

46:40

Uh, not verse five. Anyway galatians. It was another gospel kind of moment. All right, so this was a this was a time where for that reason

46:48

Alone, and that's where you need to camp You don't need to talk about how the ministries were great because I don't know if the ministries are great You can't prove that in a documentary and I don't know but what you can do

46:56

Is show me some clips from some sermons where you have unbiblical and anti -biblical theology going on and as an elder and it's just A protestant who believes that I can read and understand my bible.

47:06

I can look at that and go. Yeah No, no, no, no, no, no. No, so yes, but sorry in that case

47:11

And I do want to go back to something we said earlier in that case. It could be said If you want to say because of this stuff, he was a false teacher or because of this stuff

47:21

You think he's a wolf? I mean again, I think those are pretty pretty heavy duty. They are things to say but if that were it

47:27

But that wasn't it. No, that wasn't it and how to get Him out. I mean taking the and again part two of the documentary like I'm, sorry, you can't have a ballot.

47:37

You can't be in here now You can't I don't know how big of a section that was of people disgruntled

47:45

You know people in the church but They didn't have a voice Realizing the wokeness and all of the other issues.

47:51

How do you remove him? Yeah. Yeah Well, it's kind of like how do you draw that up because there's like a congregational supremacy kind of idea and then some churches

48:02

Don't have any mechanism at all to expel erring leaders You know and and that's a that's a

48:08

I read I've read a few different books on that have more of an elder rule elder supremacy kind of thing that once appointed they basically can't ever be

48:16

Removed and then another one another book that balanced that out pretty well that I like called understanding the congregation's authority

48:23

Was saying that actually by the mechanism at the end of Matthew 18 for expelling a sinning brother

48:28

It is the church that makes that determination you know now I would say that I would say that there's a difference between uh, an inefficient or An undesirable elder say he's he's canceling your programs and you don't like that.

48:41

Okay, that's not biblical grounds for removal You might not like that, but he's not in sin if there's actual sin or false teaching then yeah

48:48

I think the church biblically has the authority to expel An elder if the other elders won't do it and if you only if you only have one pastor elder

48:56

There's your first problem. But in those cases the congregation absolutely needs the ability to expel

49:01

Expel an erring elder. So anyway back to the sbc stuff. I'm sorry. No, no, that's exactly all this stuff blends together

49:08

And and what you said obviously is very true as well. There were some real shenanigans Going around I would say borderline hijinks.

49:15

Excuse me. I believe the right word is chicanery. It was chicanery But what had happened what jennifer's talking about if you haven't seen the documentary there were people who had their membership revoked

49:25

Yeah, so when they went into the congregational meeting and they went to sign in for the meeting Which is interesting because again as a small church, it's not even something we like like we do hand raise

49:35

Voting. We don't really vote. We're actually voting on new deacons this sunday. Um, and so we're gonna do Paper ballot, but we don't have official membership really under what we've done in a little bit

49:44

But we only established that a few months ago. So we're not in a position where we can fence voting only to members yet Um, but even then we're gonna have like we're gonna have paper ballot and some some order behind it but I yeah, but but the idea that they they had kiosks set up and you had to You had to register to vote and and it was almost like it's very governmental

50:04

Uh, in fact again going back to greg because I did watch him Last night and shout out to dead men walking podcast.

50:10

They're a huge good interview And you know, he said it did seem like a lot of political maneuvering.

50:15

Yeah, like I mean It's and again, we only heard one side of things But if it if it is true and they had four or five different people that just said we received basically a form letter email

50:26

That had no specifics to it. It was just like We've been really trying to reach out to you and we're really sorry

50:32

You've taken the choice that you've taken but now we're going to have to remove you from membership And if you want to talk to us about getting it back

50:38

Then basically here's our email and people were saying this was the first notice that I had gotten And it never even detailed what

50:44

I had done wrong I think at that point the leadership if you think we've been a little too conciliatory towards the leadership

50:50

They done goofed up at that point. You don't yeah, you don't you done messed up. Hey, that's right. Yeah uh

50:56

David platt with two t's. Um, you don't you don't get to like you don't just get to what's up david platt

51:03

Yeah, that's right I like if you don't like how someone's going to vote you're just going to pull their membership which was the allegation

51:10

Now maybe they're going to come back and say they have a whole chain of I don't know We didn't hear the other side of this

51:15

From what I can tell though even giving a lot of grace to the leadership. That is scummy. That's really really low

51:21

Yeah So and I agree. Absolutely So I did mention the sbc part.

