Church News: Summit Church Responds to Faith Baptist & The PCA on Race

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. It's a weekend edition. We are live now and I hope it stays that way.

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If you're watching, please pray. This is probably the last podcast I'm going to do on this particular computer.

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In the last week and a half, two weeks, I've had very unexpected things happen. My computer just kind of fizzled out and it keeps freezing up on me.

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So I'm hoping, I'm taking a risk here that it's going to work through the podcast, but then my wife's car had all these issues and I'm trying to think what else.

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A bunch of electric stuff went wrong at my house and I had to have an electrician come out and do some work.

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It's just been one of those seasons where everything just seems to fail and it's all expensive stuff, but the

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Lord has gotten us through. I want to say, testimony of the Lord's grace, I have always seen in my own life,

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God provide even when I don't know how it's going to work. The last six years, especially,

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I've been, for the most part, I would say living on faith because I'm relying on mostly you in the audience.

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If you are someone who supports this podcast, it's not like the line of work

01:12

I was in before doing repair work and also drawing a paycheck from a university that's more stable.

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And the Lord's taught me a lot through this and so I'm very thankful for that, but the last two weeks was one of those like, oh, it's going to be tight.

01:27

What's going to happen? I hope something else doesn't break and I got a check in the mail this morning I was not expecting.

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And anyway, it's just a reminder to me that God is good. He provides for his children and it seems like that faith is bolstered the more you experience those things.

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But even with that, you can be like Peter on the waves, right? You remember the last two, three, maybe 10 times the

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Lord provided and then it's like, but will he do it again? And then he does. And I really have no business critiquing the children of Israel in the wilderness because that same spirit,

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I think, is in me to some extent. And I hear other people saying the same thing.

02:11

I think everyone has this to an extent, a growing, a sanctifying kind of hopefully walk with the

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Lord that makes you grow in faith over time. But it's never perfect, right? Until we actually see

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Christ face to face. So anyway, I wasn't planning on starting the show like that, but I figured I'd let you know in case

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I freeze. And then if I freeze, we might just not do a podcast today. So I do have two things

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I want to talk about. I thought about adding more to it, but I want to try to keep the podcast a little shorter. So I'm really just going to address two big things for those who don't know.

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If you're a new listener on this particular podcast, I do highlight at times. In fact,

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I'd say it's majority of probably what I do church related and evangelical Christian related content.

03:01

So if there's something going on institutionally and evangelicalism, especially regarding compromise, especially regarding social justice type issues,

03:09

I'll cover it. And that doesn't mean I won't cover other things. The last episode, of course, was on the war in Iran, and I enjoyed doing some research for that and covering it and hopefully giving you a take that maybe you weren't hearing other places.

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But I want to focus on the church of the Lord Jesus Christ because I think that it is so important if we're going to have any kind of,

03:32

I don't care what you want to call it, comeback, revival, renewal, making America great again, whatever you want to say, it's going to be contingent on whether or not people in this country and other countries, if you want this for your country, actually follow the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And I understand people can do wise things and good things apart from faith in Christ because there are these natural instincts that God gives to people that don't complete or fulfill heavenly good, but they are things that are good in an earthly sense, like feeding your children and that kind of thing.

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But if we're going to have an actual spiritual revival that cuts really deep down, that's lasting, that gets us, quote unquote, back on track and all of that, you're going to have to have a spiritual renewal.

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There's really no other way around it. And that's why I focus on these things in part. It's also because I care about the purity of the church, and we've been doing this about six years now and things have changed.

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The landscape has changed quite a bit. I'll talk about some of that, but some things don't change. And as we saw in the

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PCA this week, the Presbyterian Church in America, there is a zeitgeist, a motivation to drive out, quote unquote, racism.

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And I'm going to try to put my best construction on this, but I do think there was a careless overture that got passed.

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And I realize even some people listening may think that this is needed to correct what you see happening, let's say, on X.

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And there's this growing kind of ethno -determinism or ethno -reductionism or genetic determinism or whatever you want to call that.

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And you want something to kind of stave that off or whatever. Well, I don't think this was it, if that's what you're thinking.

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And I'll get into that a little bit as we go forth. And also, we're going to talk about J .D. Greer and Summit Church, where he pastors, obviously, a big church in the

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Southern Baptist Convention. And Greer served as the president of the largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist, for a few years recently.

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And so the documentary that I helped make about him, and it's really not about him,

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I should probably preface that, it involves him to an extent, right? He's kind of, he's a character that is a major character in it, but it's not really about him directly.

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It is about the story of, and it's an encouraging one, of overcoming and how the

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Holy Spirit really helped the people at Faith Baptist Church regain their church.

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It's the first, I think, situation I've seen where it really did go the right way.

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And just time after time, it seems like on a razor's edge. I was just talking to actually James Lawrence, the lawyer who represented

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Faith Baptist Church clients, and he just said, time after time, it's like they should have lost, and they didn't, and they were victorious.

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And so I would encourage you, if you don't know what I'm talking about, go check out the documentary. It's in three parts, and it's called

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Defending Faith Baptist. It's put out through the Church Reform Initiative, and I was privileged to take a part in this, and I don't regret it.

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I love the fact that this made its way out there, and I think it's helping people. And really, it's supposed to inspire you and also warn you, because the template that was used at McLean Bible Church and First Baptist Naples, two other documentaries that I've done, is the same template that was used here.

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I mean, you could say there's differences here and there, but in the main, it's the same thing. And I think people need to be aware of that, because so many times you think, what can

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I do? Well, this is something you can do. This isn't on the ground. If your church is going to be taken over by one of these groups that wants to modernize your church, and they start consolidating power and getting rid of the legacy ministries and trying to take out things that would be, quote, unquote, against diversity or offensive, and then they start modernizing in ways that are against the character of your church, like getting rid of the choir, and we're going to do preaching on the screen now instead of an actual preacher who's present, then you'll know when you see those signs, or they bring in a consulting group, right?

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You know when you see those things that it's not good. You got to put a foot down. You got to stop it before the cancer spreads.

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And that's really also why we put it out there. So go check that out. I really encourage you. It's one of the,

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I think, most important things I've been involved with during the last six years of this podcast, and it is probably one of the most inspiring things.

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So check it out. The last part of that documentary, Defending Faith Baptist, just dropped, I think it was last

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Monday, so a few days ago. All right, well, let's get into it. So I'll just go right ahead into the situation at Faith Baptist Church because that's the situation that yesterday

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I was notified that the directional elders, whoever they are at the church, decided to draft a letter, and I don't know if we'll read the whole thing, but I'll try to start reading it and give you some thoughts on it.

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First of all, I think the thing that jumped out at me immediately about this letter is they say at one point in this letter that they have nothing to hide.

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In fact, I could probably keyword search it and it'll come right up. Let's see here.

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Yeah, there it is. Nothing to hide, even though we had nothing to hide. It's right there. And at the same time, they talk about not wanting to, let's see, we voluntarily produced documents with the agreement that these documents would not be disclosed on the internet.

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And you can't really make these things jive together. Either you had nothing to hide or you didn't want documents to be shared on the internet.

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Which one is it, right? And the whole statement, in my opinion, is just a train wreck.

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We don't know exactly who drafted it. I have my suspicions, especially given the discovery, the communications director there,

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Amy Whitfield, you know, maybe she was the one who did this. It seems like it's similar to some of the things that I saw in the discovery.

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But anyway, this is the statement that the elders are putting their name on.

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It starts off, as some of you have seen, our pastor and our church are the subject of a recent documentary series about our attempted church merger with Faith Baptist Church.

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Now, I'm going to point out something, church merger. Later on in this, they talk about that this was understood to be a church dissolution.

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Faith Baptist Church was dissolved, and then Summit would take its assets. And the debt was, what, $1 .2 million, something like that.

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The assets are worth probably $25 to $30 million. Obviously, this would be an advantageous thing for Summit Church to gain.

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Summit Church is about 35 times bigger than Faith Baptist. I mean, it is a David and Goliath story. But, you know, they frame it as a merger.

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And that was part of the story, is they kept framing it as a merger. And the people at the church didn't realize what they were actually voting for, they were voting to dissolve their church,

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Faith Baptist. And so Summit contradicts this letter, contradicts itself in that respect too, that it's a church merger.

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And then later on, they at least admit finally that, no, actually, this was a dissolution. So we received no advanced notification about the documentary, nor were we consulted about the issues discussed within it.

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We saw it for the first time when the episodes were shared in public. Now, the reason that you put this in there is to try to say, look, there's two sides to the story, okay?

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And where our side wasn't consulted. And of course, I've already had people from Faith, sorry, Summit Church, reach out to me and say, how dare you?

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How dare you do this? Don't you believe that the first to share his case is, seems right until someone cross examines them.

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And to that, I would say a few things. Number one, I would say this, that both sides that you were looking for, you want both sides represented, right?

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You know, we want fair fight, we want both sides represented. That actually already happened. That is, so this happened in court.

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We have the documentation, we have the discovery. We have, that's what the documentary is based on, right? We have all these things that from Summit Church and the

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Faith Baptist leadership that were working in conjunction with Summit Church. So the judges decided against Summit Church.

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Summit Church lost in both federal court and state court on this issue. And so two sides were already heard and there was already verdicts reached.