51:28

I want to bring that back in again because not everybody understands how the sbc works Recently in the last few years i've heard in many different contexts the sbc

51:41

Designated as the largest Protestant denomination in america or the world i've heard it's the largest protestant denomination in the world

51:51

There's two huge problems with that number one um by designation

51:58

The sbc has not identified itself as a denomination but rather a uh

52:06

Conference or coalition of churches that that that choose to be in fellowship with one another through the convention but are not

52:14

Governing one another as denominations do so they don't typically fall under the category

52:20

Of a denomination with a hierarchical structure and leadership beyond the local church

52:25

One of the things that baptists really focus on is the autonomy and self -governance of the local church

52:31

And so the idea that the sbc is a denomination in the traditional sense of a denomination like the lutheran church

52:38

Missouri senate or any of those other groups, you know, the the united methodist church or the global method.

52:44

Yeah Yeah so the idea that these Denominate that that the sbc exists like a denomination is just not true now

52:54

Now it does somewhat function in that way that churches are part of it But it's not the same and there needs to at least be a distinction made.

53:02

Okay It's not a denomination. So when the mclean bible church Constitution says that we will not be affiliated with any denomination.

53:13

I think that's what it says something like that. Yeah then someone could simply by virtue of pure Definitional say but the sbc is not a denomination, right?

53:25

That could be the answer again I'm, not defending platt Defending the failure

53:31

I'm, not doing that, but I am saying when when she's saying are we affiliated with the sbc?

53:38

well You could say Our church, which is not an sbc church

53:43

If our church chose to donate to the laudy moon Offering or to give to the cooperative fund which we never have but if our church did

53:52

You could say that we were affiliated with the sbc Well samaritan's purse isn't that's franklin graham's ministry, but that's

54:00

I was actually going to say that so you're not you're not wrong So use that let's use that example just a few weeks ago.

54:06

Our church raised money to help Uh hurricane victims during that what happened

54:11

And we did some research into what ministries we thought were doing A good job and one of the ministries we thought had boots on the ground was doing a good job with samaritan's purse

54:19

So we took that money and we donated it to samaritan's purse someone could say well now you're affiliated with samaritan's purse

54:25

So now you're responsible for billy graham or franklin graham and everything. He's no We're affiliated only because we gave them money now again

54:32

I'm, not defending mclean went a lot further than that They were giving them a lot more money than what we gave to samaritan's purse but when you're saying

54:40

In a in a congregational meeting are we affiliated with sbc? Give me a yes or no answer

54:46

It's not really necessarily a yes or no answer and and my question is when lawn was there

54:53

Yep, I was gonna go there. Well, you go there because i've been talking about a minute. That's okay Weren't they a part of it?

54:59

Yeah, so so well, okay So the documentary makers did not make this clear. But if you had a if you had a sharp ear for it

55:06

When they were so they of course they're presenting the other side in the least charitable light they can which

55:12

I don't think is Always great. But anyway, um That like you were saying at the congregational meeting she asked the question are we affiliated with the sbc yes or no

55:22

And they got david platt at the microphone Seeming to kind of hem and haw about it because he's like well

55:29

We have to talk about what that means and that's right He's actually trying to give an accurate answer for how the sbc works

55:34

And again, please stop making me defend david platt, but he's trying to sbc. Well, yeah, we're wrong, too He's trying to give an accurate answer

55:41

And she keeps just hitting him with this yes or no question It almost came like hey, have you stopped beating your wife kind of question?

55:47

It's like what you know, like I don't know is yellow square around yes or no And you're like well,

55:53

I don't One's that you have to talk anyway, so how many cups of coffee does it take to get to the moon?

55:59

Yeah, something like that. So so on the one hand I completely I I I get that but as But david mentioned because this is your question about lawn david mentioned in one of the clips that was supposed to be like a gotcha against david platt

56:12

He said we we give to the cooperative program and we give to this and this just like we did since before I was even here

56:19

So that was his claim in a clip that was supposed to make him look bad They actually included the part where he said we did this and this and this just like we did before I was here

56:27

So then I would want to know Before david platt got there and they were under lon solomon they listed three levels of affiliation the cooperative program the this and this and I don't know that much about spc polity, but but Were those three in effect before platt got there because they're like look the dun and bradstreet profile says it's a baptist church

56:48

And they didn't scroll down far enough and I should have done this before the show I wanted to look at the history. How long had the dun and bradstreet brad street thing said that?