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So I think that's important. You know, if you heard both sides of something, let's say, and then you say, okay,

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I'm going to reach a conclusion. And then someone says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey, well, before you reach a conclusion, have you heard both sides?

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It's like, that's, yes, exactly, right? That's the point. We already heard both sides. So this is something that's already, in my opinion, has already happened.

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What people are demanding happen has already happened. It's something though that some of you might want to look into more.

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And the Church Reform Initiative is going to, I don't know exactly what day, but shortly they're going to have available the depositions in their full form and the discovery that you can look through.

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And then you can decide for yourself if, you know, there's screenshots obviously in the documentary, but you can actually look through it yourself, see the primary sources here.

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So there you go. I mean, that's the first response. The second response is, I thought of this immediately, all right, when people are asking about this and saying, well, how dare you?

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J .D. Greer himself has, this is from 2019, but J .D. Greer himself has actually given the best argument.

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Well, it's not a good argument actually, but he has given an argument. And in this case, it seems like a good argument just because it shows the hypocrisy.

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But J .D. Greer himself has given a pretty good argument for why you don't actually need to hear both sides in cases where it's abuse.

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There's power dynamics and there's a more powerful side that's, you know, abusing or misusing, whatever, a less powerful side.

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So this is from an article. The article is in Christian Post, Seven Tragic Myths About Sexual Abuse.

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And I believe it's Myth 5. So let's go to Myth 5. He says that, let's see if I can find

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Myth 5 here. I see

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Myth 4. Myth 4 must go on for a while. Let's see. Myth, no. Okay.

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Myth 5. No, it's not Myth 5. Man, I should have had this queued up better. Okay. Maybe it's

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Myth 4. Greer says, J .D. Greer, the pastor of Summit Church says, and he says this is a myth.

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The myth is that a posture of grace requires giving the benefit of the doubt to those accused and offering the convicted a second chance.

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Let me read that again. A posture of grace requires giving the benefit of the doubt to those accused and offering the convicted a second chance.

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Now, this is Weasley. This is sneaky, slithery. So in other words, you don't have to give the benefit of the doubt to the person who's being accused, right?

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Isn't that what everyone's asking us to do from Summit Church? You got to give it a benefit of the doubt to Summit Church. They're being accused. Well, J .D.

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Greer says you don't have to do that. He says, friends, what about the benefit of the doubt for the one bringing the accusation?

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Do we not owe that to them? He asked. I'm not saying we throw out due process. Now, due process already happened with this case.

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Just that we err on the side of compassion for the abuse. So I just want to say, Church Reform Initiative, myself included,

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I'll include myself in this. We are just trying to err on the side of compassion for the abused.

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Now, as if that weren't enough justification, we actually already have a due process that has taken place.

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So don't give me that, okay? Don't give me that. Oh, you didn't hear both sides. And let me give you a third thing here, a third thing.

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And I think this is worth mentioning. The standard being applied to a documentary like this is,

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I think, it's not the same as the standard that you would apply to, let's say, a news story, a journalistic piece, something like that.

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And in journalism, you're expected to try to, all interested parties, you got to interview them, you got to get a quote, something if you can, right?

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That's the expectation, at least. In a documentary or an art or in, well, put it this way.

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Let's say you had a member of Faith Baptist Church. This court case is over. They go to YouTube or Facebook or Instagram, and they start streaming their own opinions.

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And they say, rejoice, rejoice. We beat Summit Church. We beat the leadership that was working in conjunction with Summit Church at Faith Baptist was being advised by Summit Church.

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We beat them in court. Praise the Lord. This was the right outcome. Would that be wrong?

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Would that be like, oh, no, you didn't consult the other side? Well, obviously, you would say, no, this is the same thing.

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There's just more embellishment, more work has been put into it. It's more professionally done. But it's the same thing.

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It's just letting the people in that particular case, share their story and putting it online.

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And it's not for profit. It's literally just to get their story out there.

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And we would not, I think, apply this kind of a standard to something that's a documentary or a movie or something like we wouldn't apply the standard to those things.

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But through journalism, OK, we would. But this isn't journalism. So there's three responses that should hopefully satisfy that, in my opinion, this ridiculous accusation.

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And I think what you could do, this is really where the argument should be. The argument should be, you got it wrong.

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The documentary was off. It was wrong. Here are the reasons. And if it's off and it's wrong, then just give the reasons it's off and wrong, right?

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Don't go into this like, oh, you didn't consult us and this and that. Just tell us if it was wrong, let's do it.

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J .D. Greer would not sit for a deposition with attorney James Lawrence. That was, it was right before J .D.

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Greer was going to sit for a deposition that Summit pulled the whole thing. I say Summit, but OK, so Faith Baptist Leadership, there's a bankruptcy proceedings.

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They're being advised by Summit. J .D. Greer is about to be deposed. Obviously, there's some kind of a working relationship there.

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And the whole thing gets pulled. So what's that about, right? He's not he wasn't willing to be deposed.

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I put out an offer there yesterday. I said, J .D. Greer, you can come on my podcast and I'll have James Lawrence on.

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You can have that conversation you didn't get to have. Let's hear your side of the story. And then you can have

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James Lawrence cross -examine you or you could cross -examine him. I don't care, but he's not going to do that.

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And we know he's not going to do that. And I'll even say this, I am willing. I'll use my own finances.

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I am willing to do a fourth installment to this three part.

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We'll make it a four part. And we'll interview whoever Summit wants interviewed.

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OK, and we will put that together and make that part four and use that.

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They're not going to do it. And, you know, they're not going to do it right. They don't even this is just a smoke. This is really what this is.

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It's attempting to give people something to hold on to because they're in trouble at Summit.

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They're really in trouble. And they got to give some reason that they're justified in all this.

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And so to say, well, we are in the right, but we weren't consulted. It at least lets the people know who already had their minds made up.

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It gives them some kind of a moral justification. That's what I think is going on there. But you make up your own mind about that.

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So, man, I've gotten like two sentences in. I should probably get more. As your direction, I'll address our responsibilities to provide leadership and accountability for our church.

19:19

We have made ourselves available to answer questions. They say the story misrepresents the events as well as their intentions.

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But so it's easy to say that. But where does it do that, right? I think in 2023, we launched a mobile campus at Nytel High School.

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And then they say that Faith Baptist Church approached us and asked if we would be open to discussing the potential of them joining our

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Nytel campus due to a decline in attendance and financial stability at their request. Over the next several months, our church leadership worked with FBC's leadership as we explored the viability of this proposal.

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I believe it was September or October of 2023 when the financials were open to Summit Church, the financial person at Summit Church.

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So it wasn't several months. I mean, this was over a year, this whole process from the initial contact point that we know of at least to the final in December of 2024, the end of this thing.

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So I see downplaying going on here. There's more than enough to establish. There was a lot of working together.

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If you watch the documentaries, that is proven over and over and over. The advisement given from Summit Church, it's like they're directing things almost, right?

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Kivit Hicks has even said, look, check this out. This is something just from the last episode. This is one little thing amidst tons of information.

20:47

Kivit Hicks, they just referenced it in the letter, the Nytel campus pastor for Summit Church.

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He says, Todd and I, Todd and I, so I think that's one of the financial guys, or maybe it's a little,

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I'm trying to remember now. I think it's one of the guys at Summit. Anyway, we were talking a few minutes ago. He mentioned that one thing that would be helpful for him is to have any money, idea of the money that might be needed by faith for Summit in the next few weeks.

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He's going to be gone this next Thursday, just over a week. And okay, so he goes, it's highly likely a judge will look at the missions money that it's in the account, and let's see, and I think it's a typo, and it needed to have been used to make a strong case for bankruptcy.

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So it may not be a bad idea to dip into that, knowing Summit could always put back in there if it's needed. And then

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John Wallace from Faith Baptist Nytel says, thanks. And let us think about that and discuss

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Monday night. I can send Todd information. You have Summit Church advising them on stuff like this. Hey, if we're going to be heading into things like bankruptcy court and stuff, it would be really good if you just spent that missions money, the money designated for missions.

21:56

Why don't you just spend that, get rid of it? Because a judge might see that, and he might be like,

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I don't know about this bankruptcy thing. It's that kind of stuff that's going on, right? And don't forget, you already had a member or someone connected to the

22:09

Spanish church who offered $400 ,000 to pay the $1 .2 million. Congregation never was apprised of that.

22:15

Interesting. You already have the fact that the person who held the loan offered to renegotiate the loan or forgive the loan.

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There was no interest in the leadership at Faith Baptist Nytel that was working in conjunction with Summit on that at all, because one of the stipulations was they would have to resign and they didn't want to resign.

22:35

You had the fact that they have a property that's worth 25 to 30 million. Why don't they just sell off a few acres?

22:41

It's only 1 .2 million that they owe, right? Obviously, they wanted to make the church look as bad as possible.

22:48

That's why the numbers that they shared in their membership meeting were all wrong. This is admitted.

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This is admitted in deposition that they could... I think it was John Wallace said, I can't even remember where those numbers came from.

23:03

Yeah, that we shared with the congregation saying that we were in financial straits in end of 2023, can't even remember.

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This is the kind of stuff that it's inexcusable and there's no way to massage it.

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So you just have to have vagaries. You have to have these spiritual kind of like, well, we're just following the Holy Spirit. We were just trying to help.

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You have to frame your motives as so pure because the facts don't bear this story out at all.