56:57

Um, I I just would want to know Is this something that had always been this way?

57:03

Was this a now clearly david was pushing them deeper into The embrace of the spc saying can we give more money and specifically can we give it in this way?

57:11

So it quote unquote counts, you know for us because that was going to hit some sort of mark for him or whatever

57:17

So clearly benefit him in some way clear and when we get to when we get to the giving to radical That's a whole different Kettle of fish anyway, but clearly there's there he's trying to push them further into the embrace of the spc

57:29

But the spc has a real problem with this because if you watch the convention people remember the law amendment

57:35

Which was all about amending the spc constitution To restrict the office of pastor to men and it failed because it needed a two -thirds majority and it didn't get there

57:43

The reason why many of the people voted no is not because they're egalitarians but because they said no the spc is not supposed to be taking that granular of a level kind of of Penetration into the inner workings of each individual church

57:57

We believe in church autonomy if we wanted to micromanage each other We'd be presbyterian or one of these other more hierarchical ones where you have a session of of elders and all that and so many

58:07

Complimentarian many patriarchalist grumpy go make me a sandwich patriarchalists. Okay?

58:13

voted I'm gonna pay for that No, I was just wondering where my sandwich is.

58:18

Yeah. I wanted to see jennifer's reaction many guys that that would that would hoist that flag voted no because they said if if we're putting this in the constitution

58:28

And it was in the part of like you must immediately expel them without any kind of whatever Then you know, we we open the door to a lot of other stuff

58:37

Now if I we're not an spc church either if I had been at the convention I would have voted in favor of the law amendment But i'm just saying

58:42

I understand Why they were having trouble getting it passed because the spc uses the terminology of friendly cooperation.

58:49

They do not use member churches Consistently and the fact that it's this sort of amorphous kind of collection.

58:57

Well, I don't know you guys are what fire isn't that right? Yeah part of fire but fire is similar to the spc and it's just it's just a fellowship of churches

59:04

We don't except for fire doesn't take any money from us. I mean we can donate to missionaries, but the fire doesn't

59:11

But they have no membership fee. They have some standards to get in right to I don't know how we got in.

59:17

Yeah like if you had a um Let's say unitarian church that said we want to join fire.

59:23

Of course, there'd be some there's some doctrinal standard, right? Yeah, some set of standards independent reformed evangelicals, which really well i'm out then

59:32

And so are you according to r scott clark? Yes, exactly. Well, it's basically reformed baptists

59:37

Okay, well that's it but I mean whether you would use the terminology friendly cooperation if someone said hey, are we affiliated with fire?

59:44

You'd probably say yeah, we are we're you know But like you'd have to say but here's what affiliated means It means that we attend this or we have a chat room or an email list or or whatever

59:54

You know that we we collaborate and you'd have to describe that a little more you know a little more carefully before you can actually make that determination and i'll say like Even when i'm teaching people because I have this kind of time when i'm teaching people like constitutional law and stuff

01:00:12

And you say okay What are the what the federalism the relationship between the state and the federal government and we have to say?

01:00:17

Well, the state's created the federal government and we're all americans, right? But we're floridians and how has that changed over time?

01:00:24

Uh, what powers does each one have what does it mean to be in the united states? and what does it not mean like you have to define your terms carefully and these sort of Give me this give me this give me this yes or no on a hot mic at a congregational meeting.

01:00:37

That's tough Now here's what i'll say that mclean should have done mclean should have had a single subject Meeting where they said we are going to talk about the sbc

01:00:46

And they said we are going to lay out completely all of our giving records And we're going to lay out how it's been in the past I'm going to lay out what changes have come since david came here and we're gonna

01:00:55

You know lay out what we think it should look like going forward and we're going to have a representative from the sbc come and he's

01:01:00

Going to tell us this is what affiliated means. Here's how the sbc functions Put all of that out there and at the end have a motion and say are you generally in favor of this or should we terminate?