23:28

All right. So he says, each party form feasibility teams that were tasked with discerning the practical and spiritual wisdom of decision.

23:35

Yeah, feasibility teams, right? You even have summit paying apparently for the person that it was overseeing the vote that Faith Baptist was taking on church dissolution.

23:47

The person, there was someone overseeing that from summit church, right? These were separate teams.

23:53

They were, no, you guys were all working together. That's what the discovery shows. Throughout the process, we took steps to confirm compatibility, answer any questions and build connections between the two congregations, right?

24:03

Yeah. J .D. Greer shows up. He makes a video and then he shows up for a meeting at the church. He's only there an hour and he zooms off and it's all about this great merger that's going to happen, right?

24:13

And he's being advised by the leadership at Faith Baptist Nightdale of what he's supposed to address.

24:20

Things like, well, if we merge, then we're going to be watching sermons on a screen.

24:26

So try to ease their sensibilities about this and that kind of thing. All right.

24:33

As we mentioned, this would mean

24:38

Faith Baptist Church dissolving their church by congregational vote and its members joining the summit church, right? That was really clear.

24:44

No, it wasn't. You listen to J .D. Greer's recordings and that's not how he frames it at all.

24:50

The whole thing is about how you're not losing your church. Yeah, there's going to be some changes, but we're continuing.

24:55

It's a merger. It was always presented that way. FBC leadership called for a congregational vote and on March 3rd voted 97 to 55 in favor of dissolving their church and giving their property to the summit church more than the meeting that required 51 % threshold required by FBC constitution.

25:10

Yeah, by eight votes, guys. So the constitution of Faith Baptist says that of the available voting membership, you have to have a majority.

25:21

So they were able to clear that by supposedly eight votes, but that's the thing that was challenged in court and the members of Faith Baptist Nightdale won because you had added to this the fact that they stripped, without notice, by the way, they strip people of their voting privileges who were members, people who were going to vote against summit church and this quote unquote merger.

25:45

They were doing these calls to people mostly connected to leadership and so forth at the church to see how they would vote and then mark it down.

25:56

I forget what they call that, like calling votes, calling votes, which they had never done before. Both of these things they had never done.

26:01

They had never done the whole like you can't vote because you're an inactive member thing. So they were doing that. They had people that were just new to the church that had showed up from summit now voting and the whole thing ended up the judge said, no, this was illegitimate.

26:19

And here you have summit church saying, no, it was legitimate. It was totally legitimate. Well, that's not what the court actually determined.

26:26

And so this is this has already been adjudicated, right?

26:32

But they're doubling down. However, some individuals in the church filed legal action. Some individuals.

26:37

Yeah, some individuals. I was there on the opening Sunday. That place was packed, guys. This was the lion's share of the church.

26:44

These were the members that had been there for a long time. This was just some members in the church file, legal action, state court to try to stop

26:53

FBC from proceeding with the votes, right? Because it was an illegal vote. And you guys brought Caesar into the church by having police officers there to prevent people from voting who actually had the right to vote.

27:04

It is important to note that this lawsuit was brought against Faith Baptist by some of its members and other interested parties, not against the summit church, because the summit church was not

27:11

OK. No one's disputing that. This it's summit church was just advising and working in tandem with the leadership at Faith Baptist, a state court judge issued a preliminary injunction which temporarily halted the dissolution proceedings until the lawsuit resolved.

27:27

FBC was running out of money and requested assistance from some to help them meet their financial obligations. And on May 2nd, twenty twenty four, we approved a grant of one hundred and seventy thousand dollars to help

27:36

FBC pay accrued and anticipated operating costs, salaries and severances. This included ensuring that the preschool would remain open through the scheduled end of the school year in May.

27:45

Twenty twenty four. Yeah. So so yeah, you this is actually pretty funny. So the merger with summit would determine that there wasn't going to be a preschool anymore.

27:53

So they're going to give one hundred and seventy thousand dollars to ensure that preschool continues. Meanwhile, the whole plan is they're entering bankruptcy court.

28:02

And on the same day they they file for bankruptcy is the same day they're infused with one hundred and seventy thousand dollars from the summit church.

28:12

And that money is for advancing the gospel in Nightdale, North Carolina, a mission that ended two weeks later because the church was closing.

28:21

You can't make this up. And there are no guidelines on where the money was supposed to go. It's just the timeline makes no sense.

28:28

The timeline is it was literally the day of and all of a sudden they get all this money.

28:34

And what's what's the more logical thing that this was used in part to help them go into bankruptcy court or that this was about a preschool that was ending in two weeks?

28:45

You know, this is the kind of thing that I don't know who put this together, but they must not have been they must be ignorant or they must just I don't know that they're obviously repeating things that are so easy to refute.

29:00

The timeline doesn't lie here. And this is something that if, you know, if Summit Church really cared, they would have advised

29:10

FBC to let's try to avoid actually going into bankruptcy. If we really care about advancing the gospel in North Carolina, we really care about that preschool.

29:18

If we really care about these salaries and stuff, there were tons of options on the table. But guess what?

29:23

They didn't want those options. The parties interested didn't want those options. They wanted to put this into bankruptcy so that a larger conglomerate, this larger the

29:31

Walmart of churches could come in and take out the mom and pop church. It's part of the bankruptcy proceedings.

29:36

The group had filed the state lawsuit requested from the Summit Church documents between our church and FBC leadership. We voluntarily produced those documents with the agreement.

29:43

These documents would not be disclosed on the Internet because we had concerns about statements being lifted out of context and misrepresented in public.

29:49

We had seen charges and character assaults made against our leadership on the Internet related to this case. I had nothing to do with the facts.

29:55

It's easy to say this, but what are you talking about? At the first, they agreed. But later in the bankruptcy proceedings, that group saw additional internal documents from Summit leaders to depose some of our leaders.

30:05

As we process these requests, we grew concerned with that. These actions were no longer solely about disputing the legitimacy of the vote, but potentially part of a larger smear campaign involving our church and our pastor.

30:16

Good grief. The legitimacy of the vote, guys, you're even conflating lawsuits here. This was about the bankruptcy proceedings that you're talking about.

30:24

When we're talking about the depositions and so forth, when they started getting concerned, when

30:30

Summit Church started getting concerned because, whoa, depositions are coming, that was in the bankruptcy court. That wasn't about the issue in state court, which was already won, which was the issue of the voting.

30:41

During this process, it has become clear to our directional elders, staff leadership and FBC leaders that these legal procedures could continue for years, even though we had nothing to hide.

30:48

And it was clear that dissolving and uniting with the Summit Church was the desire of the majority FBC members. Yeah, it's not clear.

30:53

You guys lost in court. Stop. FBC leadership that was working with you guys lost in court.

30:59

So, no, we were also mindful of the Apostle Paul's admonition that sometimes it's better to suffer wrong than to put it in a spectacle before the world.

31:08

Oh, my goodness. They're so pious. We had not entered Nightdale looking for property. Of course you didn't.

31:15

Right. Yeah, that's why Kevin Hicks is touring the property and stuff before this attempted, quote unquote, merger.

31:24

Right. We don't want the property. We like the campus we had. No, you wanted the property of a

31:32

Baptist church approached us with the idea of joining with us. There it is joining with us. It wasn't joining with you. It was dissolving their church.

31:39

They're playing fast and loose with that one again. We had been eager to consider it, but now that the property was an obstacle to the mission of reaching people, we believed it was the will of the

31:46

Holy Spirit to pursue a permanent campus elsewhere. So we walked away. I don't know if I want to keep reading this.

31:53

It's just a few more paragraphs. Anyway, it's more like at the end here, giving the spiritual veneer to the whole thing and baptizing it.

32:03

We did the right thing. We're spiritual. Those people accusing us are big meanies. It's the law of thou shalt be nice.

32:11

Guys like myself and guys like the Church Reform Initiative and guys like those people who legitimately actually were victims at Faith Baptist.

32:19

They apparently don't matter. They are just the bullies. We're the big victims in this.

32:28

Meanwhile, their church is 35 times larger. It has a budget. If they want to put their story out there, they're more than free to do it, and they have the resources to do it.

32:36

You know who doesn't? Faith Baptist. And you know who was very generous? A few, well,

32:42

I don't even know who to be honest with you. I don't even know the names, but a few people who are connected to the Church Reform Initiative, who are probably just ex -McLean

32:50

Bible Church members who thought, you know what? We don't want what happens to our church to happen to anyone else.

32:55

That's it. That's it. That's who you have. It's David and Goliath, guys. It really is. Faith Baptist won this by going into debt.

33:04

They just kept fighting, fighting, fighting. And I think some at church,

33:10

I mean, J .D. Greer was in fight mode when people were ready to give up. He kept this thing going. And the rest is history.

33:18

Don't pretend like you're the victims. Come on. You have more than enough resources to get your story out there if you want to get it out there.

33:24

But the fact is they can't. They can't defend themselves because it's inexcusable. They know that they've done wrong,

33:30

I believe. They can't. If anyone who's in the know about this has to know. Watch the three parts, guys.

33:37

So that's my little spiel on Faith Baptist and the

33:42

Summit Church. And I'll take some questions and we'll go on to the PCA stuff. David Lady says, curious as to why

33:48

Faith Baptist Church bought the 30 acres. What were FBC's plans to do with the property? Is this normal for a church to buy this much property?

33:56

The first church has met in homes and we're sitting around families. Okay. All right. So the question is, why do they have so much property?

34:02

It was an old cow pasture from what I understand. And this was in the late 80s. And land was a lot cheaper back then.

34:08

And so they were buying, I think it was in two phases. So they got something like 12 acres or 15 acres.

34:14

I don't remember. And then they got the rest of it. But I think it was all like one farm. And so they also had a youth center on the campus.

34:24

And they probably wanted to expand in the future. Who knows? I mean, I saw some, they had a pavilion.

34:30

They had some, I think, sports things there and that kind of thing. But who knows?

34:36

I don't know exactly. There's a lot of churches like that, though. I mean, that's part of their asset. They have land and they can use it.

34:44

And oftentimes that gives you latitude to build parsonages and all kinds of things.

34:50

So I don't have really an answer. I don't think that's a bad thing necessarily to have land or to have money.

34:58

And I don't know whether or not the farmer was giving them a discount or if he, I don't know.

35:05

I don't know. A lot of the times in these cases, though, you have a well -intentioned member of the community who wants to give the church a deal.

35:11

And he would rather have the property go to the church than something else. So I don't know if that was the case here. You have been joking.

35:18

Let's see. A simple man says, you have to be joking if you think J .D. Greer is not a total wolf. Your family has a grave lack of discernment.

35:25

If they sit and listen to this man, he's a total fake. Christie says it was originally going to build a school.

35:31

Okay. Interesting. We had plans to build a third wing for students. So Christie's in the know about this.

35:36

Thank you, Christie. Uh, so there, there were plans to do that kind of thing. Uh, you are correct.

35:42

Says Steven. The summit letter shows you the shortcomings of the documentary. Okay. Really? Why did the documentary address the financial?

35:49

Why didn't, why did, why did, why didn't? I don't know. They just accused FBC leadership, uh, with facts.

35:57

There's all kinds of facts in the documentary. I just rattled off a bunch of them. Uh, all right. The church was truly in financial distress, right?

36:04

I just explained this already, so I'm not going to go back through that. John, were you making part of making the documentary?

36:10

Yes, I was. Uh, I watched the documentary and didn't see any solid evidence presented to implicate

36:15

Greer or his church. My sister and her husband attend there. So I was curious. Uh, what about the emails where Greer saying he's, uh, where I think it was

36:24

Kibbit Hicks says Greer's in fight mode. The discovery that shows the timeline where Greer, they're, they're all ready to give up.

36:31

And then Greer gets on a phone call, uh, with, um, the pastor little, and all of a sudden they're in bankruptcy courts.

36:38

Uh, what about the fact that you have Amy Whitfield playing an advisory role with the church? She's the communications director at summit.

36:44

And all of a sudden she's giving all this advice to the leadership at FBC about how they should handle their disgruntled congregants.

36:52

What about, how about this guys? How about the mocking that came from Kibbit Hicks, the campus pastor at Nightdale things like, man,

37:01

I wish I could blast away those chairs. When you had the members of FBC Nightdale meeting under a pavilion and they had chairs that they brought and set up there so they could still have church when they were locked out of their own building and all of a sudden, and you have

37:13

Kibbit Hicks say, yeah, we, we could, we should just blast away those chairs, that kind of thing. Uh, what about making fun of the, the, um, uh, the person who ran the preschool there?

37:24

Uh, I mean, there's just so many things in the discovery that show you this. I could go on and on, but if you're not, if your ears aren't willing to listen, then

37:32

I can't convince you. I mean, you have to have years to hear how is this not being prosecuted criminally for attempted fraud?

37:39

Yeah, that's a good question. And I don't know the, um, I don't know. I think the sense

37:45

I got, and you, you see this at the last part of the documentary, you see Brian, uh, senior, he goes, listen, we could have probably kept pushing this and who knows what we would have been, what we would have found, but we just wanted our church back.

37:58

And I think that's really the, this wasn't about trying to get summit. It never was about that.

38:03

It was literally about, we just don't want to lose our church from the beginning. It was a defensive maneuver. It was never about getting

38:09

Greer or summit. Greer wanted to, to, you know, he, he was the one that wanted this, uh, quote unquote merger.

38:16

That was really a dissolution. And then, uh, a summit buying the property, uh, by paying off the debt, again, a debt that's, you know, 1 .2

38:26

million in a property that's 25 to 30 million, uh, Greer once again, yelling squirrel.

38:32

Let's see. All right. So let's, uh, yeah, maybe, um, was she in Amy mode, right?

38:37

That was, that was one of the comments too, in discovery that Amy was in Amy mode. All right. Totally a plan to take the assets.

38:44

Yeah. I mean, it's pretty obvious. Uh, what about closing the church for Easter services Sunday? This is beyond sensible, um, beyond sensible.

38:52

It's yeah, it's, it's not sensible for them to do that. What? And they did do that. What's the cultural or church solution to things like this?

39:00

I talk about that in my piece. You can go read it for American reformer. It's called silent takeover. And I have a shorter version of it, uh, the

39:08

Federalist, but go check out that article. And I have some conclusions I draw at the end. Uh, all right.

39:14

Thank you, John, for helping with the documentary. My heart goes out to faith Baptist. It hurts to see things like this within the Christian community.

39:19

Likewise. And yeah, I'm so sorry, you know, to the people who have gone through this. I've, I've been hearing lots more stories about similar situations where people couldn't organize, they didn't fight, they lost their church and my heart's just broken.

39:33

Um, you know, the church was, I think the local church, one of the last places in some communities where you didn't have market forces and corporate interests at play.

39:40

You could actually go there and be with real people and there was real tradition. And there was just a wonderful community that wasn't centralized and managed by some far away place.

39:51

And this is the end of that. When this kind of thing happens, it's just the end of that. You end up getting a distant pastor.

39:57

He will never know. You'll never meet a head of a 12 ,000 person church, shady Greer. And you just see him on a screen.

40:04

You don't know your leaders. You don't know, you can't test their character. There's no way to be biblical. You're not a biblical church at that point.

40:10

You really aren't. There's no way to verify if your pastor is actually meeting the standards and Titus. So I don't consider that a church.

40:17

It's a social club at that point. And maybe there's good, well -meaning Christians who go there out of ignorance, but I'm against it guys.

40:22

I, I, I become so against this model. Um, it, the excuse is usually like, well, we had a campus pastor who actually helps out with the spiritual direction and discipleship.

40:33

And it's like, but your main teacher, isn't that you're putting this guy on a pedestal and it just, you can't operate at that scale.

40:40

The shepherd has to know his sheep. So, um, I just, you know, I, again, you could probably critique mega churches in general this way.

40:47

And I, and I don't know that that's, I don't think that's as egregious, but I, I I've been just, this is my own personal thing.

40:53

And I admit that to some extent, but I've just become more and more kind of cynical about that scale because it allows people to develop a corporate structure and then they can get away with things so easily.

41:05

So very few pastors seem to have the integrity necessary for that lack of accountability. Um, more could be said, but, uh, all right, we gotta, we gotta scoot here.

41:15

Uh, all right, let's, um, let's do this. Let's talk about the PCA a little bit here at the

41:21

PCA, the Presbyterian church in America. Uh, there's a few things that happened that I want to show you.

41:27

Um, and, and they really all kind of have to do with race or ethnicity, nationality, that kind of thing.

41:32

And I don't want to take a long time to discuss this, but there's, uh, there's, there's two stories and then there's some screenshots.

41:39

So actually one story here. So what do we want to start with? Let's start with this. Um, start with this.

41:47

This is a statement from a guy named Benjamin Glaser or Glasser. I'm not sure how you pronounce his name, but I guess he's in the

41:54

ARP and I think that's the association of reformed. Well, actually now I don't know what it stands for.

42:01

The ARP is a small denomination. Let me see. The ARP is the associated associate reformed

42:10

Presbyterian church. Okay. The associate reformed Presbyterian church. There you go. It's a very small denomination from what

42:15

I understand. And, uh, he said, I had no idea when I wrote this little statement a month or so ago that and brought it to the

42:22

ARP Senate earlier in June that not only would the ARP adopt it as its own. So would my brothers at the

42:28

RPCNA, which is the reformed Presbyterian. Uh, I probably get this one wrong too.

42:36

I think it's a reformed Presbyterian church in North America, if I'm not mistaken. And then he said, and the PCA, the

42:41

Presbyterian church in America, there's so many Presbyterian denominations and I'm not a Presbyterian, so I can, it gets confusing.

42:48

Anyway, within the course of a month, you have three Presbyterian denominations adopting this statement.

42:53

Let me read you this statement. The statement goes like this. We condemn without distinction, any theological or political teaching, which posits a superiority of race or ethnic identity, born of immutable human characteristics and does on this solemn, the denomination is the

43:08

PCA on the solemn morning called to repentance. Any who would promote or associate themselves with such teaching either by commission or omission.

43:17

So what this is saying, and it's a, uh, overture that was adopted at this last

43:22

Presbyterian church in America meeting, what they're saying in this is that, uh, there are these, um, theological or political teachings.

43:31

So, so there's these teachings out there and, and either there's two categories, theological or political, which posit a superiority of race or ethnic identity.

43:42

Um, and they're born of immutable human characteristics, meaning characteristics that you cannot change.