01:01:10

All financial connections and anything to the sbc and let the people vote if it's tearing your church apart

01:01:16

That's right Take some stinking leadership and initiative And put it at a business meeting and make it the one thing on the agenda

01:01:23

And say we're going to deal with this and we're going to put all Of the facts on the table and let someone who disagrees from the other side

01:01:31

Have some equal speaking time provided you talk with them and they're not going to be slanderous They're going to treat this like a good christian, you know, and and don't let it devolve into a shouting match

01:01:39

Where you're having the cops throw people out of your church. What are you doing? Exactly they also, um,

01:01:46

I thought about this during the documentary and you you make some really good points that um, why

01:01:51

Why are the people seemingly so ignorant about their budget or I mean, how do they not know?

01:01:59

Where I mean, do they not once a year our church, you know, we have this is how much You know for the we pay for this.

01:02:05

This is how much the missionaries get we pray about it together. We vote we support it Um, I don't know.

01:02:11

I mean, I realize it's a much larger scale there, but how do they not? Like How do they not know the the thing that surprised me is the elders didn't know right, so the elders again elder craig my man constantly was holding up these sheets of like Paper transactions that had only gotten

01:02:30

Released because of lawsuits and discovery and legal subpoenas which shows you there's a huge problem

01:02:35

Exactly if that's where you're having to go to get this information. There's a problem yeah, and elder craig's just like I I was supposed to be the one signing off on this and he has this transaction list and There's some paper checks in there and then there's like a bajillion ach transactions of electronic transfers

01:02:49

He's like I had no knowledge of this And and what just one other thing i'll say on the elders being unaware and this is again

01:02:54

This is the unbiblical ecclesiology. Do you remember the guy? Um Oh gosh, I I cannot believe i'm blanking on his name.

01:03:00

It was another david david young. That was the guy do you remember him? I'm the documentary just remind me what he did what he said

01:03:06

So he was the guy that david platt brought in to like basically he was the other david

01:03:11

He was the guy that was the ax man for all the ministry ministries We're gonna clear all this out reorganize this and any guy who filmed himself on the street kind of weird like real like hip

01:03:20

Yeah, it was I hate hip. It was interesting. Yeah. Well, especially when covet started and big eva.

01:03:26

Yeah, he'd be very big I was thinking about that when they showed some of the body cam footage

01:03:36

Which again if you're having to attend a congregational meeting with a body cam on? Things are not in a good spot.

01:03:42

Okay If your attire includes a gopro, yeah, you've got a problem. You got a problem.

01:03:47

Yeah um but when he came in and he was the ax man and then eventually it said the elders basically Had a revolt and said david platt.

01:03:54

You have to fire this guy Like this is not working and the elders And had a rare moment of unity at least based on what the documentary was presenting

01:04:00

And then it says but we come to find out like a year later. David never fired him Yeah, he's still getting paid and we're still getting paid.

01:04:06

I was like I was like time He's the melted one time Please tell me you get that reference.

01:04:15

I I believe you have my stapler We we fixed the glitch we fixed the glitch so he won't be getting a paycheck

01:04:23

Just a second professor. Um I love that movie so much

01:04:30

So we see we like to have as little uh, what do you say uh friction or whatever it was, yeah

01:04:36

That makes me love matthew even more no confrontation poor guy gets moved down to like the cellar and I just I was having

01:04:42

Thoughts of like home alone like the the furnace was going to start talking to him all of a sudden Oh gosh, that's poor milton.

01:04:49

So anyway, they they they well they did the opposite though because in that case Sorry guys, you're getting a crossover event here

01:04:55

Milton kept showing up and working and they just got rid of his paycheck But he just kept showing up like to work whereas this david youngfellow apparently

01:05:03

They said like we told we the elders came together told david platt. You got to fire this guy David just didn't

01:05:09

And he just kept getting a paycheck and I was thinking okay. Hold on a minute. Hold on a minute if the elders of the church in a unified fashion

01:05:17

Came to kevin at my church who is one of our elders as well But he's also the lead pastor and has the the authority to oversee the staff

01:05:24

If all the other elders came to kevin and we said kevin you've got to get rid of jim bob We don't have a jim bob on staff.

01:05:30

So if anyone's listening to this i'm not thinking about you You gotta you gotta do this and kevin said all right, i'll do it and then

01:05:37

I find out a year later That jim bob is still drawing a paycheck and kevin just never got rid of him like What that's right we are we are we are about 16

01:05:51

Uh feet deep into matthew 18 at that point my friend There is some serious deception going on for that reason alone an elder board that won't assert itself and say david platt

01:06:01

You need to go because you've deceived us for the past year on this. We were clear. We were unequivocal This is what we said you agreed to it and you lied to us.