43:48

That's the, the, the bad thing. There's two issues I have with this. And I, and I'll say, I want to say this. I don't know

43:53

Benjamin Glazer. Maybe he has good intentions. Maybe he's seeing stuff online that he's like, oh, that's bad.

43:58

And, uh, we gotta have some kind of a standard here. We gotta, I know maybe some of you are rolling your eyes and saying

44:05

I shouldn't give him the benefit of the doubt. I don't know the guy though. Uh, I, I see, I smell a rat in this whole thing.

44:10

Like, I think that this is not a good thing. And I think it's whether he has good intentions or not, it's going to be weaponized and used against good, well -meaning people, just like all the other woke stuff is.

44:22

This is more, I think, liberal in a sense. This is more of a, like, uh, let's go back to like a sort of a racial or ethnic neutrality.

44:29

There's no, there's no substantive differences between these, uh, between ethnic or groups that can show superiority or inferiority, at least in a theological or political framing.

44:41

Now I responded to this and I basically said, this was my first issue. I said, look, what if you said that African -Americans or black people, let's say, are better at the things required for the

44:53

NBA, right? They're better basketball players because of things like intrinsically, they just happen to be better at jumping and running or do whatever the things are that go into the skill set necessary to play that particular game.

45:07

They tend to be better on average is saying that in violation. And I think it would be now the response

45:12

I got, and I did get a response. Uh, from the gentleman who drafted this, Mr. Glaser, he said basically, no, that doesn't qualify because it's not political.

45:20

It's not a spiritual teaching of some kind, but I'm thinking to myself, so you're okay then with social teachings that, that apparently are, or talk about physical differences between peoples.

45:32

Cause now, I mean, if that's on the table, then wouldn't like phrenologists be on the table.

45:37

Wouldn't people who look at mental capacities, wouldn't that all be on the table too, which is, I thought what they were trying to guard against.

45:43

It's super vague. It's, it's super general. This could be you, like,

45:50

I think this could be used against so many people who just have basic, uh, noticing skills and can see that different groups are different for whatever reason.

46:00

And, um, so anyway, he says, uh, that w what's the word he uses in this, uh, immutable, right?

46:09

Well, I mean, there's immutable things physically that certain groups have that others don't just watch the

46:14

Olympics. So I just, I don't like this. I think it's kind of sloppy. And then the second part is at the end commission or omission.

46:21

So what does that mean to sin by omission along these points? Like you fail to, you fail to affirm the truth that all ethnicities are somehow equal when it comes to their, their abilities, their capacities, their, their, their, their, not, their, they're not none as superior or inferior in any way.

46:43

Like, like, like that's an invitation to, to have witch hunts, really.

46:49

Like if you, you have to be able to affirm this as if it's an article of faith or something. And so this is not binding.

46:55

And I know people are going to say it's not binding, but like, it's going to be, it's like a resolution in the

47:02

Southern Baptist convention, right? Resolution nine wasn't binding. You saw how much damage that did though, right?

47:08

It's justifies, it tells you the direction of the denomination it's used in things like church, you know, candidacies and transfers of memberships and these kinds of things, right?

47:22

This is the PCA and these other denominations saying, Hey, this is what we believe.

47:27

Now, I said, why don't you, if you really are concerned about stuff you're seeing, you're seeing biological determinism, you're seeing, uh, the neo -Nazi stuff on the rise, you're seeing a return to Darwinism, uh, whether it goes, whether it's directly tied to Darwinism or it's building off of that ideology, right?

47:48

Cause that's like the CRT stuff, right? Christians would say, well, I don't believe the underpinnings of it. I just take the teachings. Well, Christians can do that with, with, with like a biological determinism that really stems from a more

47:57

Darwinian way of looking at things, right? So why don't, why don't you address it that way? And, and, and here's the thing.

48:03

Like, I think that there are, uh, as problems come up there, even if it's the first time, this unique problem has come up in this way, it is okay to try to seek counsel and address the problem.

48:17

In other words, as the church has gone through history and different threats have come against the church and clear biblical teaching, there have been, uh,

48:26

Ness necessary points in which the church has come together and made statements to try to fend off these errors to explain clearly what the

48:35

Bible teaches. So, okay, you have an opportunity to do that and why don't you do it? And if you were going to do it though, you have to condemn actual sin.

48:43

It's not a sin to notice that different groups might have different capacities and maybe they're immutable, maybe they're not, but it's not a sin to fail, to not, uh, affirm that there are, everyone's actually equal and there are no superior, inferior, uh, kind of categories.

48:59

Um, if you start, let me try to be clear and not muddy because the statement just muddies things.

49:04

Here it is. All right, let me give you a few things. Number one, Westminster confession of faith talks about a number of clear biblical things.

49:11

We are all made in the image of God, right? Any teaching that denies this would be in violation.

49:17

What would be a teaching that denies that we're all made in image of God? Any teaching that says that humans are essentially animals or they are in an in -between state between animals and humans because of mental capacity or something like that, that would be something that you could perhaps condemn.

49:33

They are still humans made in the image of God, right? They have an intrinsic worth that they carry with them.

49:39

Anything that denies the creation story about where humans came from, their origins, that kind of thing.

49:45

You can condemn that as not biblical. It is sinful and it should be thoroughly condemned and you shouldn't hire someone in your denomination who believes that, right?

49:54

Anyone who says things like, um, that the quality wants to add to the qualifications necessary for, uh, ministers of the gospel.

50:04

Right. And I'm not saying particular to denominations. I'm saying biblically. They're saying if someone comes in and says, look, um, cause, cause

50:11

I want to give you an example here on the flip side of this as well. If someone comes in and says, look, you have to have all the qualifications met from Titus, but you also need to make sure that, uh, you have 10 % of your ministers being black people.

50:26

All right. Or you, or, or 90 % need to be white people or whatever. Um, you can say, look, you're adding to, if you, that is not the teaching we have from scripture.

50:35

Now, I think at that point you would need to get into a deeper kind of like what's going on there. Why is someone, what's the motivation behind that?

50:42

Because that will reveal, I think what, what's really going on. But, um, I, I could see someone saying, look, practically speaking in an

50:49

English church, it is more wise. And this is an area of prudence to hire someone who speaks English, right? That wouldn't be a matter of adding to the qualifications in scripture.

50:59

Uh, that's just a matter of applying those qualifications into a context in which, uh, you are capable of applying them.

51:06

You can't have someone speaking Chinese in an English church. No one will understand. That's an obvious thing. And we know from first Corinthians that, uh, you need a clear sound, right?

51:14

For people to understand if you, so you can speak with a tongue, uh, you can speak with, with tongues, but if no one understands you, right.

51:20

Paul's whole point there. So, um, so anyway, what I'm trying to say is there are prudential reasons to, uh, maybe look at demographics in certain areas and, and, and that's very much for a particular situation.

51:31

But if you are saying on a broad way, as a biblical teaching in a universal sense, let's say, uh,

51:37

Hey, black people shouldn't be pastors or ordained, or, Hey, you know, you really shouldn't, uh, it for all times and places, you shouldn't have

51:45

Chinese people come in or white people come in or whatever. You can condemn that that's against the Bible has a clear standard, right?

51:51

It has a universal standard of virtue. And you can affirm that while condemning people who would add to that, right?

51:57

There's another area, um, people who want to reduce the wholeness of biblical teaching on who people are by saying it is at all stems from biology and there's nothing external to biology.

52:11

You could make a carefully crafted statement about that. You could show biblically like I do in my book against the waves that there are a number of factors that go into identity and it is not genetics is not the only thing that goes into identity.

52:27

Ancestry is important, but it's not the only thing. Of course, you have local region and the land you live on. Uh, you have, uh, things like traditions that are handed down to you.

52:35

You have language, which is really fundamental. God, obviously the creator of that. You obviously have religion.

52:40

Uh, you have, uh, even other things like, uh, cuisine and so forth that these are cultural artifacts and all of those things go into who you are.

52:49

And so anyone who would reduce you down to DNA or genetics and say, that's, that determines everything else you could, if you look at that and say, there's teachings crafted on this, just like there were teachings crafted on everything's a power construct.

53:05

Um, you could say, Hey, that doesn't reflect the wholeness of identity that we find in scripture, right?

53:12

These are all different ways. And there's probably more that you could try to address issues of race and not make such a sloppy statement.

53:22

These are all avenues that people could have gone down and they would have been probably helpful. Joseph Spurgeon, I thought had a pretty decent, uh, take on this, uh, at his statement on natural affections.

53:33

You can find it online. I signed it. Uh, I, I think there are people who have thought through these things from a more conservative understanding, a biblical understanding, but they're not given the platforms.

53:43

They're not consulted generally about these things. It's really a battle between liberalism and everyone else. And sometimes liberalism and wokeness and everyone else, as we'll see in a moment.

53:53

So, uh, let's, and if there's questions on this, I'll be happy to get into it, but I didn't want to take too long on this.

53:59

Cause I think it's pretty simple in my opinion. So, uh, so, so this was the issue with Benjamin Glazer Glazer.

54:06

Uh, you have presby cast weighing in and saying, Hey, look, the PCA GA's adoption of overture 48 of the

54:11

RP statement on race and ethnicity presents an opportunity for improved relations with, uh, NAPARC, which

54:17

I think is another, if I'm not mistaken, isn't I, I get so tired of these alliterations in the

54:22

PCA. Is that another denomination and has increased the likelihood of other denominations utilizing PCA's, uh,

54:27

Christian nationalism study committee. So this is a separate issue I'm about to talk about. And this is more important than what I just talked about. It may be that NAPARC, uh, to weather the challenges of the worst elements of Christian nationalism, the members churches will have to do it together as was the case with federal vision.

54:40

So there's a hope from presby cast that the Presbyterians will all band together, take out this threat.

54:45

And what's the threat? Well, it's Christian nationalism. And look how he said he, he binds these together.

54:51

You got the statement on race and you got the Christian nationalism issue. Lee and Adam Adams, a reporter for the

54:57

Tennessean. He mostly, I think those, I see him when it's in relation to Southern Baptist stuff. He's more on the left, but he goes at the

55:03

PCA general assembly in Chattanooga, overwhelmingly voted to endorse a statement that condemns any theological or political teaching that posits a superiority of race or ethnic identity, born of immutable human characteristics.

55:14

The statement follows a controversy last year in which the PCA pastor said on social media that the

55:19

Bible does not condemn chattel slavery per se. And therefore neither can we, as most

55:24

Presbyterians health. Now, why did I just skim through all that so fast?

55:30

And then slow down at the end there, because that last part you need to pay attention to Liam Adams is a member of the media.

55:37

He's a left -wing member of the media, and he knows who's at garrisons. He is tying this to that garris.

55:44

He says, oh, I know what this is talking about. I know what this whole thing about taking out the racist is talking about.

55:50

I know that's about that garris because that garris had said that the Bible does not condemn chattel slavery per se.

55:57

Now, if you remember, I did a whole show on this last year and that garris actually did qualify his words and his statements and talked about how he would have basically been a gradual emancipationist and said that really the issue is what is the biblical teaching on this?

56:14

It's not about prudence and what was good at the time and whether slavery should have ended or not, or whether it could have been abused.

56:23

Obviously, that's the case, or whether or not the slave trade itself had a nickel to be attached to it. It did. Zach garris affirms all that.

56:30

It was really more about, hey, can you condemn George Washington? Can you just say he's in sin? I mean,

56:35

Mark Dever, I think years ago had said, I remember something like Washington, that guy couldn't have been a Christian because he had slaves.

56:41

Can you do that kind of thing? Well, no, because the Bible doesn't condemn it per se. There's actually instructions given. If you honor those biblical teachings on the subject, then actually you are within the boundaries of biblical teaching on it.

56:53

And Jack garris is right. That's what Presbyterians have taught. That's what they have believed. It doesn't mean they're pro -slavery in the sense of they just think it's a universal good that we should always have or something.

57:05

Now, so Liam Adams is resurrecting this and he's saying, you know what this statement on racism condemns?

57:11

It condemns that garris for saying stuff like that. And this is what I told you. This is a statement that's broad enough.

57:17

You drive a truck through it and you can condemn anyone you want. It's going to be used by people in the

57:22

PCA to condemn their enemies. And that garris, I think, would be one of the ones on that list. The Sean McGowan would be another one that he's in the

57:30

PCA and they have a great book coming out on Presbyterianism, Southern Presbyterianism.

57:36

And I'm sure it will be roundly condemned by some of these guys. And it's sad to me because it doesn't need to be this way.

57:44

Actually, they could have consulted those guys and probably. And I'll just say this, you know, both those guys look into their backgrounds.

57:50

OK, they've been accused of being Kenneth's and all this. Their families are. I mean, they haven't given me permission to say this, but I think they'd be

57:58

OK with me saying they are married to people who are not white. They are their families are, you could say, biracial or at least, you know, interethnic or whatever term you want to use to describe their particular situations.

58:14

It's a joke to try to say, well, you know, Zach Gares, Sean McGowan, those guys are the real racists in the

58:21

PCA, right? They're so racist. They decided to marry women who did not.

58:28

And I realize I got to be careful getting into family stuff because I know, I know. I feel so defensive of them.

58:34

It's like they did not marry people who are, you know, the skin complexion that they have and from the areas that they are from.

58:45

And I'll put it that way and I'll leave it that way. And and just point out how much of a joke this is.

58:51

OK, let's keep going with the bigger thing that's going on in the PC. Oh, before we do that, Matthew Everhart said, and I don't think he's in the

58:59

PCA, but he's kind of influential in. I don't know where he is. He's a Presbyterian, though,

59:04

I think he said, I hate all forms of racism, including and I just wanted you to listen to this list. Racism, anti -racism,

59:10

CRT, BLM, kinism, Marxism, white nationalism, et cetera. So I'm glad that the

59:16

PCA joined the RPCNA and the ARP in the statement. And and this is part of the problem today is you do have all these terms floating around.

59:23

And what are you supposed to do with all of this? There's multiple definitions that people use working definitions for many of these things.

59:32

When you have a situation like that, it is more incumbent on you to be very careful, especially in church matters of defining exactly what you mean.

59:41

It is not the time to be less vague to be more vague as a time to be less vague. And that's part of the problem.

59:48

There's different versions that I've had multiple people explain what kinism is. And it's like very different.

59:53

There's a hard kinism. There's a soft kinism. There's like you should generally prefer your own people to it's a sin to marry outside your race, whatever that means.

01:00:02

You have white. What is white nationalism? If you want Britain to stay British, if you want

01:00:08

Ireland to stay Irish, are you a white nationalist? Is white nationalism what is whiteness in white nationalism?

01:00:14

Is it your particular ethnicity or is it just this broad kind of like anyone who's got

01:00:20

European ancestry? Right. There's just all kinds of confusing, I think, in my opinion, ways to look at this.

01:00:29

And you have to be extra, extra, extra careful. You just can't.

01:00:34

And I'm assuming the motivations here are pure on Matthew Everhart's part. But and I think he's probably a

01:00:41

I have no reason to not think that he's a good man who loves the Lord. I'm not trying to criticize him personally here.

01:00:46

I think he's putting this out because he cares about this issue. But look, this is going to be used to rope in guys, you know, and Matthew, I would assume is probably respectful of that.

01:00:56

Garris is going to use to like take guys like that out. That's how this is going to be weaponized. You have a media member already that's saying that that's that's what it is.

01:01:05

So, all right, now we have this this issue. There's just like sort of three things.

01:01:11

This is sort of a passing issue before we get to Christian nationalism. Pastor Irwin, if you remember a few months ago,

01:01:20

Irwin got in trouble because he had a sponsor. He was speaking,

01:01:25

I think, at a church in California that did a segregated and they claim later it wasn't segregated, but it was basically it was a night for black people.

01:01:34

OK, and he spoke at it. And here he is talking about the PCA. And he goes, as many of the

01:01:41

PCA are aware, this year's General Assembly was an intense one for me. And I am grateful for the countless brothers and sisters who

01:01:47

I've been praying for, praying for me, those who have said this in person this week. Then he has a longer post.

01:01:54

Let's see. Or he keeps going. He says the spirit helped me. A very special thanks and acknowledgement to some of the people.

01:02:02

Let's see what a sweet time he talks about. Basically, oh, he cites John Perkins, that heretic.

01:02:10

Perkins is a heretic, in my opinion. Perkins is the guy that was like inspired

01:02:15

Tim Keller, because at Urbana in 1973 or 72, I can't remember which year.

01:02:20

But he said that we need the full gospel, not this truncated gospel. We need the full gospel. We need the social gospel and the personal gospel.

01:02:28

And that's that guy. So he praises him. Let's see. Anyway, basically, it looks like what happened is

01:02:36

Irwin, instead of getting canned, gets a raise. That's so Irwin.

01:02:41

So here's the thing. This is what I wanted to the point I want to make. They pass this statement right against racism and all this.

01:02:48

But then Irwin who should be like ground zero for violating it. Right. Like if you wanted to find someone who violated the spirit of this statement, wouldn't it wouldn't be

01:02:58

Zack Geras, right? Wouldn't it be Irwin? It's like what he just did. Wouldn't having a segregated event like that.

01:03:04

I mean, isn't wouldn't that qualify more? Right. Wouldn't wouldn't you think at least? Well, he's he gets a raise like he's not a violation of that.

01:03:12

And that's why I say I think the liberals sometimes can band together with the woke guys. And and that's what you have.

01:03:17

And I think a lot of the guys are probably just kind of liberal. They have liberal instincts. So it's like the colorblind, quote, unquote, guys tend to be like they're more

01:03:26

OK, I think with the woke guys than they are with people who are more right wing. And and this video,

01:03:34

I think, bears it out. There's a video of Kevin Young. I'll pull it up for you.

01:03:40

And just listen to this. This is someone who came forward, tried to kind of, I don't know, disagree with Irwin.

01:03:46

And this is what Kevin Young says to him. Fathers and brothers, we've heard various concerns.

01:03:53

Please introduce yourself. Yes. Thank you. Timothy Brindle, teaching elder, Olive Street Presbyterian Church.

01:04:00

Can you guys hear that? I don't know if I can hear it. We've heard heard very. OK, let me know if you guys can hear that, because I'm having a very hard time.

01:04:07

I don't hear it at all. And that's a bummer because, man, I really wanted that to be played.

01:04:14

So comment if. Oh, you can hear it. OK, I'm just going to keep playing it then. Various concerns, but I have another one.