01:06:09

You didn't do it. Here's the door That's what should have happened right then and there. Yeah, you want to say something? No, I was just thinking the same thing which one of the elder how how many elders were there and was one of them supposed?

01:06:20

to be the financial elder Or looking how does that escape? I mean It it was crazy to me too when the guy was like we had we had a policy where we're not signing four or five

01:06:31

Hundred checks a week. We delegated that down to to uh, whatever the financial guy bill,

01:06:36

I think was his name Which yeah fine. Okay, if you're in that size of an organization, I understand You know when I get a which is rare a refund check from like the irs or something

01:06:44

I don't think that the treasury secretary literally signed it right like it's printed on there. He's not sitting there all day like President trump sent me a letter.

01:06:53

That's right. Yeah, so So I under I understand that I had the greatest What was it when you were in school you said get a letter from the president says

01:07:01

I wrote the greatest letter That's right. Yeah, so I I I understand that but like again this elder group got run over over and over again and Constitutionally in their in their church constitution and more importantly in the bible

01:07:17

They had both the right and the responsibility to say this ends now We're not we're not doing this anymore and they just wouldn't so Yeah Well guys, there's a lot more that we could get to but we've gone well over an hour now and and unfortunately

01:07:31

I want to Listener dear listener. I'm, sorry to interrupt you. I do that all the time. No, no, get it girl.

01:07:37

Um, But listen that's listening if you write an email, you know, what is it? Keith foskey .com?

01:07:43

He does read it and he will probably talk about it on friday. So Oh, are you advertising for me?

01:07:49

Yeah, you should be how sweet I appreciate that But yeah, that's what but before we get to our final words

01:07:56

I was going to give you guys both a final word before we get to our final words. Um, Or before I get to the ending.

01:08:01

I want to ask what what takeaway do you have? I'll go last I'll let jennifer, uh, go you want to go first or second?

01:08:09

You want to let matthew go first? Okay, I know what your takeaway the thing about the sackcloth and ashes I think that's important to say and I think the world needs to hear it

01:08:16

So i'm gonna let you go first and let jennifer go second then i'll give my final words and we'll close this thing out Sure, so we were in in pre -show and leading up to this

01:08:24

It was like what do you think and I said every single one of you? Everyone who appeared in the documentary everyone in the church everyone who was is an elder all of you 40 days in sackcloth and ashes and do not come out of your room until you've done it basically like You you there is some serious

01:08:40

Corporate and individual repentance that needs to take place here for all of this Um, and again,

01:08:46

I am i'm not your elder. I have my own people I have my own church that i'm responsible for leading and god's going to hold me accountable for their souls

01:08:53

Not the souls of the people in this documentary. So this is just some guy Who's been through some church stuff with a very similar timeline throwing peanuts from the cheap cheap seats?

01:09:02

I get it. I get it But that that would be what I would say and and one thing too. I just need to address this in case we get accused of not

01:09:11

The documentary makers did something that was in in my view. Um, sneaky and and somewhat even deceptive

01:09:18

And that is they conflated too many different issues together and we already talked about this with the whole he axed all the ministries and then there's the financial malfeasance and then there's the woke stuff like Fine, if you want to present here are five different ways

01:09:31

You know that he failed this church. I don't have a problem with being complete in that But in the opening minutes of the documentary it said this is dedicated to all of those in the church that experienced emotional trauma and spiritual abuse

01:09:45

By david platt and the leadership and This one this case about sexual abuse that went on in the church

01:09:53

Okay, you have just conflated two completely different categories there. You've just conflated a crime that someone should go to jail for or actually if you

01:10:03

If you're an adult and you mess around with a child like that I think we would all agree that a rope around the tree would be appropriate after a fair trial, of course um

01:10:12

But what you've done and you dedicated the documentary to them And then it's only in the last 10 minutes of two and a half hours that you address that again

01:10:21

And it's basically like well, they covered it up or something, but they didn't go into that very much That is not just poisoning the well what you've actually done is you've woven together

01:10:31

Bad theology from the pulpit financial malfeasance He got rid of some ministries that I liked

01:10:36

And also there's this weird relationship with the sbc and then you why you weave that in with a child sexual abuse case

01:10:44

Okay, listen No one here is in favor of child sexual abuse I think we just don't even need to go on the record saying that but how about we do that?

01:10:51

um, but but you you you muddy the waters there to where now and I haven't seen this yet because we're

01:10:57

Recording this right now if your comeback is I can't believe you guys would speak sympathetically about people who covered up child abuse

01:11:04

I'm, not speaking sympathetically about people that covered up child abuse if they covered it up And they were a mandatory reporter under virginia law their butts should be in jail as well

01:11:12

Like absolutely, let's I am a law and order type of guy on that but Make that case

01:11:18

In a different context than the case that you are making with with all this other stuff because that's actionable that's something people should go to jail or worse for so Please listen or don't think that again stop making me defend david platt but like The guy who did this the people who covered it up need to need to see justice on this earth and as Christians who believe in a day of judgment we believe that they will see judgment someday

01:11:44

Either in their own judgment or it's been paid for by christ. Those are the two options so Like we're we're all on board with that But I just wanted to say if you think that we're being too sympathetic on the people who covered up that horrible crime

01:11:56

Please understand we are separating those out and saying these are different issues here. So that that would be my closing

01:12:02

Thank you for the clarity on that too because as you said There are things that happen at mclean bible church that no one should defend

01:12:08

There are things the leaders did that no one should defend Our point is as you said, I think you said it very well the interweaving of things that were somewhat irrelevant

01:12:17

Somewhat natural changes that happen when leaders take over and old leaders leave Conflating them together and making that the issue

01:12:24

I think really brought this documentary down jennifer your thoughts I don't I have so many. I don't

01:12:29

I don't know this will Make sense, but here goes I guess I just The people

01:12:36

I guess the feel I guess I felt more sympathetic as a churchgoer not Obviously, you know, i'm the pastor's wife.

01:12:43

I'm a pastor's wife. I'm not In leadership, but I guess I just felt more sympathy for the voices of the people

01:12:51

That just felt like well, they couldn't vote their membership was taken away. They saw the they saw the wolves come in They saw things that you know, they heard things from the pulpit that weren't biblical

01:13:02

And they felt powerless and they didn't have advocates. They loved their church um,

01:13:07

I mean church hurt is a real thing like we talked about I mean We have so many people that we've talked to or we've witnessed to or try that have come to church in the past and then

01:13:16

They come back to church and they're they're just wounded. They won't They don't want to rejoin the church.

01:13:22

They don't see the value. Okay, so side note with that. So I I did feel that But also

01:13:27

I just want to say Um, and again, not every mega church is bad. There are solid biblical ones

01:13:33

I'm sure it's just the immediate thing that popped in my mind is well You don't know the pastor.

01:13:39

You don't really know the leadership It sounds like I mean there was a huge disconnect in this church, but other churches.

01:13:45

I mean I don't I don't know. It's just such a different culture from what we we are from what we experience

01:13:53

But we have and and to follow up on what you just said Even though we're a small church we have had

01:14:01

No less than two whole churches close And we received the vast majority of the members that came out of those churches because of leadership scandal and it was

01:14:15

There's actually been three churches that have closed and we received the membership from all three But one wasn't because of leadership scandal one was because the church just simply aged out that the membership got older They didn't have a lead.

01:14:25

They didn't have a pastor and it was mainly older people and they ended up coming to our church But one church closed because the pastor

01:14:32

Committed adultery with a woman in the church. The other church closed because the pastor stole money These are these are not secrets

01:14:37

These are things that you know We have talked about in our church about people who've come to to us from churches that that has happened

01:14:43

So scandal is a real thing And and we're sympathetic to that Is that's what you're saying you do see this that you do see people who have been hurt by their pastors

01:14:53

And we've had to minister to those people So I understand you i'm sympathetic to that.

01:14:58

Absolutely Um, and I agree with you. Absolutely that we should be and and that's really where I was going to end is is

01:15:07

I agree with matthew. I think everybody in this documentary needs to take a step back and look at where they have erred I think

01:15:13

I think it's it's true that there was some real hurt that happened here and there is some real uh,

01:15:19

Soul searching that needs to go on I don't know How things are continuing to go at mclean bible church after this?

01:15:26

I don't know what sundays look like I don't know how much involvement david platt has I don't know how the leadership is.

01:15:32

Is there a part three in the works? Yeah, we don't know what's going to happen But I but I do know this watching this documentary should cause people who watch it to take a step back and say, okay

01:15:43

I'm learning about how it shouldn't be Especially pastors who watch this i'm seeing how things shouldn't be

01:15:50

And maybe this should give me some insight into some areas of my church that may need some real attention

01:15:56

Yeah, I think if if you could imagine people in your church making this documentary about you.