01:04:23

It has to do with the director of MNA's stance on affinity groups and evenings for black worshipers.

01:04:35

Brothers in Christ, James, under the inspiration of the

01:04:41

Holy Spirit, says show no partiality as you hold the faith in our

01:04:48

Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. Friends, if the coordinator of MNA believes he's not safe in space with me because of the color of my skin, this is a denial like the sanctifying grace of the

01:05:07

Lord Jesus Christ. Microphone six. We ask you to speak with decorum and not in a way that is personally attacking.

01:05:13

It is germane to bring up issues relative to this particular motion, but would ask you to speak in a more temperate way.

01:05:22

Sir, I'm not sure how more temperate I can be. I will seek to be as kind as was there a point of order over here.

01:05:34

OK, so I couldn't hear that, but you could apparently. And I've heard it before, though. And you hear Kevin Young come out against this gentleman and basically just say that he's he's being he's not being nice.

01:05:48

I mean, that's my summarization of it. And it's like he was he was calm.

01:05:54

He was being rational. What is the problem here? But, you know, that's kind of that's what you get.

01:06:00

Let me see if I can find the name of that gentleman because I want to give him credit here.

01:06:06

I know that I brought this up on my ex. I can't find it, though. He was, you know, brave guy going forward, taking a stand.

01:06:15

And then Kevin Young's like you would think he'd be like, hey, thank you, because that's really in keeping with that statement that we just made on race.

01:06:24

But no, no, no, no. Don't apply it to that. Right. That's the place that that's where you're not supposed to apply it.

01:06:31

So anyways, I can't find I think I just commented on X. I was like because Kevin Young had wrote that written this article against the

01:06:37

Moscow mood. And I was like, yeah, that's very Moscow mood of this guy. Right. He's sounding too scary by disagreeing with this particular this pastor, this head of the missions arm,

01:06:50

North American mission arm of the PCA, Erwin Ence for this segregated meeting, et cetera.

01:06:58

So, all right, let's talk about the third thing, which I think is the most important thing, and that is this

01:07:04

Christian nationalism. Committee, so this is from the Christian Post.

01:07:10

Michael Grabowski says Presbyterian Church has voted to form a committee to study the nature and influence of Christian nationalism within the theologically conservative denomination over to three entitled erect ad interim committee on Christian nationalism and coming from the

01:07:24

Arizona Presbytery. Oh, that's the Arizona Presbytery. OK, that's right next to, I think, where Zack is in New Mexico, that garris.

01:07:31

Anyway, call for the reaction creation rather of a committee to study the relationship between Christian nationalism, theonomic reconstructionism and similar viewpoints deemed necessary by the committee.

01:07:40

Further, the committee shall advise on whether these viewpoints and formulations are in conformity with the system of doctrine taught in the

01:07:45

Westminster standards or where they may diverge from the system of doctrine. So this is actually pretty serious.

01:07:52

Further, the committee shall write a report that gives pastoral guidance when addressing congregations, new members and future officers of the

01:07:58

PCA. And I believe, let's see, there's a part in this.

01:08:06

That talks about ethnonationalism, which I think is one of the I can't find it, but I know there was a section of this that talked about ethnonationalism, which to me is kind of a weird term because like in a pre -modern sense, ethnicity and things like race, ethnicity and nationality were basically interchangeable.

01:08:30

And it's really post -modernity and especially post -Darwin and stuff that we we have today. These differences now and everyone's got their own little working definitions of these things.

01:08:39

But ethnonationalism would be like saying national nationalism and ethnicity is someone who shares a nationality.

01:08:46

It's just it's a weird it's a weird term. And I don't know,

01:08:51

I just scratched my head a little. It depends on who is going to be on this committee. So I think if I'm not mistaken,

01:08:57

Kevin DeYoung gets I think that's the mechanism. He appoints members of the committee. That's how it works in the

01:09:03

SBC. I don't know if it's exactly the same in the PCA, but it really depends on who gets on that committee. If you've got guys on that committee who are liberal and or left leaning, woke guys, post -liberal woke guys, they're going to probably come out with a recommendation next year at the

01:09:20

General Assembly to adopt some kind of a statement to categorize

01:09:25

Christian nationalism or aspects of it as not in keeping with the Westminster standards. If you are not in keeping with the

01:09:30

Westminster standards, you are not in keeping with the confession of your church, which means you can't be a pastor, which means it's a very serious, serious thing.

01:09:39

And I think that's why you got guys concerned about this. We don't know where it's going to lead or where it's going to go, but there's a potential here for much damage.

01:09:51

And I mean, just pray, I guess just pray that good guys can get on that committee because it will be weaponized.

01:09:57

And from what I understand, the guys that I know who are at the PCA, who were at the PCA and I talked to have told me that the progressives and the guys from the

01:10:07

Great Commission resurgence,

01:10:15

I think it's called, not resurgence. I forgot the name of the organization, the more conservative.

01:10:21

Well, they're conservative, they're liberal. Someone in the

01:10:27

PCA tell me what group I'm thinking of. The one that's opposite the national partnership, even though there's not a national partnership anymore, that organization that's trying to kind of bring reform to the

01:10:38

PCA, but like Lincoln Duncan's in it, John Payne's been in it. Anyways, those guys, they are apparently they're down with this, right?

01:10:45

They're forming links and relationships. Gospel Reformation Network. Thank you. Gospel Reformation Network, GRN.

01:10:52

I knew it was GRN, I just couldn't remember what it stood for. So those guys are apparently, and I don't know,

01:11:01

I don't have names in front of me. I'm just telling you the sense I heard from those who went to this meeting.

01:11:06

They said, look, that's the general sense we're getting. It's a let's gate keep out and it's a broad gate keeping out the post -liberal right guys.

01:11:16

And when I say that, maybe I should take a step back and I'll just kind of wrap up this episode a little bit with some reflections on where I see the landscape going in general and evangelical

01:11:26

Christianity right now in the, at least the evangelical political sphere, in the more nerdy online environments.

01:11:34

I'll say some of the things I've been saying behind the scenes for now about two years. I see three groups emerging on the,

01:11:42

I guess on the right. So you have your guys, and this may already be set, but I think we come to different situations where things become more concrete and each situation we come to,

01:11:59

I think last week what happened with even the foreign policy with Trump, that was a situation, right?

01:12:06

I think when there's been blowups about accusations of whether someone's a

01:12:12

Nazi or not, I mean, and Nazi imagery and this kind of thing, I think that becomes a situation. I think these issues become situations where you start seeing these fractures start to emerge.

01:12:24

There are differences that I see going forward. And so I break it down into three basic groups.

01:12:31

I think you have your liberals. So GRN guys might be in this. Some of those guys, they'd be in favor of that statement on race.

01:12:41

They're more liberal kind of colorblinded. And obviously this goes beyond just race and it's more complicated.

01:12:48

I can't just bottle the whole thing up for you, but they tend to be big on personal choices and freedom.

01:12:54

They don't like the idea that the government should ever get involved with religion and matters of the church, obviously, but they like the

01:13:05

American version of the Westminster, right? And I think they tend to be a little more complementarian, less patriarchal.

01:13:14

So there's other issues that you can see these liberal instincts come out a little bit, but they would be on the right in a technical sense, but standards are changing, but they would be against the post -liberal woke, which is a very strong force, okay?

01:13:29

So they would not buy into the BLM narrative. They don't want to think really in terms of groups as much.

01:13:36

They're really much more comfortable in thinking in terms of individuals. They care about, some of them are very good on theology, theological matters, but they are socially, they tend to be more liberal, right?

01:13:47

So that's one group. Another group would be the guys going in a more, and these are both post -liberal kind of, or I should say, outside of liberal groups.

01:13:57

You have guys like myself, and people get uncomfortable if you categorize them.

01:14:04

They don't want sometimes to have these lines drawn. So I'm going to withhold names. There's a number of names that are coming to my mind, though.

01:14:10

You would recognize if I said them, but guys who are more paleo con, we are,

01:14:16

I'd say more traditional, shared experience is a big part of what we see identity as and how we see

01:14:23

God ordering the world. It's a much, I would say older kind of attempt to almost be pre -modern and learn from experience.

01:14:33

It's not ideology, it's experience that we, to quote Patrick Henry, let experience be our guide.

01:14:40

Then you have, I think the more, and they are more ideological. Some of them don't realize.

01:14:45

I think that's what they're getting into, but they are post -liberal, right? But they are getting into more deterministic things, like viewing the problems with the world through using like Jewish influence as an explainer for that, but overusing it, right?

01:15:03

Making it like the thing. And so, oh, hold on one second. I know

01:15:09

I'm in the middle of the live stream, but hold on one second. You're all wondering what

01:15:21

I was doing there. That's okay. I, I'll explain later. I, I had to,

01:15:29

I had to close my window. Anyway, where was I? Was I saying, okay, so there's three groups.

01:15:35

So I think the other group is a kind of, what was

01:15:41

I saying? Post, yes, post -liberal, but it's more ideological. It's more likely to go down ethnic deterministic routes and to see biology, biology is important, but to see that as like the big thing, or maybe the only thing.

01:15:57

And these groups are still in process, I think, of forming. And there's going to be plenty of opportunities.