01:16:02

Yeah If you know, there's a faction or a group of people then you need to be and maybe they're completely in the wrong okay, you need to be seeking to make godly biblical peace with them and Addressing whatever the real or perceived issues are as rapidly as possible

01:16:17

And also just remember we're three people that have watched a two -hour documentary Which is a one -sided view condensing down things that have happened over a timeline of 50 years focused on the last five at a church

01:16:31

Well, obviously there are things we don't see and don't understand. Yeah. Yeah But it's interesting you talk about reckon, you know

01:16:38

Trying to find reconciliation if you have an issue in your church I'm finishing second corinthians right now in my expositions on sunday morning

01:16:46

And i'm finding myself at the end in the last few verses of second corinthians Paul has just been defending himself against false teachers who he calls agents of satan.

01:16:56

He says they were ministers He said satan is an angel of light who disguised himself as an angel of light and his ministers are

01:17:02

Disguised themselves as as ministers of righteousness. He's literally called them agents of satan and yet at the end he says there needs to be some reconciliation there needs to be

01:17:13

I'm calling you to repent and be reconciled and so That's what

01:17:20

I would say watching this documentary This is a church mclean bible church is a church that from the top down needs a great deal of repentance

01:17:27

And reconciliation recognition where error has taken place put everything out on the table and say this is where we have failed

01:17:33

And that may mean that some people need to step away That may mean some people need to move on down the road And we don't have enough information to know all of the ins and outs of that But we do have enough information to watch the documentary and say there were some balls and strikes in there

01:17:46

There were some things we would say. Yeah, that's bad. Yeah, that's maybe not as bad as you're saying kind of like It'd be nice to have more information, but we don't so we're going on what we have

01:17:55

But I hope that this review has been helpful if you watched it and you came away Maybe visceral and angry and thinking about it

01:18:01

Maybe this helped you think through it just a little bit more clearly and that was our purpose for today And I hope for the many of you who asked us to do this

01:18:08

I hope that this was an encouragement to you and helpful to you. I want to finish today by saying Thank you again for watching the show

01:18:15

Always appreciate you. We are pushing for 30 000 subscribers right now We are very close and if we get 30 000 subscribers by thanksgiving i'm going to be super happy But we need about 700 more

01:18:25

So if you could share this with somebody share this with a friend share this with somebody who maybe has never seen the show I tell you what

01:18:30

I was in Chick -fil -a today My wife was sharing it with the ladies in the in the seats next to us because she's awesome And those ladies saw my shirt.

01:18:37

They asked me about it and jennifer said oh, yeah, he's got a podcast You should subscribe and she literally helped her subscribe right there at the table

01:18:42

So thank you baby for being such a big help for the show And thank you matthew for being here as always a big friend and help to the show and thank you for watching

01:18:52

Last thing i'll say and then i'm going to close this saturday night i'm doing we're going to do our friday night live as always

01:18:57

But this saturday night i'm going to be doing a special live show from set free church where they are raising money

01:19:04

They're doing their annual fundraiser. This is a ministry. I preach at every thursday. We raise money Or i'm, sorry,

01:19:09

I go there and I teach every thursday bible studies to men who are going through recovery Some recovering from drugs alcohol some just got out of jail

01:19:15

Some just going through a bad season of life and they go to live at set free And this is an annual opportunity to raise money for that ministry and i'm going to be there doing a live show

01:19:24

And encouraging people to give money. So if you Want to have some fun saturday night tune in i'm going to have my brother on the show with me

01:19:32

We're going to be doing some fun movie trivia other things interviews with guys who are there Listen to some of the testimonies. We're going to have a great time and we encourage you to be with us

01:19:39

So thank you again for listening to your calvinist podcast I'm, keith foskey This is jennifer.

01:19:45

Foskey. This is matthew henson. We're your calvinists and he's not god bless not yet Sometimes I feel the weight of the world fall down on me

01:20:00

And I need a friendly voice with some good theology

01:20:07

So I mix a manly drink Then I hit the youtube link

01:20:15

And I feel my troubles all melt away It's your calvinist podcast with keith foskey kids and bow ties

01:20:33

Laughs till sunrise It's your calvinist podcast with keith foskey