01:16:02

And they're, and all three of them, you can't get away from gatekeeping. Gatekeeping is inevitable in any movement or group. All three of them are going to engage in it or have engaged in it to some extent already.

01:16:12

They, lines have been drawn, lines are being drawn and you can't really get away from that.

01:16:18

Right. And so I see like the GRN guys in the PCA as kind of forming an alliance against those other two groups that I talked about.

01:16:28

And I see the more paleocon trad group as the,

01:16:33

I think what sets them apart and what, and I'm in this group is we try to be a much more holistic about this issue of race and nationality and that kind of thing.

01:16:43

And we see the, our critique is we see the other groups as reductionistic in some way.

01:16:49

We see the post -liberal left, the BLM narrative as reducing to power dynamics and so forth.

01:16:55

We see kind of this other post -liberal right reducing things to bioreductionism and DNA and that kind of thing.

01:17:03

And so we, we look at, we think we look at a fuller picture. That's the critique at least. And, and so this is along the lines of race and ethnicity.

01:17:09

And I think this is going to be a topic that will get bigger and bigger. And it has to in a way because of the various groups we have and the immigration issues that we're not solving fast enough and the political situation, which could change if Democrats get in and get their way.

01:17:26

I mean, we, we're going to have friction all over the place, I think in the next few years over these issues, they're not going away is what

01:17:31

I'm trying to say. And so anyway, I think these are going to be ongoing discussions. I'll be willing to take any questions on that, but I think that what

01:17:41

I've tried to do for those who listen to this podcast is I have tried to be very judicious and slow to put people in categories if they're not quite there or to, to, to say that someone's beyond the pale, unless they really are beyond the pale.

01:17:57

And part of that is also, and I've been accused of, of actually not being specific, being too general and not being, being too vague and that kind of thing.

01:18:05

But one of the reasons that I've been thinking about this is Jesus in his ministry early on, you know, the

01:18:13

Pharisees are standing there and they're like, they're not sure like he's being more general, right?

01:18:20

But then eventually, um, he is very specific and they, they think, oh man, he's talking about us.

01:18:27

And then it's at the end of his ministry where he starts doing the woe to the scribes and the

01:18:32

Pharisees and so forth. And, and this is obviously a very different issue, but I do think that Jesus, um, demonstrates there a willingness, a long suffering, a, uh, he lays out the principles, he lays out the issues.

01:18:48

And while it's, while they're still on the table, while it's still time to order, while you still have the menu in your hand, he's saying, don't order this.

01:18:56

Don't order that. Beware of this, beware of that. Right. And there's still people who are contemplating, there's still people that haven't ordered, so to speak.

01:19:03

But once the orders go in, uh, the food's coming, right. And it's going to be a certain item. And that's when

01:19:09

I think, uh, there's more of a latitude to start naming names on these things.

01:19:14

Some names I think could be named, but, um, I've, I've also haven't wanted to, I think platform guys that I think are making this issue worse by naming them, making this more confusing or, uh, offering a menu item that will, it has poison in it, which

01:19:32

I do think that there are even guys on the right who are offering things that have poison in it. And so, um, this is one of the reasons why, as I've been talking to some of the

01:19:40

Presbyterian guys that said, look, I think this is my gut. I think you have in the sort of the liberal and conservative camp, uh, there are guys, especially older guys who are looking around and they're saying, okay,

01:19:57

I'm not woke, but I also, I don't like what I'm seeing on X. I don't like some of the really out there opinions that I'm seeing, uh, that just are, they don't seem like they're in keeping with what we believe as Christians saying

01:20:12

Hitler's a Christian Prince saying, uh, the Holocaust was justified, you know, these kinds of things.

01:20:18

And they want, I think there are some legitimate guys who want a statement, something to kind of gatekeep against that, but, um, they must be in the minority because it seems like the majority just want a very broad shotgun.

01:20:31

And that shotgun is going to be shot at people who aren't advocating anything close to that.

01:20:36

It's going to just be shot at people who recognize basic differences between people's that God has ordained. It's going to be shot at people like Zach Garris, who might have a, uh, a view that Presbyterians all used to hold on subjects like, uh, the

01:20:49

Bible's teaching on slavery and slave master relationships. It's going to be, frankly, it would be used against Jay Gresham Machen, you know, what's to keep

01:20:57

Machen from this because Machen, uh, was at least on some level for segregation and education.

01:21:04

I'm not saying he was for that universally, but on some level he was for that. So what are you going to do? Right. Is, is

01:21:10

Machen now beyond the pale? I mean, has Presby cast thought of that? Um, you're playing with fire guys in the

01:21:16

PCA you're playing with fire. So this isn't going to get worse. The drama is going to, uh, this isn't get better, rather the drama is going to get worse.

01:21:22

And I think it's going to be back with the vengeance next year. So, all right, I'll take some questions and then, um, we'll go from there.

01:21:29

Uh, let's see, we got the young statement from Susan Baker was completely out of line. I agree.

01:21:35

The irony is that he was shut down and it was much later that we voted in the statement on Christian nationalism.

01:21:42

Yeah, I guess that is ironic. While Christian nationalism was not defined in the overture, the committee chair said the overture was needed to address this wicked view.

01:21:51

In other words, something not defined is already evil. Okay. Yeah. And that's what I thought. I mean, it's the die is set.

01:21:58

They are going to condemn Christian nationalism and they're trying to, you know, try to paint it as this, uh, very scary racial thing when, you know, how many people,

01:22:06

I mean, the media use this initially against just Christians being politically involved. How many people that are calling themselves

01:22:11

Christian nationalists, right. Are actually just Christians who want to be politically involved. And they're not even thinking about deeply about racial dynamics and all of that.

01:22:21

They're just thinking about, I like my country the way it is. And I want people to follow Jesus. That's probably the vast majority to be quite honest, especially in more charismatic circles.

01:22:29

But, uh, I think that the media has made this much more, they're the biggest ones responsible for reducing this to a, like a purely racial thing.

01:22:39

Um, let's see. Correct. Kevin. So I was right about the polity and the PCA. Kevin D young is going to appoint the study group.

01:22:45

Well, then there's not much hope. Pray that he puts some guys that are good in a

01:22:50

PCA on that study group. I don't know. Most of the Presbyterian fathers would be excommunicated day.

01:22:56

Sadly, I think you're probably right. You know, and, and I'll just make a final point about like the, the neo -Nazi stuff.

01:23:02

I don't really know what else to call it because that's what it seems like it is. Uh, and I've had enough interactions now on X, especially in PMs to determine that.

01:23:11

Okay. Yeah. There's some guys who consider themselves Presbyterian or reformed Baptist who are going down this line.

01:23:16

And I kind of understand why that's maybe for another episode. I wrote a piece called red pills without roots that I think explains a lot of this for American reformer.

01:23:26

But, um, you know, there is a basic kind of Christian teaching that you shouldn't sin against someone, right.

01:23:33

And you can't justify it based upon the fact that they're another race. So murdering someone and it's justified because they're another race.

01:23:40

They're in an enemy category, even if they're a little child, I still can't believe I had a conversation with someone on X, whether it was okay to mow down children in the woods because they might grow up to be

01:23:49

Jewish. And I just like boggles your mind that that's even a thought that's out there.

01:23:55

These aren't people with institutional authority, at least yet. And, and so, you know, is it something even worth mentioning?

01:24:02

That's something I thought, is it even something worth mentioning? Well, if you're going to mention it, right. And it may not be, but if you're going to do it, then make a statement that says something like you can't justify sinning against someone just because they're a certain race or ethnicity or nationality.

01:24:18

There you go. End of statement that covers it all. Right. And that's obviously biblical, or I don't know, you can't dehumanize someone, but then you'd have to describe what dehumanize means, right?

01:24:30

Because that's been, that word's been abused so much. So you can't treat someone like an animal.

01:24:35

You can't conceive of someone in non -human terms, or I don't know, refer to them in ways that take away their humanity.

01:24:43

I don't know, but that's the route that you would have to go down. I think if you just wanted to condemn that and you wanted to also keep it biblical, that's the important thing.

01:24:50

You've got to keep it biblical. You can't just be careless and say, well, if you don't believe in equality, then

01:24:56

I guess you're out. Well, yeah, I guess so. It was all of church history then. Good luck. Good luck with that. Right. All right.

01:25:02

Any last questions or comments or cries of outrage against me? And we'll end the podcast.

01:25:09

I think that's, I think we're good. I think that's it. So I hope you all have a good weekend. It was, I'm glad the computer worked.

01:25:15

Thank you for praying. I get my new computer on Monday or Tuesday, so hopefully I'll be able to podcast.

01:25:21

I got some podcasts coming next week on eschatology, so look forward to that. I'm going to try, no guarantees, but I'm going to try to do a special on the 4th of July and we're going to talk about the anti -federalist papers, but there's going to be a paywall on that.

01:25:32

And at a certain point, I'll cut it off and it'll be patrons only. If not on the 4th, it'll be the next week. But that's part of my conservative

01:25:38

Anglo, what did I call it? The Anglo American conservative tradition book series.

01:25:44

The great books of that tradition. So look forward to that. And let's see.

01:25:49

I mean, that's about it. So God bless. We'll, we'll have great content coming. Oh, and also music and masculinity .com.

01:25:56

If you want to sign up for our conference coming up in September, you're going to want to sign up because I think it's going to be packed this year.